Chapter Three: Old Friends
a/n: I am so sorry this has taken so long. I have just, well to put it perfectly frank, life got in the way of my writing. Senior year is hard, college applications, AP classes, projects, homework, still trying to hang out with friends, etc. All the stuff that people always complain about and give reason to why it has taken them so long to update, believe it or not it's true. lol. But the important thing is, I'm back! I finally have the next chapter done and ready for you guys, and I know some of y'all have been waiting on this for a really long time, so I hope it is everything you hoped for. :) And I would just like to clarify one last time that this story is AU, it will not follow the dino thunder plot line very exactly, and it has some AU stuff from the past as well. Now y'all have been waiting long enough for this chapter, so enjoy. :)
"Hey Ode, did you do the math homework from Friday?" Kira asked me the Monday of the second week of school.
Kira and I became fast friends in the past week. With ranger training a few hours a day and having a lot of classes together, all of us rangers have become fast friends. However, Kira and I are the only two that really ever talk to each other outside of class.
"Yeah, it was pretty easy just some review stuff. Why?" I asked, closing my locker and swinging my newly acquired red back pack onto my shoulders.
"I just thought it was too easy. Are you doing anything during lunch? I was hoping you could maybe show me that transition in the kick punch combo you taught yesterday again?" Kira asked with a friendly smile on her face.
By the end of her question I had lost focus. Today is Trent's first day of school. Dad and I helped him move in somewhat on Saturday, but I had not seen him since. And now here we he was standing in the middle of the hallway, walking to his new locker with a schedule in hand.
"Ode, Ode. Snap out of it, so kick punch combo during lunch yes?" Kira asked snapping my attention back to her.
"What about after school at Dad's dojo? I've got to go, just let me know in science." I said walking off towards Trent quickly.
"Bye?" Kira answered hesitantly. I knew she was thinking about how strange I was acting, but at the moment that didn't really concern me.
I continued walking towards Trent, he'd opened his locker by this point and was starting to put his stuff in it. The moment her removed his hands and head from the close radius of the locker to get something out of his back pack, I swooped in and took my chance. I ran quickly to Trent's open locker and slammed it shut.
"Haha! First point goes to me!" I laughed happily and Trent looked up at me simply rolling his eyes.
"Why am I not surprised? First day at a new school, and what does my best friend do? Restart our locker slamming war that she is doomed to lose." Trent answered sarcastically as he reopened his locker.
"Oh no Trent. I am going to win this year. I am determined." I said with a mischievous smile.
Trent just shook his head, looked down and resumed putting things in his locker.
The fact that Trent and I are best friends does not make sense to most people. If I were to meet Trent today, chances are we would write each other off and never speak again. Trent is generally artistic and quiet, not loud at all; I on the other hand am too loud, and athletic. Sometimes people like the two of us become just acquaintances, maybe friends, but best friends? Not really. But, when the two of us are together our personalities mix. Trent becomes louder, and I become more quiet. We've taken art classes together, and he has been doing karate with me since he was eight. It is like the two of us are one half of a person, and when we are together we are one person.
"Is the Dr. Oliver that teaches our science class Tommy?" Trent asked as we started to walk away from his locker.
Trent has met Tommy a ton of times, the two of them even joke that I only like people whose names start with T's because they are the only two I let call me Oidee. Because Tommy has met Trent so many times, Dad and I both found it quite strange that Tommy never mentioned working with Anton Mercer, who is and has been Trent's adoptive father for the past nine, almost ten years.
"Yup. Did you now that he worked with your Dad?" I asked as we walked to Tommy's classroom.
"Yeah. It was right before we moved to Angel Grove. I met him about once, it was right after my parents disappeared, so not really a good time to get to know a scared, sad, seven year old boy. Which is probably why he never mentioned it. That silver bracelet! It's new. When did you get it?" Trent finished, changing the topic by noticing my silver cuff with the red dino gem on it.
The one thing about being a power ranger that truly sucks is that I can't tell anyone who isn't a former ranger (a nice little clause there) that I am a ranger, so I can't tell my best friend this awesome thing that has happened to me.
"Oh, Tommy gave it to me. As a welcome to Reefside present, it has a prehistoric gem on it." I said thinking as quickly as I could. I can be a fast thinker on my feet when I need to be, but sometimes it just fails me.
"That's cool. This is his classroom right?" Trent asked as we arrived at Tommy's classroom.
