Disclaimer: Saban owns everything Power Rangers related; I only own plots and characters you don't recognize from the show.

A/N: I'm baaaack! You guys probably thought I was gone forever. Yeah. First year of law school will do that to a person. Well, just so you guys know for the future, I have every intention of finishing both of my big stories. Updates may be spotty and far between, but they will not stop coming. I enjoy this way too much to even consider giving up on it. I may even throw in a few one-shots from one of these AU's if I get a request for one. We'll see. Thanks to everyone who's read/reviewed/favorited/followed/insert verb here thus far!


Cranston Residence
Angel Grove, CA
July 11, 2012
Noon

"Do you guys have any idea how many different kinds of wrong this is?" Rocky shifted his weight anxiously back and forth and cast another glance over his shoulder. He, Adam, Kim and Tommy stood clustered in the hallway outside Billy's apartment, the three men blocking Kim from view as she attempted to pick the lock.

"Not just wrong," Tommy muttered. "Stupid."

"Come on, guys," Adam whispered insistently. "If we really want to know what Jason and Billy have gotten themselves into, we have to find out what Billy might be hiding in there."

Rocky whipped his head around and glared at him. "And the fact that we're breaking into Billy's apartment doesn't strike you as being in any way wrong?"

"Given the circumstances? And the fact that somehow Billy managed to fail to give any of us a key to this place even though we've known him since, like, three weeks before always?"

"Those circumstances aren't gonna mean shit if we get caught," Tommy put in. "I just spent all last night and most of this morning talking my way out of all the 911 calls that came in after our little encounter yesterday. What do you think's gonna happen if somebody sees two firefighters, a cop and an FBI agent committing a felony the day after something like that happens? Not only are we terrible people, but any chance of keeping our identities a secret goes flying out the nearest window." He turned to Kim. "You haven't broken the lock yet, Kim. It's still not too late –" As if on cue, there was a click and Kim gently pushed on the door, swinging it slowly into the room. "…to turn back."

Kim straightened and gave Tommy a casual pat on the shoulder. "Relax, Tommy. Jason and I have done this a thousand times. I know what I'm doing. We're in, we get what we came for, we're out, we're gone, nobody knows a thing. It'll be fine."

"And what if one of his neighbors happens to come strolling by and sees the door's been jimmied?" Rocky asked from the hallway, standing at the threshold of the apartment as though kept out by an invisible wall.

"Two words: Patriot Act," Kim replied, holding up two fingers. "Now if you're all so worried about getting caught, help me look around so we can take what we came for and get the hell out of here. I'll take the living room."

"I think I'll just keep watch at the door," Rocky piped up, leaning nervously against the door frame.

"I'll check the kitchen," Adam said, moving into the apartment. "Tommy, can you take the bedroom?"

"Fine," Tommy said with a frustrated sigh. "But let the record show that I do this with strong objections."

"Noted," Kim muttered, already scanning the room. The door to Billy's apartment opened into a sparsely furnished main room, which held only a single recliner, a coffee table covered in dog-eared science magazines and notebooks filled with indecipherable scribbles, a moderately sized TV atop a plain black stand and a bookshelf against the far wall that was filled almost entirely with thick, hardbound volumes, the titles on their spines representing a level of academia far out of any of their leagues. Doorways led off from either side of the main area, one of which opened into a bedroom, the other into a small kitchen area.

"Not much in here to search," Kim whispered to herself, absently flipping through one of the notebooks on the table before quickly giving up. "How bout you, Adam? You find anything?"

"Yeah, three TV dinners, a gallon of sour milk and what looks like…" Adam held an oddly-colored container over the bar-style counter. "Half-eaten frog?"

"What is it with you and frogs?" Rocky piped up from the doorway. Adam casually gave him the finger and tossed the container into the sink. Rocky chuckled drily and turned his gaze back out into the hallway just as Tommy's voice drifted out from the bedroom.

"Guys? You might wanna come see this." Kim and Adam exchanged glances before Kim turned on her heel and strode through the bedroom door. As Adam crossed the room, he met Rocky's eye.

"You coming?"

Rocky opened his mouth to reply and froze. His eyes widened and he whipped his head around to face down the hallway toward the stairs. He pushed himself off the doorframe and took a step back out of the room.

Adam frowned. "What?"

Rocky stared down the hallway for a long moment before replying. "Thought I heard something."

Adam started toward him. "Anything to worry about?" Rocky didn't reply, didn't even move. "Rocky?"

