Volume I - Genesis

Chapter 5—Conflict

Jay

"Why the hell did you pull us out man? SPD was just getting there!"

"Exactly," Doc answered me, spinning to face me in his computer chair, "SPD was there. I needed to clear the way for them to do the Ranger things you guys don't know how to do."

"Oh yeah, like what?"

"Paperwork, damage assessment, replacement cost, diagnostic tests, medical exams, post-traumatic stress relief and counseling, legal representation, Intergalactic Treaty adherence, and so much more that you couldn't possibly imagine yet." He paused and looked at me blankly. "Should I keep going or will that list suffice?"

"Alright, alright, alright…jeez, dude, cool it."

He huffed out a breath but didn't say anything. Thank God. I was so tired of getting lectured all day. Between him, Patrick, Grace, and Amy, I was about to shoot the next smart-mouth in the face with a fireball.

"DOOD!"

I turned around just in time to see Sanders and Kevin come trampling down the stairs, half eaten sandwiches in their hands.

"Ay, man, seriously though Jay, that's the only time I've seen the color yellow look badass."

"Yeah, Kev? Except for when my Lakers stomp your sorry ass up and down the court!"

"Aw, here we go with the Lakers…"

"What are you two even still doing here?" Grace interrupted us, like she was entitled to know everything. "I thought you both decided you were too scared to help?"

"Nah, see, it's not that we're too scared, we just don't want to work with bit—"

"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you," Doc snapped at Sanders. "I extended the invitation to all three boys to stay until the battle was over, Grace. I didn't have a means of transportation and they wanted to make sure you were all safe."

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Really? You guys wanted to make sure we were safe?"

"Mostly Jay and Aaron," Sanders said honestly, slapping my shoulder, "but yeah, you could say that."

"As adorable as that is, we really do need to figure out what's up with this Alpha Morpher," Patrick said from the corner.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes and his head at the same time. "For what? I don't know if you were watching the fight, but we don't really need another Ranger out there to help."

"No, but we do need one to find Rheas and Mira," he answered calmly. He was monitoring his attitude for once, so I guessed I would hold off on the head rolling for now.

"Well, don't worry, they'll be back," Doc said, checking his computer for a second. "I made a few calls while you guys were out to get access to some of SPD's security cameras, so I'll be able to monitor the streets. If those two are anywhere in SPD's jurisdiction, we'll know."

"Speaking of, don't we need to meet with them or something?" Grace asked. "Shouldn't we be introducing ourselves as the new team of Power Rangers?"

Doc hesitated, trying not to hurt our feelings but failing miserably. "I don't think you guys are quite ready for that yet. When the time comes, you'll take your place as Defenders of Earth. For now…I need to debrief you on your powers."

"What, there's more?" Amy whined. "Doc…I know you mean well, but can we please just go home? It's like…after 8 now and my parents are probably freaking out."

"She's got a point," Matt agreed, "I missed swim practice so I know I've probably got like 50 different voicemails."

Doc nodded now, seeing where they were coming from. "I suppose this can wait til morning."

A few cries of success filled the room.

"However," he continued heavily, "be wary of your Morphers. Don't use them too much when you get home—I'll know—and let me know about anything at all out of the ordinary."

"Gotcha," I said, turning to leave.

"I'm not done," he pressed on. "There are rules that come with these powers, some of you may know them better than others. From now on, you will all understand the same. You are not, under any circumstances, allowed to use your powers for personal gain: that means, no powers to win sports games, study more for tests, pass exams, get dates, or anything that sounds like it's going to help you or your immediate interests."

"But what if—"

"No," he said before Matt could even finish his question. "Your powers should only be used in defense of others."

"Well when you put it that way…" Sanders mumbled.

"Rule number two: no escalating battles. When the time comes for you to advance your arsenal or your powers, you will not do so if your current abilities can complete your mission. What does that mean? Simple: you don't call on a Megazord to beat a Gigadroid. You don't Morph unless you have to."

"What's rule number three?" I asked, knowing it was coming but already so tired of the dramatic pauses.

"The third and final rule is absolute: you keep your identities secret."

"But I thought that was an old rule?" Patrick chimed in.

"I'm old school."

"But…won't that be against the protocol for the Ranger Docs?" Grace asked, confused for what seemed like the first time ever.

"For now, yes," he said, "but this won't be permanent. Consider yourselves classified until your case is closed. Only then will your identities become public knowledge."