"Yes it is. Good to see you again Trent. Just sit down anywhere and I'll get you a book later." Tommy said with a smile.
"Thanks Dr. Oliver." Trent said emphasizing the Dr. and the Oliver.
Trent and I laughed as we entered the classroom sitting down at a table with Kira, Ethan, and Conner, quickly introducing them to Trent before the final bell rang.
"So, what do you think of Reefside?" I asked Trent as the two of us walked from school to Hayley's Cyber Space after school later that day.
"It's nice I guess. Kind of like Angel Grove but without all of the random monsters running around." Trent said with a joking laugh.
Even though there are no longer any monsters running around Angel Grove, the stories and the lore of the Power Rangers is a huge part of the city. Every year there is the Power Ranger Festival and students are chosen from the High School to be the 'power rangers' and others are chosen to be 'monsters' and they do a choreographed fight for everyone to see. It's always fun, and Trent and I always helped out because Dad's dojo was the one that choreographed the fight.
"Yeah that's a nice part about this city." I said with a forced laugh.
I knew for a fact that there were monsters, real monsters running around Reefside, I had already had to fight them a few times. I just hoped it would be a long while before Trent found out about the monsters, and that he would never find out that I was ranger.
"Yeah I think that's why Dad really wanted to move here. Get away from anything to do with the Power Rangers. He's just hated that festival for as long as I can remember." Trent replied with a slight amount of sadness in his voice.
Trent and I have always both loved the festival, every since we were little and first became friends. Every year before Trent would come over and spend the night (because yes Dad and Mr. Mercer were, and still are somewhat okay with boy/girl sleepovers), and then wake up early with Dad and I to get everything ready for the festival. The two of us always hoped that for our Senior year we would be two of the people chosen to play the rangers. Me, because I knew that once upon a time that Dad, Kim, Tommy, and countless others, including my other were those rangers at one point in time; Trent, because he always loved the lore of the rangers, even though his Dad seemed to hate them. This was just one of the many common interests that Trent and I shared, wanting to be power rangers.
"I think Dad and I are still gonna go back to Angel Grove for the festival this year. You are welcome to join us." I said with a smile as we continued to walk down the street.
Trent was starting his first day at work, working at Hayely's Cyber Space, and I was heading to Dad's dojo to help Kira with that punch-kick combination. Hayely's Cyber Space and Dad's dojo are conveniently next to each other, so we were walking there together, which honestly, even if they had been on complete opposite sides of town we would've done this anyway.
"You know I'll be there." Trent said quickly without thinking and with a slight laugh.
"Do you remember the first time we went to it together, and we both thought that the people playing the rangers were the actual rangers."
"And that the students playing the monsters were the actual monsters, and we both tried to help the rangers defeat the monsters, and ended up ruining the whole thing, because we actually beat up the students playing the monsters."
"And they were super embarrassed because they got beaten by two eight year-olds." I finished laughing happily.
"Just more proof that we have been kicking ass and taking names since we were little." Trent replied laughing.
I laughed back at Trent thinking about all the things we had done over the years, that had been deemed 'crazy' by the citizens of Angel Grove and our respective fathers. As I reminisced I noticed that there were four large robots, that looked like what I imagined Zords to look like heading down the street.
"Hey Trent, remember what I said about there not being monsters?" I asked him quickly, only seriousness in my voice now.
"Yeah, what about it...Holy Shit!" Trent shouted loudly as he saw the large dinosaur robots heading down the street.
"Trent go to Hayely's you'll be safe there. Quickly." I said in a commanding tone.
"What about you Oidee? You really don't think you can handle these things by yourself do you? I mean what do you think you are, a power ranger?" Trent asked me. I knew Trent just wanted to protect me, but all I could think of was the fact that he needed to get out of here now, and I needed to get in contact with Tommy, Kira, Conner, and Ethan.
I turned to look at Trent pointedly, but the look ended up being more of desperation, of me not wanting to tell him my secret, and him needing to get out of here quickly. Realization seemed to dawn on Trent as he saw that look in my eyes.
"Trent just get out of here, trust me okay? I'll try and explain everything later. Now go!" I shouted at him.
The realization grew bigger in his eyes, and I looked down at my wrist seeing that my bracelet had already turned into my dino morpher. Trent nodded and ran off, away from what was going on, I could finally breath a sigh of relief.
"Tommy, what's going on? There are huge robots that look like dinosaurs going through town. I was just walking with Trent and they showed up." I said speaking into my morpher which had turned back into the communicator to fit my purpose.
