Author's Note: Co-written with SunsetBabe17!
Disclaimer: Don't own anything belonging to PR!
Kim swept her hair up into a messy pony as she walked into her kitchen, making a beeline for the already brewed pot of hot coffee waiting for her. She needed her caffeine before she did anything in the morning, or else she'd be useless. After adding the necessary cream and sugar, she brought the steaming mug over to the kitchen table and sat down.
About half a cup of coffee later, she sighed, realizing things needed to get done.
"Alright," she pulled out her cell phone, "time to find those kids." She dialed a familiar number. It rang a few times before someone finally picked up on the other end.
"Hey, I need your help…"
Haley's Cyberspace Café was a bustle of activity, with the after school rush of teenagers pouring in. Charissa groaned, eyeing the crowd as she tied her apron, plastering a fake smile on her face as she prepared to deal with the numerous customers. But the smile soon turned genuine when a familiar mop of brown hair slid onto the stool in front of her.
"Hey, Conner, your usual?" Conner was one of Haley's regulars and Charissa knew that he had also gone to Reefside High, graduating just last year. He had been a big soccer star and played with Rachel's brother, Christopher. Now he went to Reefside Community College. He flashed her a charming grin.
"Not just yet, I'm meeting a few old friends here, so I'll wait for them."
"'Kay, no prob, I'll come back over in a bit," Charissa moved on to the next table, taking their drink orders. As the rush was dying down Charissa made her way over to her friends that were gathered around one of the various computer terminals.
"Find anything yet?" She asked the group, who were supposed to be looking up a way to contact their pink teammate. Melissa groaned, scrolling through a search engine.
"I can't seem to find anything. Her name doesn't even bring up any Olympic news sites." Charissa peered over her shoulder, laughing a little at her friend's frustration.
"Maybe because you spelled her last name wrong." She pointed at the screen where Melissa had typed in the name. "There's no "e" in "Hart." Melissa blushed. How was she supposed to know that? She quickly typed in the correct spelling and a bunch of new hits appeared. She opened the web page depicting information on the current and previous U.S. Olympic teams, searching for the female gymnasts.
Conner saw a familiar glimpse of yellow and white walk through the doors and he waved Kira and Trent over to join him, Ethan, and Dr. O. It was no surprise that the two had come together, they now lived in an apartment together in New York while he went to art school and she worked on her music.
"Hey guys!" Kira joyfully hugged all of her old teammates in greeting, before taking a big gulp of the apple juice they had ordered for her. They were all settled in and catching up with each other, laughing about old times when a cheerful shout interrupted.
"We got it! Charissa!" A rather short male, dressed in red Conner noted, over by the computers exclaimed. He was grinning wildly until a tall blonde near him smacked him upside the head. He frowned and rubbed his head, turning to glare at her. "Ow, Rachel, what was that for?" She just shook her head at him, sighing in exasperation. He watched as Charissa walked over to them. He recognized the two blondes as Charissa's two friends who often came to visit her at work, but he had never actually met them. He had never seen the two boys they were with at Haley's before though. Yet, upon closer inspection he realized he actually knew the brunette. That was Jace Thomason. They had played soccer together at Reefside High. He didn't seem like the type of guy Charissa would get along with. Maybe they were working on a school project? His eyes slid over to his old teacher, who was watching he group across the café with a small frown. They were chattering away excitedly.
Kimberly dropped her bags inside the spacious front hallway of her new home. It was a bit large for her tastes but she figured she'd indulge. Plus, it came with a pool. And the landscaping was just gorgeous.
"Kim," a man struggling with a stack of boxes called to her, "you could help bring in the rest of the boxes. Most of this is your stuff, after all." She giggled.
"Sorry, Billy. I just love our new house!" Billy nervously rubbed the back of his neck.
"Kim, you know, I could easily find a living space of my own. We don't have to live together, and I don't want to feel like a burden to you." Kimberly frowned at her longtime friend.
"Billy! What's the point of being a once world famous gymnast if I can't spend a little of my money on my friends? You're not a burden. Besides, it'd be easier to have you living here with me." She easily answered, reassuring him.
After realizing she was hopeless with technology and research, she had enlisted the help of her genius friend. She needed help tracking down the kids and then she figured she would need more help for her tenure as a new ranger. So she had to tell him all about her journey on Phadeos to reach the great power once again and about her new team. He was always the problem solver when they served together on the Mighty Morphin team and she knew that he helped out and worked in the Command Center for the Zeo Rangers. Her and her team could definitely use his expertise. He would be the Alpha to her Zordon…except she could never live up to that. She frowned, wondering yet again why she was chosen to lead this team instead of those with more leadership experience like Jason or Tommy.
She looked at her watch, startled at the time, realizing the kids were going to come meet her at the house soon. Crap, she wouldn't have time to unpack. Oh well, the least she could do was lug all the boxes into the house.
