8. Live Dangerously

The Rangers had enough on their plate, dealing with formidable, seasoned foes without having to worry about random civilians getting ideas of villainous grandeur. Or, in this case, people stumbling onto items they didn't understand the ramifications of using. Luckily, they had a level-headed (no pun intended) mentor to consult about such matters.

"Rangers, there is no clear-cut way to deal with this."

"What?!" Rocky balked, he and Billy having stopped by the command center on their way to the juice bar. "Aren't you supposed to have an answer for everything?"

"Not precisely." Billy adjusted his glasses. "This is a pressing matter, Zordon. I have reason to believe Melvin will actually use the staff for nefarious purposes. I was considering staging an intervention of sorts."

"I'm afraid you can't do so without compromising your identity, Billy."

He sighed. "Right."

"There's gotta be some way to get it away from him." Rocky snapped his fingers. "Hey, we steal it. It's not wrong if it's an emergency for the greater good, right?"

"I can't say that I could condone that, Rocky. If your peer is as volatile as you say, however, this will need to be handled with great caution."

"So? Do you have an idea? … Don't you?"

Zordon actually had to pause. "I have never experienced a situation of this nature before. I admit, I am at a bit of a loss at the moment."

The boys stared up at him, silent until Rocky leaned over to whisper, "Is this a first?"

"Don't worry, Rocky." Alpha chimed him, patting his shoulder. "Zordon isn't infallible, just like the rest of you. As soon as we find a possible solution, we'll point you in the right direction."

"Sure..." Billy shoved his hands in his pockets. "Not that this isn't humanizing, but it's a dire situation."

"At least it's not a monster who's actively attacking people." Rocky's smile instantly fell. "Oh man, I jinxed it, didn't I?"

Billy mustered a smile at that. "Let's get going, we still need to study."

"Keep me updated on the situation, Rangers."

"Will do, Zordon." The duo made a move to teleport, only stopped by Rocky grabbing Billy's wrist. "Wait a sec, I've got an idea. You said you heard Melvin talking about the staff with a girl?"

"Ah yes, Lilly."

"I know your name, what's hers?"

"No it's—" Billy shook his head. "I know her, she works with him on the school paper."

"She's gotta know him well, right? Give us ideas on how to deal with him, if we're careful about it?"

Billy hummed in consideration. "It's definitely an avenue worth pursuing, she's very forthcoming about information concerning our peers." Rocky opened his mouth to continue his line of thought, but Billy held a hand up. "Come on, you can't put off math any longer."

"Yeah yeah." They teleported away.

Actually quitting the juice bar required a two weeks notice and a very awkward apology, so Schuyler was still making the commute back and forth between the youth center and Angel Grove High to work on the Temporibus. Not that she had another dazzling Power Rangers article to submit yet, people were somehow still reeling from the one that was published last time, but she supposed helping put together this week's issue made up for that. Sort of. Neither Melvin nor Lilly were on her ass about it yet, so she was in the clear. Of course, that required her to ride her bike over to her short shift at the juice bar, then ride her bike all the way back to school to work on the paper until everyone went home. Pretty soon she was going to add 'waiting for the Power Rangers to show up' to that routine. It made no sense why she was putting herself through this, why she couldn't just stay at school and then go to work at the juice bar, but she loved to make life difficult for herself. It made her more grateful that she did quit, and at the same time, it hammered in the painful reality that she'd be riding this damn bike until college, probably.

"I don't understand boys," she announced to the team as she dropped her bike helmet by the door and sat herself down in front of a computer. "I mean, they're terrible, right?"

"What happened this time?" Tibby asked, thought she was completely disinterested as she flipped through an issue from the previous year.

"We got a new pachinko machine at the bar and Rocky would not stop playing it the whole time I was working. He even brushed off a little girl he was supposed to coach in karate! A little girl! I put a rag over his head to get him to stop acting like such a douche and I swear, the look he gave me, I thought he was gonna start pelting me with those little balls."

"Maybe that was because you put a dirty rag on his head." Lilly smirked over from where she was working on the mock-up.