"But what about people like the Lightspeed Rangers? They had public identities—they were basically celebrities," I pointed out. "Why can't we have the same thing?"

"Because for one, you weren't handpicked by the government, which, to SPD, is a huge risk. For two, most of you are still minors. And for three, they weren't celebrities—they were public defenders."

"Whatever, can we go now?"

He looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn't. He just nodded and said mildly, "Yeah, you can go. Just be careful, all of you. We'll meet tomorrow morning to discuss the Alpha Morpher."

—5—

I wasn't really sure why, but I was pissed off. And to be honest, I didn't have a reason to be. Other than the fact that I had 40 hours of community service to work off and detention for a week, my day had been pretty good—I finally got to punch that asswipe Patrick Adams right in his nose. And it felt every bit as good as I imagined it would.

"Did you need a ride home? Your house is like, 10 minutes from mine," Amy was saying.

"Huh? You talking to me?"

"No, I'm talking to the other person who lives 10 minutes from me," she said. Her sarcasm wasn't as annoying as Patrick's or Grace's, it was more cute and funny than anything. "Yes, you. Do you need a ride?"

"What, and Patrick's okay with that?"

"Patrick doesn't have to be," she replied just as evenly. "Now do you want a ride or not?"

I looked around, not really seeing another option. Sanders and Kevin left with his girlfriend Melissa a few minutes after we'd gotten back, and Grace had offered to take Patrick, Matt, and Aaron home since they lived close by. So...Amy's question didn't really need an answer. There wasn't much choice. Sighing, I shrugged as I opened the door to her car.

It still smelled like blood and sweat, and I found myself feeling uncharacteristically bad for it, so I let her know. "It smells awful in here."

"Yeah…thanks for that new scent. It's interesting."

"Sorry about that," I tried, buckling my seatbelt and distracting myself with her radio.

"You have no car etiquette at all, do you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well," she said, craning her neck around so she could back out properly, "for one, you 'commandeered' my vehicle this afternoon to slam it into a giant blue ogre. Now, you're all up in my presets and changing my station."

"Oh," I said, "sorry."

"It's okay," she said, smiling, "I'm just messing with you."

I nodded, out of words to say.

I just wanted to be home, already. I was tired of being surrounded by all these people who thought they were better than me, or smarter than me. Why didn't I just ride with Aaron? I would've had to put up with Patrick and Matt, but at least I'd have been with a friend. Amy and I were kind of stuck in limbo on the friend thing. Before Patrick came into the picture, me, her, and Aaron would hang out all the time. We'd spend all summer at his house because his parents were always away, and we'd order pizzas and watch movies and do whatever we wanted. And because she was awesome, Amy would play tackle football with us and have belching contests and kick our asses at just about any video game. And there wasn't this awkward tension in the air because I didn't get a joke, or because I didn't know some physics equation. And Amy and Aaron were happy because that's how they always were. Things were easy, and simple. There wasn't all this complicated extra bullshit involved. Now, it seemed like that's all there was.

Now, it seemed like someone was always messing with me. I don't know why I expected that to change just because I put on some alien Morphers. I really thought that if I could become a superhero, people like that self-righteous ass Patrick wouldn't be so smug.

"You okay?" she asked me, either uncomfortable with the silence or noticing something was bothering me. I didn't really care either way.

"Yeah," I said, "just thinking."

"About what?"

I raised an eyebrow. That was probably the first time someone hadn't made a joke about me thinking being dangerous. I was so sure she was going to say something that I almost forgot what I was going to say.

"Just…us—all of us, I mean," I stuttered, suddenly nervous for some reason. "You…do you think we're bad people? That we don't really deserve these Morphers?"

I think I surprised her. Not that my question was unique or anything, but the fact that it was me asking it made it different.

"I…I dunno," she said, "I guess I never really thought about it like that."

"Your friends do," I said matter-of-factly, making no efforts to hide my feelings from her. "Your boyfriend damn sure does."

"Patrick's not my boyfriend," she said before I even finished my sentence. "We broke up this summer."

"Oh?"

"Oh? That's all you have to say is oh?"

I shrugged. "What else am I supposed to say?"

"I don't know, Jay," she snapped, some hostility bubbling up, "maybe sorry for harassing us all the time? Maybe sorry for trying to force me back into the arms of your best friend?"

"Why should I be the one apologizing?" I fired back. "You're the one who ditched us. You burned that bridge, not me. Not us."

She was stopped at a stoplight now, the harsh red lighting up her car like we were in a submarine. "Is that what this is about? Me breaking up the holy trinity?"