The Hispanic man held up a hand, stopping Adam in his tracks. "Nothing. I'm probably just paranoid." He finally glanced sidelong at his friend. "Go see what Tommy wanted." Adam raised an eyebrow and Rocky gestured insistently with his head. "Go! I'll hold down the fort. It's probably just someone coming home, anyway." Adam nodded slowly and made his way back to the bedroom.

By the time he got through the door, Tommy and Kim were already huddled near the far wall of the bedroom, intently examining something he couldn't see from the doorway. Taking a step toward them, Adam shoved his hands into his pockets and nonchalantly stole a glance around the room. An unmade bed sat wedged against the wall, its entire surface covered in more scattered pages of notes and the occasional test tube except for one patch roughly in the shape of a person. A small door at one end of the room dangled open to show a very thinly populated closet; the only other furniture in the room was the desk at the foot of the bed on which Kim now half-sat as she and Tommy continued their whispered conversation.

Adam came up behind Tommy and Kim as close as he dared and cleared his throat loudly. The two of them whipped around, both of them coming within inches of drawing their guns on him. Adam just smiled wryly. "Sup."

Kim rolled her eyes and shoved her gun back into the holster. "Damn it, Adam; we're on edge enough as it is. Are you trying to get shot in the face?"

"You know, I have been told a few times I have a death wish," Adam said with sarcastic thoughtfulness. "I guess all those monsters of Zedd's had a point. What you guys got back here?"

"Take a look for yourself." Tommy let his jacket fall back over his holster and stepped to his right, revealing an 8x12 photo of the Ranger team in a plain black frame hanging from the wall. Adam frowned and glanced from the picture to Tommy and back. Tommy smirked. "You see it?"

"Yeah, Billy has a picture of us on his wall. So what?" Adam looked up at Tommy incredulously.

"You don't notice anything, I don't know…weird about this?" Kim asked expectantly, leaning toward Adam as though she could nudge him into an epiphany. Adam looked from one of them to the other, his expression growing more and more annoyed.

"What the hell is going on here?" Adam swung an accusing finger from Tommy to Kim and back. "Did you two cook up some new inside joke in the last ten seconds or what?"

Tommy stepped toward Adam and patted him on the shoulder, grinning widely at Kim the whole time. "He doesn't see it, Kim. Which I believe means you pay up."

Kim groaned. "You're lettin' me down here, Adam." She pulled her wallet out of her pocket and shoved a bill into Tommy's outstretched hand. "I bet on you!" She smacked him gently on the chest. "I thought you were smarter than this."

"Hey!" Adam threw his hands up indignantly. "Excuse me if I don't have the skills of a – wait." He turned slowly to level a glare at Tommy and pressed a finger to the detective's chest. "You bet against me?"

Tommy's grin only grew wider. "I was right, wasn't I?" He pocketed the bill and gestured at the picture. "You want me to tell him?"

"As opposed to gloating some more? Be my fucking guest," Kim retorted with a snort. Tommy nodded and clapped Adam on the shoulder again.

"Let me ask you a more pointed question, Dr. Watson," Tommy said in a faux British accent. "What is it about that picture that draws your attention?"

Adam shook his head. "Fuck if I know, man, it's…it's colorful?"

"Take a look around, buddy," Tommy said, stepping away from Adam and gesturing around the room. "This is the only thing in this entire apartment that is in any way personal. The only mark of any kind that Billy was the person who was living here, if you could call this living. Which means, if there was ever anything hidden in this apartment, it would be right…back…" Tommy curled a finger around the corner of the frame and pulled it away from the wall. To Adam's surprise, the picture swung out on a hinge, revealing a small metal rectangle with a keypad affixed to it. "…here."

Adam whistled softly. "Wow. Guess that voids the security deposit."

There was a sudden series of crashes from outside, and then Rocky's voice. "Guys! We got company!"


By the time Adam had rounded the corner of Billy's bedroom door, Rocky had already thrown the door to the hallway shut, slammed home the chain lock and flipped the table in the living area up and wedged it under the knob. At his friend's entrance, the young Hispanic man spun to face him, his eyes fiery.

"You might wanna grab something. Preferably heavy." As soon as the words were out of his mouth Rocky was in motion again, diving over the kitchen counter and throwing drawers and cupboards open, digging through them and tossing things over his shoulder as he went, rejected utensils clattering onto the floor.

Adam had ground to a halt just past the doorway, and Tommy and Kim had to shove past him to get out of the bedroom.

"Rocky, what the hell is going on out here?" Tommy nearly shouted. Rocky glanced up and started to gesture toward the door when the pounding started, regular, concussive beats that strained the door against the barricade he'd hastily constructed.

