The following morning, Orion stirred and came to slowly. He had no idea what time it was, but considering how bright the light coming in from the port hole was, and how well rested he was, he figured it had to be pretty late.
He settled back down into his bed, pulling the covers around himself and smiled a little. While the sleeping arrangements in the Red Galleon weren't exactly luxurious, it had been a very long time since he had conditions this comfortable. He hadn't even seen a real bed since the destruction of Andresia. He had no idea how long he had been sleeping, but he felt far more rested than he had in as long as he could remember.
As he was settling in, he heard a gentle knock on the door.
"Can I come in?" He heard Emma calling through.
"Come in." He greeted her. Emma opened the door and walked in, carrying a tray with her. She had a huge smile on her face. "What time is it?"
"It's a little after noon. We thought you might appreciate a long lie." She told him, setting down the tray on a table. "I didn't know what you'd like, so I made pancakes because...well...I've not met anyone that doesn't like pancakes. I also brought OJ..."
Her words tailed off as he got out of the bed and made his way to the table. She immediately turned away, hiding her face.
"Um...you said it was safe to come in." She told him.
"It is." He replied as he grabbed a whole pancake, and inspected it for a moment, before taking a cautious bite. His eyes lit up. "Wow, this is...this tastes amazing!"
"Orion...you're not wearing...you're naked!" She stammered as she stared at the wall, feeling her face becoming decidedly warm. He took a sip of orange juice as he crammed the rest of his first pancake into his mouth almost whole.
"It was too warm under the covers." He mumbled through his mouthful. Emma figured it had to have been a while since he ate with others, and it wasn't as though he would have had much use for airs and graces when he was stranded on uninhabited planets. She had been camping many times in her life, and knew that often it didn't take more than a few hours for normal table manners to become secondary. Of course she had only been camping for a few days at a time, Orion had been stranded for months, possibly more, without a single other person for company.
"Right...um...it's just...we don't normally...um..." She continued to mumble. "I'll just leave you to get dressed. Bring us your dishes when you're finished."
As she left the room, Orion realised something was off with her. He made a note to ask about it when he was done. Taking another pancake, he rolled it up, and dunked it into his orange juice, before taking a bite.
Outside, in the main room, Gia was having her wrist strapped up after training. While the Rangers didn't try to hurt each other, occasionally it was unavoidable. She flexed her wrist as Troy finished up with the bandage.
"Did you see Orion?" Gia asked.
"Oh, I saw a lot of Orion." She replied, looking around before pulling in close. "He...he was naked!"
"Excuse me, back up a moment...he was what now?" Troy asked his girlfriend. She realised what it had to sound like.
"No, he didn't try anything on or anything...if anything..." She paused for a moment as she thought about it. "He didn't seem to realise it was a big deal."
"Was it a 'big' deal?" Gia teased her. Emma just kicked her under the table, causing Gia to yell. She gestured to her wrist. "Hey, injured girl here!"
"I didn't look alright?" Emma rushed out. She took a breath. "I don't know, maybe it isn't such a big deal where he's from."
"He said he was a miner." Noah reminded them as he continued to do some work on Orion's morpher. "Maybe they had communal showers."
"He's kind of been on his own for a while." Gia stated. "I doubt he'd have worried too much about stuff like that when he was stranded, maybe he just forgot people can be a little off about stuff like that."
"Maybe he doesn't have pyjamas." Jake called over from the corner, where he was making himself a smoothie. Everyone just turned to look at him as he turned off the blender. He just shrugged. "What? It's not like he had luggage with him or anything."
They all paused for a moment to think about what Jake had just said. Orion didn't have any bags with him when they found him. He hadn't brought anything on board when they had brought him to the Galleon to find out who he was. Thinking about it, with the exception of his morpher and the clothes he was wearing, they couldn't remember him carrying anything.
"He doesn't have any clothes." Troy said as a sense of realisation came over him. Orion wasn't trying anything on with Emma, he just didn't have anything to wear while he was sleeping.
"He probably lost most of it when he was stranded." Emma concluded. "I can't believe I didn't think of that."
"Well he's going to kind of stand out if he walks around looking like Tom Hanks in Castaway." Noah said as he thought about it.
"Not to mention his clothes have seen better days." Gia added.
"And if he really doesn't have any issues with the whole nude thing, then laundry days could get awkward if he's only got one outfit." Emma concluded. Just then, Orion walked in, carrying his tray, with the dirty dishes, wearing his filthy, ragged clothing.
"Thanks Emma, that was great." He told her. He stopped as he saw the way everyone was looking at him. "What?"
"OK, I guess we're taking him shopping." Troy stated.
"Shopping?" Orion asked. "What for?"
"Oh, believe me, you DEFINITELY need to go shopping, as a matter of urgency!" Gia responded. "And a haircut probably wouldn't go amiss either."
"Here." Troy said as he pulled a gold, jewel-encrusted goblet out of a cupboard and handed it to Emma. "Take that to a pawn brokers, then get everything you need."