"Why do you have to say it like that? Why does everything have to be sarcastic and bitchy? You're not Grace, and you're not Patrick, so why do you keep acting just like them?"

She sniffed, shaking her head mostly to herself. She wasn't saying anything now, just staring off at the old country road that led from Doc's house into town.

"I used to be different, you're right about that," she finally said, "but I was worse then, Jay. You don't know it, because you guys are still doing it. I'm sarcastic, yes—I'm a little bit of a bitch, but I'm working on that. But when I was with Aaron, when I was always hanging out with you guys, I was evil. We used to tease kids because they didn't have money for real backpacks. We used to throw orange peels at kids because they got good grades but wore shitty clothes."

"Seriously, though? We were freshmen."

"We were old enough to know better," she said, looking at me to bring her words home. I noticed it was raining just slightly now, but I didn't say anything about it to her. "And everything was just so fake, you know? Nobody was really loyal to each other, everyone was always talking behind someone's back, like that shit that happened with Grace and Beth. I was just over it."

"Right, so I guess Patrick didn't have anything to do with that, huh?"

"He had everything to do with it," she said bluntly. "He was the one who called me out on it. Jessica Bailey and Sarah Western were in French class with me, and all we did was gossip. The only reason he agreed to tutor me was because he needed the money because he was new and couldn't find a job."

"So what, he just pointed out what a bitch you were being and it was love at first sight?"

"I don't understand why this is so important to you, Jay."

"Cuz Aaron's my best friend, still. I didn't dump him for some Canadian son-of-a-bitch without telling him why. I've been there for him over the past two years, and yeah, maybe you're right—we're assholes. We're mean, we're bullies, whatever. But it only got worse when you left. Did you think it was gonna make him nicer by dumping him for the next biggest asshole in the school?"

"I'm tired of defending myself to you."

"I never said you had to."

Now she slammed on her breaks. There were no stoplights in sight, she was apparently just that upset. "I dumped Aaron because we had been dating since 7th grade, Jay, if you can really call it dating. I didn't like what he was becoming and I didn't like who I was becoming. I liked Patrick and it just so happened that he helped me change—so no, I didn't think dumping Aaron was going to make him nicer. I thought it would make me better. Happy?"

I didn't say anything.

The silence lingered for a while, burning and stinging at my skin and turning my cheeks red. I didn't care. I didn't have anything left to say. If she was expecting me to apologize, she was gonna be waiting for a while.

She sighed, shaking her head like she could hear exactly what I was thinking, and then floored the gas.

No matter how well she thought she knew me or Aaron, she didn't. She was just like Grace and Patrick, and everyone else. I guess I had just assumed that because we used to be friends, she would have the same sense of loyalty we did.

She was right, we were terrible people when I thought about it. Yeah, we messed with people, but no more than Grace and Patrick tried to mess with us. We were just more obvious with ours, they were just cowards, always making snide remarks and hiding behind sarcasm. We were men. We were blunt and honest, and if Amy didn't like that, that was her problem.

She, just like everyone else, assumed we were just dumb and that's why we made fun of people—to cover up our lack of smarts. But she was wrong, just like all of them were earlier today. No one wanted to believe Aaron could come up with a plan, but I'd known the guy since we were in first grade. We'd been playing ball together since the Pop Warner days, and if there was anything Aaron could do, it was play football. He was a freaking genius. He memorized plays and games like nothing I'd ever seen before. So I knew he could make a plan. I knew he could be a good leader.

They didn't care about any of that, though. They were so caught up in taking the high road about everything and busy doubting us because we were athletes and not scholars. Didn't mean we couldn't bring something to the table.

—5—

By the time I got home, it was still raining and dark as shit. There were no cars in the driveway, and all the lights were off, so I knew my parents weren't home. No surprise there. They were always gone somewhere.

I let myself in through the front door, fumbling for the light as I tried not to trip over the shoes near the doorway. I moved them every single day, but they always found their way right back to the exact same place. Must've been my brother, Kyle.

"Why are you home so late?" his voice came from the dining room.

It was the only light in the house that was on, and it was dimmed so that he could focus on all the different homework he had in front of him.

"Why are you up so late?" I shot back. "Isn't it past your bedtime?"