"I'm not an animal, it was clean. Shoulda been dirty, he deserved it. Can't believe Ernie gives him and his friends free stuff." She huffed, settling back into her chair and eyeing Melvin over at his desk. "What, no comment about how juvenile he's being?"

"If he wants to enjoy himself, let him." He crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it in the trash bin, not looking up from his desk. Schuyler rose a brow, but didn't want to spark a fight or lecture by asking him what was up.

"Anyways." She booted up the computer, stretching her arms over her head. "Time to chill out."

Thing deteriorated quickly, as they often did whenever anyone in Angel Grove vocally appreciated having a moment of peace. The ground shook, not forcefully enough to knock anything in the room over but enough to warrant panicked screams from people both outside and inside the school. Half of the students took cover under the desks while the other half went to the window to see what was going on, Schuyler and Lilly included.

"Isn't that one of the Power Rangers' zords?" Lilly's voice was near breathless, gripping at her hair as she processed what she was seeing. "Oh my god they're close to the school."

"That's the goddamn pachinko machine!" Schuyler pounded on the glass. "You've gotta be kidding me, was it cursed?" She had to step away from the window and the crowd, jumping up and down to work out the near suffocating mixture of frustration and excitement.

"Didn't you make that complex evacuation plan in the event there was a Ranger battle close to the school, Melvin?" Lilly demanded, waving her arms at him to get his attention. If anything, he should have been the one jumping up and down over this.

"What's the point? The Rangers will win as they always do, the only property destroyed is conveniently abandoned buildings, there will be no lasting repercussions aside from another monster attack soon enough." He pursed his lips, still keeping his gaze trained on the desk. "It's all too formulaic, Landau."

Lilly waved him off, scoffing and turning back to the group, watching the fight with a mix of amazement and fear. "Um... we should really get away from the windows. I know we all want to watch but god forbid they get too close and the windows shatter..." She rubbed the back of her neck. "If the ground shakes again, we should follow earthquake safety rules. That's a good idea." She didn't sound certain, but she hoped her smile showed otherwise. "You get that, guys? Reeves?"

Schuyler's gaze was fixed on the window, her mouth slightly agape. Suddenly she jumped into action, grabbing her backpack from the back of her chair and a camera. "I'm going out there."

"...What?"

"I'm going to document and report on the fight."

"Schuyler, what the hell?" Lilly followed her out into the hall. "What, are you planning to get right under their feet and hope you don't get smashed flat?"

"It's a helluva lot easier than wandering around outside waiting for the Rangers to just show up, I dunno!" She kept running until she got to her bike, making quick work of unchaining it as Lilly caught up with her.

"You're going to get seriously hurt, some stupid article in a stupid high school newspaper isn't worth it. Why are you really doing this?"

"I don't know! They're right there, why not?" That, and she wasn't at all thinking this through. She got on her bike, strapped on her helmet, and saluted her. "Expect a lot of blurry monster crotch shots, the kids'll love that."

"You idiot!" She still rode away, leaving Lilly to just stand there rubbing her temples, hoping she wasn't technically responsible for whatever happened to the junior reporter.

Schuyler put herself in peril before she even reached the fight, pedaling so fast she tired herself out and nearly fell over a few times. It only took her three minutes at the most to get as close enough as she would allow herself, feeling the vibration every step and attack sent through the ground. Now that her brain caught up her with her limbs this was decidedly a terrible idea, but she was here, so it was time to snap some shaky pictures and commentate obnoxiously.

She struggled to get her tape recorder out of her backpack with one hand while holding her camera in the other, her index finger continuously snapping pictures without even paying attention to what she was documenting. It all proved a moot point when the giant pachinko machine hit the white zord with an energy burst, sending it toppling back down into the streets, the force of it even sending her falling back on her rear.

"You kidding me?!" She shouted. "The one time I do this and the Rangers lose?!" A fight was a fight, though; people would eat the story up, maybe even more so for the drama. So clearly the right decision was to inch even closer to the chaos. Who cared if she only took shots of parts of the monster as opposed to full shots far away – the closer she got the more she'd get to embellish the thrill.