"That," he panted, hefting a butcher knife and tossing Adam a barbecue fork. Adam glanced from the utensil to Rocky and back, his brow furrowed in bewilderment.

"Really? A barbecue fork?"

Rocky was already moving back out from around the counter. "Hopefully you won't have to use it more than once, I only saw five of them." He turned to Tommy. "They're pros. From what I saw they moved in formation, totally in sync with each other; I didn't hear them say a word, but I don't think they're all that heavily armed."

"Those weapons they shot at us yesterday didn't seem all that heavy," Kim said. Tommy made a move toward the door.

"Remember the one we pulled out of that car?" He gripped one of the legs of the upturned table and drove his knee into it, snapping it off the table and choking up on it like a bat. "It hardly weighed anything." He tossed the leg to Kim and turned to break off another. "Wouldn't be surprised at all if these guys were carrying the same shit."

Adam stepped closer to Tommy and held up a hand. "Has anybody considered just going out the window? You people are acting like this fight is a foregone conclusion."

"And you're acting like we've already got what we came for," Kim retorted, gesturing with the table leg. "If we just leave, how long do you think it'll take these guys to get their hands on whatever Billy's keeping in that safe? Whatever it is, it's clearly important; I don't know about you but I'm not leaving till we get it."

Suddenly, the pounding at the door intensified; the four former Rangers looked on nervously as the door began to splinter, the impacts shaking the broken table as their barricade began to weaken.

"Kim, if you're gonna get whatever's in that safe, you should probably get in there," Tommy said quietly, adjusting his grip on the table leg as his other hand drew his pistol from its holster. "We'll hold them off as long as we can."

"Careful with that thing, Captain America," Adam piped up. "You're just as likely to shoot us as you are any of them in a space this close."

"Gee, thank you," Tommy retorted. "They never told us about that during firearms training at the fucking police academy."

Kim looked at Tommy for a moment, as though she were about to argue, but eventually she just nodded once and jogged back toward the bedroom, her hand finding her own service weapon as she did so. "Yell to me if one of 'em gets past you."

"One of 'em gets past us we'll probably be too dead to say anything," Rocky muttered. Adam shot him a glare just as a deafening retort sounded from the hallway and a hole the size of a basketball appeared in Billy's door. Splinters of wood exploded into the room, the three young men diving across furniture and around corners for cover. From his position, crouched behind a small partition near the entrance to the kitchen, Adam watched as a pair of hands inserted themselves into the hole, scrabbling along its inner surface in an attempt to locate whatever obstruction blocked their entrance. One of them found purchase on the table and shoved it away, sending it clattering to the floor. Adam reached up onto the counter and grabbed the first thing his fingers found; it turned out to be a small flathead screwdriver about the size of a mechanical pencil.

Perfect.

Ignoring the sound of Tommy screaming his name in protest, Adam hefted his newfound secondary weapon and lunged toward the door; sliding up to it on his knees, he grabbed one of the hands around the wrist, slammed it back against the flat surface of the door and drove the screwdriver through the back of the palm hard enough to pierce the wood. Smirking in satisfaction at the roar of pain that accompanied his attack, Adam shoved back away from the doorway and flattened himself against the floor as another hole appeared in the exact spot where his head had just been.

"That oughta buy us a little time," he said cheerfully to Tommy, drawing a scowl in return.

"Are you out of your fucking mind? Do you have any idea how close you just came to being massacred?"

"Actually-" the sound of another blast sent Adam logrolling across the floor to end up pressed against the side of the kitchen counter. The chain lock and doorknob were almost completely disintegrated, shards of wood and sheetrock erupting into the air as the heavy table was flung back toward them. The door flew open, slamming into the opposite wall with a deafening crash. The three men crouched behind the furniture took one final moment to steel themselves as the sounds of multiple pairs of heavy combat boots thumped across the threshold onto the entryway floor. Gripping his weapon in his hand, Adam leveraged his feet under him and waited until the first body appeared around the edge of the counter. He drew the pronged implement back as far as he could and launched himself up and around the corner, using his hips to whip the long fork around his body and drive it toward his attacker.

The fork entered the man's torso at a spot in his stomach just below the ribcage; Adam angled it up, toward the heart and lungs, and felt it slide in nearly all the way to the edge of the handle as the man's weight slammed into him and his momentum sent them both toppling backward onto the floor. Adam came down hard on his shoulder blades and felt the warm spray of blood his attacker retched into his face as his body jerked against the fork. Adam let their motion continue and rolled over backwards, planting his feet on his attacker's pelvis and heaving up and over to slam upside-down into the wall. The man crumpled, head-first, to a heap on the floor, blood beginning to pool beneath his corpse as one of his comrades suddenly grabbed Adam from behind.