"I'll explain everything in a minute, I need you and the rest of the team to teleport to the Command Center immediately. Is Trent still with you?" Tommy asked over the communicator.
"No I told him to get out of her and go to Hayley's. He might know about us though, I think he saw my morpher, and I'm pretty sure he realized it before that because I was sending him away a preparing to stay..." I said my voice fading over the walkie-talkie like device.
"Oidee, right now you just need to get down here, we'll worry about Trent knowing or not knowing later. I'm teleporting you know." Tommy said.
I felt my body move from one location to another and the next thing I knew I was standing in the Command Center in Tommy's basement with Kira and Ethan on one side and Conner on the other.
"Tommy what's going on?" I asked Tommy right away, I could tell by the looks on Kira, Ethan, and Conner's faces that they were all thinking the same thing.
"When I was doing my work with Anton Mercer a few years back we created the Dino-Zords, huge robotic dinosaurs that could, if the need be, by a new team of power rangers to fight evil. I thought they were destroyed when the island blew up, but as I'm learning, all of the things I thought were destroyed, really weren't. It seems like they are under the control of Zeltrax, or whoever Zeltrax is working for. However, if you for go to them, and try and connect with your specific dinosaur, you might be able to get them back into control. Otherwise, I don't know what we are going to do." Tommy explained.
I found it odd, not that the robots were meant to be our zords, but that Mr. Mercer had helped to create them, knowing that someday they'd be used for power rangers. For as long as I can remember Trent's dad has hated and detested the power rangers, he almost didn't let Trent go to the Angel Grove Power Ranger Festival every year. So I found it incredibly peculiar that he would help Tommy build something like this, but then again, I've only known Trent since he was seven, and when Tommy and Anton Mercer were working together, it was nearly ten years ago.
"It will be easiest to connect with your dinozords if you are morphed, so you guys need to morph, and then I'll teleport you out of here." Tommy said.
I nodded readily, noticing a look that Tommy was giving me, that probably had something to do with what I had told him earlier about Trent maybe realizing that I was a ranger. "Ready?" I asked my team jumping into action.
"Ready." They all replied looking serious and prepared.
"Dino Thunder, Power Up! Ha!" I shouted with them.
The next thing I knew all four of us were morphed, and standing in the center of town, where the dinozords were starting to really cause mayhem and possibly start destroying buildings. I looked up to the sky and saw a huge yellow zord, that looked much like a pterodactyl flying around and attempting to attack buildings. I saw a large green zord, that looked like a velocoraptor running towards me, trying to topple one of the buildings near where we were standing. I heard the large blue triceratops zord before I saw it, and it almost completely ran over all four of us. Finally I saw a huge red zord that looked similar to a tyrannosaurus that was trying to attack a building. I looked at Conner, Kira, and Ethan, all in uniform, knowing that they had the same look of determination that I had on my face on theirs.
"Let's go guys." I said in my leader voice. All three of them nodded at me and we separated.
Tommy hadn't really been clear as to how we would get our zords to recognize us, but I had a feeling that getting near the zord, in uniform and forcing it to pay attention would be enough.
I ran to my zord, and tried to get it to stop attacking the building it was doing a number on. I couldn't seem to get its attention, so I pulled out my laser and started shooting at it. That caught it's attention, finally. Once the zord was looking at me, it started to try and attack me. I just glared at it, thinking hard, trying to project my thoughts to it. I remembered all of the stories I had heard over the years about the good battles that rangers had won with the help of their zords, and I hoped and prayed that those got projected into my zord.
Right when the huge Tyrannosaurus robot was about to attack me, it stopped, and did the most curious thing. It bowed to me, putting it's head right where I was standing. I walked up to the zords head and soon found myself inside the cock pit of the large robot. I looked around and saw that it was how I had always imagined zords to be when I was younger. Proving once again that me being a power ranger was truly a dream come true.
In the cockpit I looked around and saw that Conner, Ethan, and Kira were all getting along with their zords similarly. I took this as a very good sign, and once I saw Kira enter the pterodactyl zord I made my zord wave to her. I then turned to where Conner was entering the velocoraptor zord and made my zord wave to him as well. Finally I made my zord wave to Ethan's triceratops, who made a loud roaring sound. I couldn't help but to laugh. We had just stopped our zords from destroying the city, and now if Zeltrax, or whoever was in charge in the greater scheme of what was going on in Reefside decided to make their monsters grow, we would be prepared, and we would be able to kick their asses.