"Dammit, Reeves, stop trying to get trampled!" She whipped around to see Lilly rushing towards her, nearly barreling into her had Schuyler not reached out and braced her by the elbows.

"Look who's talking about getting closer." She snickered until she caught Lilly's steely glare, and cleared her throat. "Right, bad time. Why did you follow me, this is my moment!"

"Great, everyone's delusional lately. Look- this is wild, alright? Putting yourself under literal giants just for you to get crushed. Hell, just expecting you to plant yourself by battles where those gross putty things could find you is wrong. Let's get back to school and we'll figure something else out, okay?"

She was offering her an out, less stress on her shoulders, less places to go, no need to fake anything. She would have been foolish not to take it with how much she complained, of course. But then the clouds darkened and a metallic roar rang through the sky, and she took off running back towards the monster. "C'mon Landau, it's that dragon zord and it's gonna kick that pachinko machine's ass!"

Lilly sighed, resigned. "You should make that the title of the article."

They trudged down the street, Schuyler walking especially slow as she tried to take pictures of the dragon – which turned into a giant man when it was struck by lightning. "Did you see that?!"

"That makes no sense!"

"Who cares? I think I got a snap of it mid-transformation!" She stood in place as she finally fished her recorder out of her backpack – only to see the red zord kick the monster right in their general direction, Lilly having to drag her away before they could get crushed.

"This is the most alive I've ever felt!" She barked out a laugh, taking Lilly's face in her hands. "And you're here to share it with me. Would have preferred a friend, but you're ok, I guess."

Lilly rolled her eyes, prying herself away. "You need to get out more."

Schuyler was about to retort until she saw the zord spin around on its huge quarterstaff and kick the monster in the face more times than she could keep track of, too busy scrambling to document it all. "What, you don't think this is awesome? We're in it!"

"I'm more concerned about surviving, thanks."

"This isn't the apocalypse. I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but you need to chill. You were the one who drove me to do this."

"I told you to ba-"

They froze at the sudden rumbling in the distance, bracing themselves as the rest of the Rangers' zords came into view. "Well hooooly shit," Lilly mused, letting out a slight chuckle as Schuyler finally turned her recorder on.

"There is literally no one here right now but the Rangers, an anthropomorphic pachinko machine, and two intrepid reporters on a hunt for the truth. The Temporibus staff doesn't just sit around and wait, we go *out* there for our stories, we get ourselves all dirty and bruised, because people suffer for their craft." Schuyler cringed a bit at her choice of wording. "Dude, holy crap, they're putting together the big robot."

"Megazord." Schuyler rose a brow at her. "According to Melvin. Are you getting footage?"

"I'm clicking the button so much I've probably sprained my finger." She let out a long breath as she saw the megazord take shape, marching towards the monster and bashing into it like it was nothing. "Perhaps there is something to the Power Rangers after all, folks. No matter how close to losing they find themselves, they always seem to pull together and come through for the city." She tapped the recorder against her chin, casting a look over at Lilly when she felt her eyes on her. "What?"

"You changing your tune about them already?"

"Just because I can appreciate the gist of what they do and get caught up in an adrenaline rush doesn't mean I'll be wearing their t-shirts anytime soon." They were nearly knocked to the side by the gust of wind the pachinko monster made when the megazord sent him flying a block away. Her resolve melted when their weapon was unsheathed. "That's a big-ass sword!"

They both watched in awe as one slash made the monster explode, rather spectacularly as sparks flew past them, sending another gust their way. The megazord stood there, surveying the Rangers' work, even... was it posing? Schuyler kept taking pictures until the camera gave the tell-tale sign it was out of film, and she let out a huff. "Well. We survived. How about that. You didn't think we could do it but-"

"Oh shut up Reeves, you got your story, don't gloat 'til you get home." Her smile betrayed her tone, and let Schuyler playfully shove her over.

"Let's go before they can see us and, I dunno, lecture us about endangering ourselves like you tried to do."

Lilly chuckled as she let herself be the one to be tugged this time. "What, you don't want to pose with them for a photo op or something."

"Ugh, no. Besides I already maybe kinda used up the whole roll of film."

"Reeves."