Now, I knew I was a dick most of the time. I didn't really care, if people had a problem with me then it was their problem, not mine. But Kyle was only 14, so he got a pass when everyone else didn't. Plus, he was my brother. He was probably one of the only people on the planet who knew just how much of a 'nice guy' I could be. But that was just because someone had to be there for him, since my parents were always insanely busy. So busy, in fact, that I couldn't remember the last time they were both physically present for a birthday, and not on some video conference gimmick bullshit. So, I tried to give Kyle the best family tie I could—just to show him what family what was really about.

Now, that didn't keep him from trying. He did everything he could to impress our folks—he took up hockey (in Reefside, of all places) just to please my dad, who had played in the NHL. When dad didn't notice it, or bother to make it to any of his games, Kyle just kept trying; next, he won 1st in the state in the National Spanish Exam, and then he got an award letter from the governor for having ridiculously awesome PSAT scores in the 8th grade. Neither of my parents batted an eye. They just figured that the only reason he succeeded so well was because of all the 'exemplary' nannying we'd had throughout our lives. Realistically speaking, I had a better relationship with our nanny and maid than I did with my parents. I think they were finally starting to understand that about me. It was one of the reasons we didn't talk much.

"I was waiting for you," Kyle said, setting his homework aside and taking a long swig from his Gatorade bottle. "Carmen brought some Chinese for us. And she made flan, it's in the fridge."

I could have kissed her, wherever she was. Carmen was our most recent nanny who had just moved here a couple years ago—right when I was at an all-time worst with my parents. She was cool though, and seemed to get where I was coming from with my parents—which was more than I could say for most adults around me then. Unlike them, Carmen let me finish my sentences. She let me feel and think what I wanted, and never told me I was wrong for it—she just told me to be real with it. So that's what I did. Not to mention, she knew the best way to my heart was through my stomach—and good god damn could that woman cook. If she wasn't married with three kids, I would have had to snatch her up myself.

"Oh my God…I love that woman…!"

He laughed. "That's what you say every time she leaves us food."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true," I replied, opening the refrigerator to assemble my meal. "How was school?"

"Boring, as usual. We're reading The Catcher in the Rye in AP English, but I've already read it like…three times."

I cocked an eyebrow at that. I'd never made it past page two of that stupid-ass book. Amy helped me cheat on the test sophomore year.

"What happened to your face?"

"Hm?"

"Your face," he repeated, "what happened? Is that from the fight?"

I frowned, then remembered the shiner Patrick had given me. I had to admit, the little punk could fight. I didn't even feel the pain anymore, but I remembered it throbbing all day. Right up until we got the Morphers, at least.

"Oh…how'd you hear about that?"

He looked at me like I was dumb. "Seriously? Like fifteen different people showed me the video in last period. They said you got jumped."

I grunted slightly and opened the microwave, inspecting my dinner and smelling it before putting it in and reheating it.

"I did not get jumped," I half-shouted, "that douche bag Patrick was just pissing me off today, man. And he's always fucking with Aaron about his disability, you know?"

Kyle nodded understandingly.

See, one of the things that pissed me off so bad about Patrick and his little posse was that they were so sure everyone else was just stupid and didn't try to not be. Aaron was a prime example. He wasn't stupid, he had autism. I didn't really know what it was until we hit fourth grade and started standardized testing. Of course, he got special accommodations.

But Aaron was what the specialists called "medium-high functioning," meaning most of his skills were intact. Except for his social and learning ones. He was just different. I didn't really care until my parents found out Kyle had autism. Now, Kyle started off as "low functioning." He hated loud sounds but he was almost always screaming or screeching or making some weird noise. He freaked if his routines were broken or if one of his "compulsions" was ruined—like turning on the hot water before the cold water, or pouring milk before cereal. And he absolutely hated being touched.

I didn't really know it at the time, because he was so young, but my parents didn't know what to do or how to react. So I kind of just stepped in. I treated him just like I treated Aaron. The only difference between the two, in my mind, was that Kyle was a genius and Aaron not so much.

"I mean, does he know Aaron is like me? That he has autism?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, but it shouldn't matter. You don't mess with people about stuff you don't know about."

He scoffed a little bit, a laughing forming silently.

"What?"

He shook his head. "Don't get mad at me for saying this," he started, "but…that's really hypocritical."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well," he said, "you pick on Patrick for a bunch of different reasons. You call him gay, or broke, or lame, or pretentious—but you don't know about being any of those things."

I rolled my eyes. "Look, I've been getting lectured all day long, I don't need it from you too."

"I'm just saying," he said defensively, "I get that you don't like him. But you can't get mad at him for doing the same thing you're doing to him."