Before the former Ranger had time to do much more than grab at the other man's wrist to try and leverage his elbow away from Adam's throat to avoid blacking out, both of them were hit hard from the side as Rocky tackled the entire confrontation to the ground, drawing the knife he gripped in his right hand as he did so. The man's elbow hit the floor with his entire weight behind it, and Adam felt the grip on his neck disappear. Gasping for air, he flung himself out of the way as Rocky came down on top of his enemy, the huge knife raised in front of him. Somehow, the guy managed to get his other arm up in time to guard his face and still have the presence of mind to slow Rocky's momentum by catching him in the stomach with his knee. Rocky came to a rest with his entire body weight on his right arm being held over the man's throat. As he struggled to break free, he caught a glimpse of the man's face – and almost froze at what he saw there.

The man's eyes were dull and vacant, staring up at Rocky as though they couldn't even see him at all. Weirder still, though he put forth obvious effort in keeping Rocky at bay with the one arm that was still load-bearing, the man's face showed no signs of exertion. Or effort. Or anger, or fear, or frustration, or…anything. If Rocky hadn't been able to feel the man's warm flesh or smell the reek of his sweat, he would have been convinced that what he was fighting was some incredibly advanced robot of some kind, like what he'd always thought the Cogs would look like a few dozen upgrades down the line if they hadn't all been wiped out. Despite the perils of the situation, Rocky suddenly found himself wracking his brain to try and remember if he'd ever heard any of these guys say anything to them or each other, anything at all. He came up completely empty, an idea that deeply unnerved him – if these guys were operating through some kind of Wi-Fi signal hive mind, all of their movements programmed into some computer in an underground lab somewhere, Rocky and his friends were in some serious shit.

The jolt of pain that accompanied the man digging his knee deeper into Rocky's stomach snapped him back into the room, and he balled his left hand into a tight fist and jabbed the man beneath him at the elbow of the arm holding the knife back. As he'd hoped, his knuckles struck a pressure point, and the joint buckled, the bicep smacked against the floor and the resistance against Rocky's wrist was instantly erased.

The knife came down on the base of the man's throat, just where the neck met the torso, with Rocky's full weight behind it. The width of the blade was such that the man was nearly decapitated; Rocky heard and felt the scrape of the knife across the trachea, the soft crunch as the hard metal cut through the vertebrae of the man's neck. A gush of warm blood spurted into Rocky's chest and face as the man's jugular artery hemorrhaged a few final times and then finally began to taper off as the body flopped limply onto the floor.

"Holy shit," Rocky breathed, rocking back onto the balls of his feet and staring down at the corpse in front of him. He suddenly heard the faint sounds of a commotion across the room and then someone was shaking him, Adam was screaming his name into his ear.

"Rocky! Hey, man, come on!" Adam grabbed Rocky's right wrist and yanked him up, pulling so hard he almost fell back onto his ass. "Hey!" He stuck his face right up into Rocky's until their noses nearly touched and gave him a sharp shove in the ribs. Rocky finally blinked a few times and seemed to focus on him, and Adam grabbed him by the shoulders and steered him back toward the living room. "Get your ass in gear, Monkey Boy, we ain't done here yet."


When the door to Billy's apartment came flying open, Tommy let the first man go right by him, anticipating Adam and Rocky springing a trap. As the man's first companion followed, Tommy hefted the table leg he held like a baseball bat and leapt forward, drew back and swung all in one fluid motion. The end of the long makeshift club caught the man in the jaw, whipping his head around and sending him staggering back a couple of steps. The former White Ranger pressed his advantage and planted his foot in the man's stomach, kicking his opponent back into the edge of the countertop. Another man darted through the doorway, brushing past Tommy and his opponent like they were invisible; the detective heard grunting and thumping from his left as Adam and Rocky grappled with the other two men. He moved in on his opponent again, bringing the table leg up for another swing. This time, though, his attacker was prepared. He caught Tommy's arm with his left hand and drove the other into his face. Tommy took an involuntary step backward to keep his balance and his enemy attacked again, stepping toward him as he twisted his wrist violently toward the floor. Tommy grunted in pain as his grip on his weapon loosened; it clattered to the floor just as his opponent shot a knee up toward his stomach. Tommy was barely able to hop back in time to avoid a devastating blow, yanking the man forward as he did so. Ignoring the pain in his wrist, Tommy wrenched his arm up and over the top of the man's head, pirouetting him like a dancer; he jerked his wrist free and fed into his momentum, lifting himself onto the toes of his right foot and sweeping his left in a high arc to slam it into the side of his enemy's face.

