To her credit, after the fifteen minutes of shock wore off, she did the only thing any rational person could do. She panicked.

"Ohgodohgodgodohgod..." She kneeled down on the floor clutching her head frantically. This had to be a dream. It had better be a dream. She didn't want to be a Power Ranger!

Oh sure, before she discovered their identities, she'd wondered what it would be like. Devon had thought it would be the coolest thing ever. But that was before the secret interviews with the Rangers. Before they viewed Dr. O's history of the Ranger saga. Before they saw all the sweat, blood, and tears that were part and parcel of wearing a morpher. They'd been blinded by the sheer power, the fighting skills, and the fact that the Rangers always seemed to win. They hadn't realized that a lot of Ranger wins were by the skin of their teeth. They'd had to sacrifice every last drop of their power to defeat Mesogog, and they hadn't been the first team to do that. Dating outside the team was almost impossible, and a lot of the battles tended to get personal--Zeltrax wasn't the first villian to bear a grudge against a Ranger.

Given all that, Cassidy had been grateful that hadn't been her burden to bear. Apparently, she was still in a nightmare. But she had no clue how to wake up.

"Cassidy!" Her head snapped up at what sounded very much like her mother's voice. "Get going or you're going to be late for school!"

She automatically glanced at the clock. Her mom was right. She had half-an-hour to get to Reefside High. She shook her head. Was she actually taking this seriously!? Apparently, she didn't have a choice. Either she would wake up or...well, she didn't have an "or". This obviously wasn't time travel, though her expertise in that was limited to a few sci-fi movies Ethan had dragged her to. Things were VERY different.

But something sparked in her mind thinking about Ethan and science fiction..alternate universes. Ethan had been raving about a new comic book about an alternate version of Star Wars IV: A New Hope, where Luke Skywalker fails to destroy the first Death Star. (Author's Note: There actually is a comic book like this, though I don't think it was published yet in this era.) That was about the sum of her knowledge, but aside from this being a dream, it was only the explanation that made sense.

Cassidy took a deep breath and deliberately calmed herself. This wasn't the only weird thing that had happened to her, though it was the biggest. She had been zapped into a computer game, aged prematurely, and tried to give an interview to a monster (she still counted herself lucky it hadn't destroyed her on the spot). She could deal with this. Somehow.

She automatically prepared herself for the day, not stopping until she noticed she had pulled on a pink blouse. Growling, she pulled it off and put on a white one. At least, she tried to. It just didn't feel...right. Giving up with a sigh, she redonned the pink one and grabbed her schoolbag.

She had finally come up with a plan. Get throught the school day, then make a beeline to Haley. Haley could figure this out; Haley could figure anything out. She hoped desperately that Mesogog would not launch at attack; she would probably get herself killed, not to mention she had no idea how to fight on a team. But she rememberd that he rarely attacked during the school day

Skipping breakfast as she didn't feel the least bit hungry, she started the walk to school.

---

Kira Ford leaned against her school locker, waiting for her friends to arrive. Her friends...she still shook her head in wonderment at that. She would never in a million years have expected to be friends with these people. But they'd quickly realized Dr. O was right; they had to be a team if this was going to work.

Ethan James was probably the easiest to get along with. The only thing she could really hold against him was that stunt with the sprinklers the first day of school. Other than that, he was pretty laid back, except when it came to video games.

Connor McKnight had been harder to get close too, though not as hard as she expected. She had always known him as an arrogant jock, so it had surprised her that he hadn't let his position as Red Ranger go to his head. If anything, he had seemed overwhelmed by it. She realized later that she couldn't blame him; it was quite a responsability to have dropped on one's head. But it had sobered the young man considerably, and he turned out to be a good leader.

She still felt a little weird about Dr. O being a teammate as well as a mentor and a teacher. It was a big help on the battlefield, and she and the others were in awe of his fighting skills. They were initially a little intimidated at fighting alongside a Ranger legend, but he always treated them as equals as Rangers, and deferred to Connor's leadership.

Cassidy Cornell had had the hardest transition, both for herself and for the others. Out of the four teenagers who had stumbled into these powers ass-backwards, she seemed the most unlikely. She wouldn't even have been there if she hadn't tried to interview Principal Randall that morning. The girl was an extremely irritiating, immature busybody. It was all Dr. O could do to keep her from proclaiming her identity to the world. Fortunately, Dr. O could be very persausive. And, Kira was now ready to grant, deep down Cassidy had known he was right. Kira now felt more sympathy for her. All of her life she'd been an outsider, trying to record others doing interesting things. Now she was living the news, and it had taken her some time to adjust, but she seemed to be doing it. The distance between her and Kira was slowly closing as they spent more time together, and as they bonded over being the only females on the team.

Speak of the Devil, here came Cassidy now. But something was...off. She looked wide-eyed and skittish, which was not typical of the self-confident girl. Granted, she'd let out a terrified scream when first saw the Tyrannodrones, and again when they faced off against the first "monster of the week" as Dr. O. called them, but then they all had been a least a little bit scared. She'd settled down after that, her exclamations limited to comments of how gross the monstes were. This always made her teammates roll their eyes; Cassidy was such a girly-girl. Kira couldn't imagine being saddled with the color pink.

Today Cassidy was also subconsciously fiddling with her morpher, in its' "dormant" state underneath her sleeve, as if she wasn't used to it being there. They'd all done that the first week or two, but now they'd been Rangers for three months. What was her problem?

"Hey," Kira greeted, only to be surprised again when Cassidy jumped in surprise, like she wasn't expecting Kira to greet her.

":Uh..hey! I mean, hi! Did you want something? Oh wait, that was rude...please don't be insulted..."

Kira blinked. It had been a while since she'd had Cassidy-babble directed at her. "Can't a girl say hi to her friend?"

She marvelled that Cassidy's eyes could get even wider. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out for several seconds. Then abruptly, "I have to go!" She quickly walked away.

Kira was now throughly confused and a little insulted. She held her tongue though, only calling after her "Remember we're meeting at Dr. O's after school!" Cassidy nodded without turning around or stopping. What was going on here?

Kira thought for a minute, than deliberately put the problem out of her mind. The team had a bigger problem to deal with...a white-colored problem.