I distracted myself by guzzling down a bottle of water. And then another one. Damn I was thirsty! I stopped halfway through my third one and looked at him. He was back to studying now on holoscreen, books spread out in front him. He was probably one of the only people I knew to still use actual books. He said something about the way they felt making him feel better.

"You know I hate when you're right," I mumbled.

He looked up and smiled. "Hey, I have to have enough brains for the both of us."

I ruffled his hair and made my way back to the kitchen, counting down the seconds until my Chinese food was done. I was starving and the sooner I could stuff my face with greasy, unhealthy Mandarin Chicken, the better.

"What homework are you working on?" I asked him from across the island.

"Geography," he answered, tapping his pencil rhythmically against the dining room table. "Ramos is super hard, man."

"Yeah, I had him freshman year too. I'll give you my old book—I actually took notes in it."

"You took notes?" he wondered, feigning surprise. "In an actual book?

I tossed my fortune cookie at him.

"What are those things on your arms?" he asked after catching the fortune cookie. "By the way, I'm eating this."

I shrugged but flashed him a confused look, and then looked at my wrists. The Morpher on my left wrist had become a yellow hemp bracelet, like those ones you find at cheap tourist shops near Santa Monica beach. On right wrist, the other Morpher had become a white leather band with yellow flame marks across it that met in a metal point.

"Bands," I said, not quite sure what else to say. Then I added, "Aaron's dad got 'em."

He looked skeptical and quizzed me. "Do you know what that sign means?"

He pointed to the white band, which clearly had an Upsilon symbol on it where the flames met in the center.

"Psh, yeah. It's the Greek letter Upsilon."

"But do you know what it is in English?" he pressed cockily.

"I dunno...Y?" I guessed, since it resembled a Y.

"Nope! It's a U in English," he replied with a large smile. "And it's not pronounced 'UPsilon,' it's more like 'IPsilon.' Why'd you pick that of all things?

God, I really hated having a genius brother sometimes. I shrugged to play it off, but I couldn't help feeling a bit dumb. Wasn't I supposed to be older and smarter?

"It looked cool," I lied.

I finished my dinner in silence mostly, though Kyle and I shared a few laughs and he updated me on his soccer game schedule. I told him I'd make a note to attend them, but with this Ranger stuff, I wasn't so sure how true that would be.

"Alright, dude; I'm exhausted," I yawned, stretching as I finished my food. "I'm jumping in the shower and hittin' the sac; you should probably get to bed, too."

He looked at me one more time before closing his binder. "Yeah, true. Don't forget to give me that book in the morning, though!"

"I won't," I assured him as I turned toward the stairs. "Night, Kyle."

I dumped my empty Chinese container, grabbed a couple bottles of water, and made my way to the stairs. I finished one of the bottles by the time I reached the top of the stairs.

"Seriously?" I wondered to myself, tossing it in my bathroom trashcan. I had never gone through bottles of water like that in my whole life. Could it have something to do with the Upsilon Morpher? Why would the power of fire need so much water?

I looked myself over in the mirror, trying to get passed the puffy red bumps on my cheekbone and chin. Even my nose was swollen. But it was hard to tell which marks were from Patrick and which were from Rheas. All I knew was I was barely gonna fit in my helmet if my face kept swelling. I could barely even see my own eyes.

I rubbed my hair restlessly and stripped down, checking my body for more bruising. Between my shoulder blades looked like someone had walked on my spine, and my chest was starting to show small signs of bruising. This whole ranger thing was a lot harder than it looked on TV, and for once, I felt like Doc was right.

I'd never tell him that, though.

—5—

I woke up late. School started at 7:45, I woke up at 7:20. And it wasn't like I was just a hop, skip, and a jump away. I was at least a good 20 minute drive with traffic—maybe 7 minutes if we were going 60 with no traffic. And that was if I could even get a ride to school.

Oh, what, no car? No, my parents didn't love me that much. I mean, we had money. We were well off—hell, we had a nanny and a maid—but dad said that a "car is an investment, one that takes responsibility. I'm not ready to invest in your lack of responsibility."

I'd heard that same thing since I was 15.

I looked at the clock now. I swear to God, time moved faster in the morning. Just two seconds ago, it was 7:20—now it was 7:24. I was tearing through my room like a mad man and stumbled across the geography book I'd mentioned to Kyle. Perfect. So I tossed it in my backpack while I looked around for a clean shirt and some shorts.

"Kyle, you up?!" I shouted, throwing open my door as I wiggled into my shorts and slipped on some socks.