"Alright guys, you can hope out of the zords, they'll go and be stored in one of the mountains for now until you need them and then you can teleport back to the command center." Tommy said into the intercom that was in our zords.
"You got it Dr. O." Kira, Conner, and Ethan all said together as I said "You got it Tommy."
All of us got out of our zords and were back in the command center in no time. After powering down, all four of us couldn't help but to share how cool we all thought it felt when we were getting the zords to listen to us.
"Look I gotta get home, my mom's going to kill me when she finds out that I stayed out this late on a Monday." Conner said with a laugh quite a few hours later after some celebratory pizza. "Kira, Ethan, you guys still need rides?" He asked.
"Yes please." Kira said. "I still have to do the rest of that math homework." She added with a light groan.
"I have to start my computer math project, I think I win." Ethan said with a snicker.
"I'll help you with that punch kick combination at Dad's dojo tomorrow right after school Kira." I said with a laugh as they all headed out of the command center.
"Thanks Ode." Kira said as she headed up the stairs.
I would've walked out with them, at least to Conner's car before going back in and asking Tommy for a ride home, that he was going to provide anyway, but right after we had powered down, Tommy had asked me to stay later so he could have a word with me, and I knew exactly what that word was going to be about; Trent and him potentially knowing that I was a power ranger.
I walked over to Tommy's kitchen table and grabbed another slice of cheese pizza, I started to eat it as I sat down and just waited for Tommy to start talking. He didn't say anything, he just simply started to clean the dishes before sitting down.
"Oidee, we need to talk about this." Tommy said, finally saying a word as he took a sip of his water from a tall glass.
"Talk about what Tommy? All you're going to do is lecture me about how I can't tell Trent that I'm a ranger, that it goes against the code, and everything that is good about the power. That I'll have to hide it from him every day as long as I'm still in uniform, and even if he does figure it out, I'll always have to deny it, and come up with fragile excuses that can be torn down within seconds about where I am when I disappear. I know the drill Tommy, both of my parents were rangers, I was raised by an extended family of rangers, I know the stories, I know the consequences. Can you please just spare me the lecture and give me a ride home." I said fighting the tears that were starting to fall slowly down my cheeks.
"It'll all work out Oidee, for better or worse. Come on, let's go to the car." Tommy said as the two of us exited his house and hoped into his jeep
The ten minute ride to my house was silent, with only the light hum of the radio to break up the first time awkward silence. It was killing me slowly knowing that I wasn't going to be able to tell Trent my secret. Trent, who I have told everything since I was seven years old, Trent who knows that my dad is a ranger because he was there for all of Dad's ranger stories. Trent who has heard every single theory I have ever had about my Mom (I went through I whole phase when I was ten, where I thought I saw her all the time and that she wasn't really dead). Trent who knew just as much about the rangers as I did. Trent who was my rock, was now the one person that I couldn't tell my secret to. Dad had it easy, when he became a ranger all of his good and best friends were his fellow rangers, he didn't really have to hide it from anyone other than his parents, and Gram and Gamp have always seemed pretty lax about it to me (they know now, even though they didn't then), I have Dad and Tommy to talk to it about, that's it. I'm getting close with Kira, Conner, and Ethan yes, but not as close as I am with Trent. That level of closeness can't be achieved within a matter of weeks, even if that time has been spent defeating monsters and saving the world. The one person that I wanted to talk about this was the one that I couldn't, and I knew it was only a matter of time before that tore me, and me and Trent's friendship apart.
"It will get better and work out Oidee. I promise." Tommy said as we pulled into my houses drive way.
I just nodded, knowing if I spoke I was going to end up venting, and that would just make all of the emotions I was feeling all the more real. I clung to the words that Tommy said, hoping that in fact, like he said everything would work out for the best, but I couldn't help but to fight a stinking feeling in my chest that said everything was going to turn out for the worst.
a/n: so there you go. There is the long awaited next chapter. So in case y'all still haven't realized this, this fic is quite AU! Trent is still a similar character but kind of the same, and Tommy has grown up quite a bit as he has in series. I'm not super happy with this chapter, but it is getting me back into the swing of writing this fic which is what I need. Though I am quite excited for the next chapter, which I will try and get up sometime next week. Please remember to leave your kind reviews and such. Thanks for reading! Sorry it took so long!
xoxo,
Lexi