"And while we're at it, why don't we have a little talk about the social paradigm of wearing clothes around other people." Emma said as she and Gia took Orion out of the room. Jake just snorted in disgust before taking a long gulp of his smoothie.
"First he gets a long lie, now he's going shopping." He grumbled.
"Jake, we need to give him a chance." Noah told him, continuing his work. "He's only just got here. We need to let him settle in."
"Well according to Emma he's REALLY settled in." Jake said sarcastically. "What are you doing anyway?"
"I'm calibrating Orion's morpher to our systems." Noah explained. "Once I'm finished, he'll be able to call the Ranger keys from the chest on the Galleon to his belt buckle just like we can. I also want to figure out all the functions on it."
"Functions?" Jake asked.
"It's not like our morphers. It has all sorts of different buttons on it, look." He showed Jake the morpher, which had numerous buttons on it, like a cell phone, but they all seemed to have a different Ranger's helmet on them. "It's the helmets of the Sixth Rangers, and Orion said it's the Sixth Rangers he sees in his visions. I think the morpher has some kind of special connection to the past Sixth Rangers."
"I guess that makes sense. I mean, I guess he IS a Sixth Ranger right." Jake replied.
"It's the darnedest thing though...his morpher has a lot more power than it needs to facilitate his Ranger mode...even more than it needs for Legendary transformations." Noah continued. "I don't think we've seen a fraction of what his morpher can do yet."
The Red Galleon had returned to the United States, arriving in Boston after their rather eventful visit to Europe. The Rangers had loved getting a chance to see Paris, but they figured that the City of Lights had probably seen enough Ranger action recently, and figured sticking around was only going to invite further incursions. Orion was dragged by Emma and Gia through the streets, pointing out all the shops to him as they went. They figured that the first issue to address before they dealt with his wardrobe was to get his hair into a manageable state, and dragged him into a boutique.
They had already gotten a fairly substantial amount of money for the goblet, and looking at Orion now, not to mention the reaction they got from anyone that saw him with them, they figured it was going to be a lot of work getting him to look less like some random guy they had dragged out of a homeless shelter. As soon as they entered, they could see the reaction from one of the stylists, seeing Orion's tangled, unkempt hair. The stylist was dressed very flamboyantly, in a red silk shirt, with very baggy sleeves, and intricate gold embroidery, with black leather trousers. He had feathery, expertly styled brown hair. As soon as he saw Orion, his jaw virtually hit the floor.
"Excuse me, our friend here would like..."
"Honey, your friend doesn't need a stylist, he needs a complete tearodown." The stylist interrupted Emma with a huge gasp. "Has he been shipwrecked on a desert island or something?"
"A deserted planet actually." Orion responded honestly. Gia saw the look the stylist gave him as Emma face-palmed, hearing Orion say this. They hadn't thought to explain to him that he probably shouldn't be too forthcoming about details of his past. Gia pulled the stylist aside.
"Sorry, but um..." She looked around. She saw a newspaper on the table, one with their latest wanted posters on it. She picked it up, and held it beside her face, taking off her baseball cap so he could get a good look at her face, next to the poster now declaring her to be worth a bounty of 30 million dollars. It was a calculated risk, while some people still blamed the Rangers for the invasion, and some were just greedy enough to try and claim the bounty from Vekar, they found that in a lot of places, the civilians seemed to realise that they were trying to help and tended to give them a free pass.
"You're the Rangers?" He asked in a low voice that barely carried on his breath. Gia just nodded, at which the stylist smiled brightly.
"You see that guy? He's the new guy, the Silver Ranger." Gia told her. She pulled out a huge stack of cash. "I know it'll be a lot of work, but we can..."
"Please, do you really think I'm going to charge the Power Rangers? I would be honoured to work on him." He rushed out in a tone that indicated how excited he was. Despite his earlier assessment how much work it was going to be, Gia had a feeling that he was excited at the prospect of one of the Rangers rocking one of his styles on national television. He looked to Orion thoughtfully for a moment, trying to get an idea of his build, bone structure, skin tone and anything else that would lead him to a style that would work. Orion just looked to Gia and Emma a little sceptically as the stylist seemed to give him the same look some of his fellow miners gave a chunk of rock before figuring out the best way to proceed. The stylist let out a little sigh. "Well sweetie, never say I don't enjoy a challenge. Hmm...I think I have something in mind. What's your name?"
"Orion." He told her.
"Well Orion, take a seat." He told him, guiding him to a chair and sitting him down. Orion got a panicked look on his face as the chair went back, resting his neck and head into a sink. "I'll begin with this disaster zone you call hair...and those nails, oh my God...alright this is going to be a lot of work. Cheryl! Get the medicated shampoo, and clear my appointments for the rest of the day."
"Um...I'm not sure..."
"Please, a new Ranger needs a new look." The stylist assured him. "Just lie back and relax. This is going to be my Michaelangelo's David."
Emma and Gia took a seat as the stylist went to the side and started talking to her co-workers, gesturing wildly to the girls and Orion. Emma picked up an environmental magazine.
"It looks like we're causing a stir." She stated.