No response.

"Dude, let's go, we're late. We're gonna have to call Carm—"

But his room was empty.

Guess he left without me.

So, maybe I wasn't' calling Carmen then. I didn't want to bug her if it was just me who was late for school. I'd just be late and walk.

By the time I left the house, it was 7:35, but it wasn't raining like it was last night. Though, our yard was soaked because of it. There was still a misty fog that hung around though, but the sun felt amazing on my skin from above.

I tied the waistband on my basketball shorts and tucked my t-shirt in. My shoes were all laced up, my headphones were blaring my favorite song—today was gonna be a good day, late or not. All I had to do was make it through and then I'd have all weekend to hang out with Aaron or Sanders or Kevin or something. I'm sure someone was doing something.

I started off with a light jog, barely lifting my feet. I should've stretched first, but I was already on a time constraint. Maybe if I sprinted, I would only be a few minutes late and Mr. Bailey would let it slide without giving me Saturday detention.

I took a deep breath and let my feet really pound the pavement as I broke into a sprint.

Then it got weird.

Suddenly, I was at school. I was out front, and the busses were still pulling in. But…I was literally just on my street a few minutes ago.

I pulled out my phone and checked the time. 7:39.

There was no way I made it to school in four minutes. Unless…

I looked down at my right wrist where the Upsilon stared back at me innocently, shining all yellow-like in the sun.

That's when I realized I was wearing an old yellow t-shirt from basketball camp.

Great

"Jay," someone's voice shouted. I turned around to see Grace climbing out of her car, "You got a minute?"

"Not really," I said, noticing I wasn't even out of breath. "What's up?

She shook her hair out, still dripping from her morning shower. Her skin-tight black shirt was hugging her body in all the right ways and I could just barely make out her purple bra strap on her left shoulder. Then she was done fixing her hair and looked up at me. "Come on."

"What?"

"Just follow me," she ordered, making her way towards the other side of the parking lot where Amy had just pulled up.

"See those bands?" she asked me as she walked briskly. It was tough to keep up with her long, sexy paces.

"Uh, yeah, I'm kinda wearing them," I answered slowly.

"Yeah, well, I contacted Doc last night when mine transformed and he said it was perfectly normal." She held up her right arm and pointed to the white leather band with the metal stub that buttoned it together, swirling black marks lining the leather all the way to the center. "See this one?"

"Yeah, what about it?" I asked, looking at my identical leather band with its yellow markings.

"It serves as a communicator. Just press the silver part and it opens a channel to any of us or Dr. Oliver."

"How do I know which one it's sending to?"

"They're voice activated, I guess. When I asked Doc Ol if he was there, it tapped into him."

"Right," I said, nodding. "That makes sense."

Amy climbed out of her car. If her face was any indication of the morning she was having, I was guessing she woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Somehow, she still managed to find a pink shirt to wear, though.

"Hey, look, we're all wearing out colors!" Matt shouted as he popped out of the passenger side of Amy's car. "Pretty freaky, huh?"

Grace hissed out a "shhh" at him, nodding at a group of freshmen walking by. "Could you be any louder?"

"What? It's not like they know."

"They know what Power Rangers are, and once word gets out there's a new team, everyone will be suspicious. We have to keep a low profile," Grace said

I rolled my eyes. "Look, this is all really entertaining, it is, but is there something important here or can I go?"

"We need to find the Red Ranger today, at lunch," Grace said quietly.

"Yeah, I kinda figured that. Didn't Doc say we'd meet later, though?"

"Yeah," Amy said, "but he said he's stuck in a meeting. He said he was going to give the Morpher to Patrick so we can scope out a host."

"Awesome," I said sarcastically, "now your friend can actually earn his spot on the team."

"Our friend has a name," Grace shot back. "And he earned his spot on the team when he saved your sorry ass yesterday."

"Whatever," I groaned out, "Patrick has the Morphers, so go make your plan with him. I gotta get to class before I'm late."

I started walking away, sticking one of my earbuds in.

Then, someone was spinning me around.

"Jay, listen," said Amy, "I don't like this anymore than you do, but like it or not, we're stuck with each other. So can't you at least try to act like you're a part of the team?"

I glared at her. Team? What team? We were a bunch of kids. I just felt like exploding on her.

Instead, I bit my tongue and let out a huge breath. "Fine…I'll meet you guys at lunch.

But honestly, all I wanted to do was go back to my normal life. Maybe someone else should've been the Yellow Ranger.