The other man's legs buckled beneath him and he toppled to the floor; Tommy saw a spray of saliva fly from his mouth as his foot made contact. Practically the microsecond he hit the floor, Tommy saw his quarry's arm dive into his black leather jacket; he stepped forward and dug the heel of his shoe into where he thought the man's wrist would be. The man struggled for only the slightest moment before his eye met Tommy's. He shot him a deadly glare and grabbed Tommy's ankle with his free hand. With almost preternatural strength, the man yanked toward the counter, sending the former Ranger hurtling toward the edge.

Tommy acted without even thinking. Both hands shot out and caught his weight against the hard plastic surface; his face came within inches of crashing into it before he shoved himself back. Bringing his free foot up, he kicked off the side of the counter, straight up into the air, and flung himself backwards. Tommy felt his opponent release his ankle and remembered what he was going for. He planted his left hand on the floor, curled his fingers around the butt of his pistol, drew, and brought his head up to aim. The other man was already leveling his weapon, the barrel pointed dead center into Tommy's forehead. Tommy bent his elbow, coiling his weight entirely into his left hand, swung his weapon up and fired a single shot as he pushed off and brought his feet under him to come to a crouch with his back against the chair in Billy's living room, his smoking gun still extended towards his opponent. The man lay slumped against the wall, his weapon abandoned on the floor in front of him, a single, perfectly round hole just above his left eye.

Everything seemed to stop for a moment. Tommy could feel his heart beating in his thighs and hands; he let out a breath he had no idea he'd been holding. He glanced in stunned silence from the corpse in front of him to the gun in his hand and back.

"Tommy?"

He glanced up in time to see Adam and Rocky skid to a halt beside him, the color slowly draining from their faces.

"Fuck, Tommy," Adam muttered, gaping at the body on the floor. "How the hell did you do that?"

Rocky never looked away from Tommy, but he spoke to Adam. "You threw that guy into the wall hard enough to put a hole in it. From your back. How the hell did you do that?"

"Guys?" Kim's voice rang out from the bedroom. "If it's all safe out there, you're gonna want to see this."

Tommy rose shakily to his feet. He looked to Rocky and cocked a thumb over his shoulder at the man whose hand was still impaled in the door. "Make sure he doesn't go anywhere," he said. Rocky nodded and Adam followed Tommy back into the bedroom. Kim met them at the door, her arms folded, hands squeezed under her arms. The two men glanced over her shoulder at the safe on the back wall; the picture in front of it had been swung back into place.

"I figured out Billy's code," Kim said softly, her eyes shifting from one man to the other. She drew in a long breath through her nose and closed her eyes for a moment. "59825882257."

Tommy and Adam exchanged looks. Adam furrowed his brow thoughtfully. "It's not anybody's birthday, it's too long for a phone number…"

"You know what Billy's Social Security Number is?"

"Too long for that, too." Adam shrugged. "The only thing I can think of is that he was using the numbers as a code for the letters on the keys but I can't think of an eleven letter word he would use as a password."

"You're half right," Kim said. They both turned to regard her again. "They are letters, but…they don't spell a word."

Adam blinked a few times in surprise. "Wait – you're saying Billy just plugged in eleven random letters and –"

"I didn't say they were random, did I?" Kim cut in. As Tommy and Adam looked on, she held up her fingers and began ticking things off. "J, Z, T, B, K, T…"

Adam finished for her. "R, A, A, K, T."

Tommy looked at Adam like he'd just grown a second head. "Whoa, whoa, wait. What the fuck are you two seeing that I'm not?"

"It's us," Kim said, gesturing to herself. At Tommy's incredulous look, she continued. "Jason, Zack, Trini, Billy, Kim, Tommy…it's us. All of our names in the order we became Rangers." Kim let Tommy take that in for a moment before continuing. "There are only eleven people on the planet who know what the names on that list have in common, and every single one of them are on it. Whatever Billy had in there…it must've been huge." Kim took a step toward the picture when Adam spoke up again.

"Uh, Kim? Can't help but notice that you switched into past tense there for a second."

Kim took the handle of the frame between her thumb and index finger and looked back at her two friends. "That's what's so goddamn terrifying, Adam." With that, she slowly swung the picture away from the wall to reveal a small opening in the wall, about a foot and a half square, lined with a dark gray metal.

It was empty.

"I don't know what Billy was hiding from us in here," Kim said. "But whatever it was…it's gone."