"So much for keeping a low profile." Gia responded, looking for something to read. Before she could find something though, another couple of stylists came over.
"Hi, we're really sorry to disturb you." One of them began. "We were just wondering...would you like us to...um..."
"We just came in for our friend." Emma told them.
"There'd be no charge!" One of them insisted. "We just really wanted to be able to say we've done a style for the Power Rangers."
The girls looked to each other, considering this for a moment, before nodding and getting up.
"Alright, that would be great!" Gia answered as they headed over to the chairs to take a seat.
Back on the Red Galleon, Jake was up on deck with Tensou. The little mechanical parrot had his wings spread open, and he was holding up a mechanism that looked a lot like a catapult. Jake had morphed into his Green Corsair mode, but removed his helmet.
"Ready Jake?" Tensou asked.
"Pull!" Jake said in response. With that, Tensou started firing off clay pigeons. The Red Galleon was a significant distance out over the bay, hidden by cloud cover, so he knew that it would be safe, since there were minimal chances anyone would be hit by falling debris. He levelled his blaster, taking careful aim and opening fire. Shot after shot rang out as he fired for them. As Tensou finished the set, he cursed loudly.
"Three out of ten." Tensou told him. "You're getting worse Jake."
"It's this damned blaster!" He protested. "The balance must be off or something!"
"Well something's off, that's for sure." Troy said with a smile. "You never score less than a nine."
"He has this morning." Tensou chimed in. "He hasn't scored above a six."
Jake just pulled a face as Tensou said this, informing the others of his disastrous performance. Troy just sighed and shook his head.
"Look on the bright side, at least you weren't dragged along on that shopping trip." Troy chuckled. "I hate shopping with a vengeance. Can you imagine having to get a whole wardrobe?"
"That poor guy." Noah agreed. "Orion never stood a chance."
"It's hard to say no to Gia." Jake agreed, inspecting his blaster, convinced it wasn't working properly. "Or Emma."
"Mind if I give it a try?" Noah asked him, holding out a hand. Jake let out a small growl as Noah took the blaster off him, and adopted a stance. "Pull!"
Tensou fired off another salvo, at which Noah started to shoot. Jake just clenched his jaw as the set ended and Noah raised the barrel, pointing the gun in a safe direction.
"Eight out of ten." Tensou stated. "Good work Noah."
"Beginner's luck!" Jake stated, snatching his blaster back.
"Jake, I don't think it's the pistol that's at fault here." Troy told him. Jake just rolled his eyes. "I think it's maybe you that's out of balance."
"I'm telling you, the pistol..."
Troy snatched the blaster from him and pointed it out over the edge of the ship.
"Pull!" He called out. Tensou fired off another set, which Troy targeted with precision. He held up the blaster as he finished.
"Eight out of ten! Not bad!" Noah responded.
"Look, none of us know much about Orion." Troy told him. "We're all disappointed Jordan isn't back, but we have to make the best of the situation."
"Yeah, give the guy a chance." Noah told him. "If you remember rightly, you were the same way when Jordan joined the team, and he ended up becoming one of your best friends!"
Jake grabbed his pistol and Troy's.
"PULL!" He yelled. Tensou fired off another set, which Jake took down angrily. He fired a huge salvo at them, which created a virtual wall of laser blasts. All of the clay pidgeons shattered, but then he fired off so many rounds it would have been impossible to miss them.
"There, ten out of ten!" Jake snorted, throwing the blasters down. One of them went off, causing Troy and Noah to jump as it narrowly missed their feet. Jake didn't seem to notice though as he stormed away, heading back into the ship.
"Oh yeah, this is going to end well." Noah grumbled.
"Give it time." Troy told him. "It's like you said, Jordan rubbed him the wrong way at the beginning. Maybe Orion will prove himself to him."
Back at the boutique, the stylist mopped his brow with a handkerchief as he worked furiously on Orion. The others had finished with Gia and Emma, and were now assisting him in the huge task of reversing months, perhaps years of neglect in his appearance.
Once the others were finished with his finger and toe nails, which now looked human as opposed to some form of talons, the stylist checked out his work. He smiled as he was finally able to accept that he was done. He backed away from Orion, taking the shawl off him.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I think we're done here!" He declared, looking like he had just completed a great sculpture or tremendous painting. Given the difference in Orion's appearance, it wasn't far off the mark. Gia and Emma both smiled.
"Well, I know who I'm coming to if I'm ever in Boston again." She declared.
"Yeah, you look great Orion!" Emma agreed.
"Now, if you want to do something about these...oh sweetie I think calling them rags would be glorifying it...then my friend owns a store just down the street. It's called Gloria's, just show her this card and tell her I sent you, she'll take good care of you." The stylist told him, handing Orion a business card. "Call me any time. That's...um...that's my personal number. Just call any time."
"Thank you." Orion said as he took the card. He looked to Gia and Emma as they took him from the boutique. The stylist beamed broadly as he watched them go, knowing that soon the whole world would see the Silver Ranger doing battle to free the world, and looking good doing it!