Ivan is Back

Chapter 4 - Arrivals and Confrontations

As Kimberly reached the city limit sign for Paranorma City she was freaking out. She couldn't help but wonder if Tommy would even give her a chance to explain the letter or if he would just ignore her completely like he did after the Maligore fiasco. Of course he was seeing Katherine at that point so why would he want to talk to his ex girlfriend. Kimberly knew when she sent that letter that she was letting go of the best thing in her life, but she wanted him to be happy and to have a girlfriend that was able to go on dates with him. Being thousands of miles away from him hurt her but she was following her dreams like he had wanted her to do. She shook her thoughts from her once white knight as she came to a house with a tall fence around it and six teenagers standing by the gate entrance. She hadn't even realized when she arrived at the Shiba house.

"Kimberly Hart? I'm Jayden the red samurai ranger" A boy about Jason's height with brown hair spoke up.

"Nice to meet you Jayden. I don't mean to be rude but I've been driving all night and my red ranger should be in a couple hours so do you mind if we do the meet and greet after I get a power nap in?" Kimberly replied trying not to sound to rude.

"Of course, follow me." Jayden said leading her into the Shiba house and to a simple room with a couple of beds.

"This is the room you and your friends will be staying in, and thank you for coming."

"I couldn't very well ignore it. I swore 18 years ago to protect this earth with everything I had and I am not letting a team get hurt on my watch."

"Well, thanks anyway."

Kimberly dropped her duffel bag on the bed as Jayden left the room. She was finally able to relax and so she laid down on the bed and fell into a semi-deep sleep without any nightmares for once.

Jason took the exit for Paranorma City about 5 and a half hours after leaving Reefside. He followed the directions Kimberly had texted to him earlier in the night. He and Tommy had talked about what was going to happen with Kimberly and the letter; Tommy wasn't sure how he felt about it all. Kimberly had been his high school sweetheart and at one time he thought they were forever. Until the letter came and sent his world crashing down around him.

As they pulled up to the Shiba house Jayden was waiting for them along with Kimberly. Jason sighed and shut his truck off before joining Tommy in front of it.

"Jason, Tommy, this is the leader of the samurai rangers; Jayden Shiba. Jayden, these are the original red and green rangers." Kimberly said trying desperately not to look at Tommy.

Unfortunately, Tommy had other things in mind. If they were to work together as a team again then he and Kim were going to have to talk out the letter. He walked up to her and took her hand leading them to a path just outside of the Shiba house boundaries.

"Look, I know you weren't thrilled last time we saw each other because of Katherine but you should know she's gone. If we are going to stop Ivan then we are going to have to put our differences aside and talk about the one thing keeping us from being a team. Why did you send it Kimberly." Tommy spoke but his voice was so cold and distant. Not something Kimberly had heard since his time as the evil green ranger under Rita's command.

"I know we swore to make things work but after 6 months and the phone calls getting less and less frequent I knew I had to let you go. You deserve someone that can be there to go on dates and walk to class with and kiss by the lockers. You deserved better than what you were getting with me. I wrote that letter so you could be happy."

"Damn it Kimberly! I was happy. Yeah I may not have had all those things but I had you! You were what made me happy, not dates, not walking to class, not kissing against the lockers, you." Tommy raised his voice as he spun to talk face to face with her.

"I'm sorry, I should have talked to you about it first but what was I supposed to do? I couldn't come back home for a visit. I did what I thought was best for us at the time. I figured that if I meant that much to you then you would have come after me. So why didn't you? If I made you so happy, why didn't you chase after me? Get the truth behind the letter."

Tommy looked at her, " I didn't think I had the right...I know I wasn't exactly the best boyfriend while you were training but I tried. I just wanted you to follow your dreams, you above everyone else deserved to have your dreams come true." He whispered.

"I still feel for you Tommy, but right now, I'm not sure what those feelings pertain to. I will always care for you and you were once one of my best friends. I don't know what the outcome of this mess is going to be but I do know that I want you fighting by my side. Beyond that it's your call." Kimberly explained.

While the former lovers were talking out their past problems; miles away a group of young adults were facing off against some of Ivan's foot soldiers.

"Casey, look out!" Lily called out to her friend.

"Man, is this some random new training R.J. cooked up?" Theo said as he dodged a swipe from the purple ooze creatures.

"Not my idea, trust me. Too messy." R.J. answered as he jumped into action.

The jungle fury rangers continued to battle the ooze goons until finally they retreated. Once the rangers were back at the loft Lily decided to look through the ranger database for a clue of some sort to see if anyone had ever fought something like this before.

"What about those one rangers, the ninja or something." Theo spoke.

"I think you are talking about the ninjetti. I wouldn't even know where to begin looking. None of them are in the database except for Kimberly Hart."

"Hey wait, it looks like we aren't the only ones to have been attacked by these creatures. According to the news in Paranorma City, the samurai rangers were also attacked." Dominic reasoned.

"So, what do we do?" Lily asked.

Casey looked up and answered, "we contact the samurai rangers. Maybe they know something we don't."

They called the samurai rangers and were in agreement that they should stick to their own towns for now in case the cities are attacked again. Back in Paranorma City the three veteran rangers were just sitting down to explain parts of their past they felt would be relevant to the destruction of Ivan Ooze when all the sudden they heard a crash in the courtyard. Making sure they had their morphers they rushed out the door not knowing what was out there. When the dust had settled they saw a pod of some sort. Jason and Tommy recognized it to be one from Aquitar but couldn't figure out what it was doing here. The pod opened and out of it stepped a long lost friend.

"Billy?" Kimberly questioned before fainting.

The original blue ranger spoke, "hi guys."