The rest of her teammates had obviously been doing their research. They had gotten ahold of the number of the gym she worked at, or used to work at now that she moved away, and the secretary, after much persuasion that Kim was not sure how they had gotten the very strict Nancy to give away her cell number, managed to contact her before her and Billy had gotten in touch with them. Billy had done some research for her and found out that they all attended Reefside High, luckily she was the only one residing out of town. Unluckily for her, that meant a move to Reefside was in order. She had never been to Reefside before, at least it was still in California, not too far.
"Is this really the place?" Andy questioned as he drove up the drive of a rather large Victorian house. "Are you sure you got the right address?"
"Yes, I'm sure," Charissa snapped.
"Alright, alright," he grumbled, putting the car in park. "Nose goes on ringing the bell!" Jace was quick to follow his friend's example, sticking his pointer finger on his nose, but the three girls just rolled their eyes. Rachel strode forward and rang the doorbell. Kimberly opened the door with a big smile, ushering them in. The kids openly stared as they walked through the house.
"Oh, don't mind all the boxes. Haven't unpacked yet." Touring through the house they ran into a blonde man around Kim's age. "And here, this is my friend, Billy. He was the blue ranger on my original team and is a technical genius. He's going to help us out while we're rangers, build us gadgets and all that good stuff." Billy hesitantly waved and the teens introduced themselves.
"Alright," Kim looked around at the bare house and its lack of furniture, "it's nice out lets go sit outside." The teens followed her into the backyard and they formed a circle sitting Indian style in the grass.
"So do you all know each other aside from going to school together? Are you friends?" Please say yes, it would make things so much easier Kim thought.
"Err, Jace and I are friends."
"The three of us are best friends." Charissa piped up, "But we just met these two the other day."
"Ok so not like my team, but that's ok," she added hastily due to the looks she was receiving. "I guess today will be more of a get to know each other session then."
"So tell me a little about yourselves," Kim looked around the circle but no one spoke up, "Alright I'll go first, my name is Kimberly Hart, you can call me Kim, and I was a professional gymnast. Now I'm about to open my own gymnastics school right here in Reefside."
After a period of silence in which it was obvious that no one was going to speak up, and thinking this exercise was all rather silly and unnecessary, Charissa rolled her eyes and went next, "I'm Charissa, I play water polo and volleyball, and work at Haley's Cybercafe." She then turned and stared at Rachel who was sitting next to her, clearly indicating that she was finished.
"I'm Rachel and I play volleyball. And I have a rather large family," she shrugged not really sure what to say.
"I'm Melissa and I also play volleyball," there was a long pause as she tried to think of something else to say, but was saved by Andy.
"I'm Andy and I work at a music store with Jace and I like to surf."
"I'm Jace and as Andy mentioned I work at a music store and I play soccer, captain this year," he beamed.
"Ok," Kim frowned; this wasn't quite working out how she thought it would. "So no martial artists in the group, so you will all be at the same skill level fighting wise. That should make training a bit easier I hope."
The teens began fidgeting as they lapsed into an awkward silence. Then, Billy joined the group clearing his throat, "Here are your communicators, you just press the button on the side and you will be able to speak to each other," he handed the watch like devices out, guessing the colors based on their clothing.
"How did you know I was the red ranger?" Jace snapped on the communicator.
"You've already bonded with the power, us rangers have the tendency to wear our ranger color," Billy explained and pulled at his blue t-shirt. Jace blushed, looking at his own shirt and realizing it was indeed red.
"Well it is important that we are able to trust each other and work as a team so I want you guys to start hanging out, getting to know each other. That way if you become friends before the Power Rangers show up it won't be as suspicious if you all of a sudden are seen together all the time around the same time that the Power Rangers show up. Dulcea said we would have some time to prepare. So let's meet here tomorrow afternoon and do some real training." Kim wrapped up the awkward meeting and walked the kids to the door.
"Soo..." Jace tried to break up the awkward silence that had fallen in the car after their meeting with Kim. But, unfortunately he couldn't think of anything to say. He never really was one for words. His friend noticed and picked up the slack.
"I hear Kira Ford's playing at Haley's tonight?" He addressed the group as a whole, but his eyes were focused on a certain blonde in the back.
"Oh, yeah, she used to be pretty popular, drew in large crowds before she left for New York. I saw her performances a few times when I started working there, she's pretty good," Charissa chimed in. She personally had posted bright neon flyers around the Cafe advertising for the up-and-coming singer.
"You guys wanna go?" Andy asked. The three girls looked at each other and Rachel shrugged.
"Why not?"
It didn't take them long to get Haley's Cyberspace Café from Kim's. As soon as they pulled up they could hear Kira's gentle crooning spilling out the door. There was a greater amount of cars in the parking lot than Charissa was used to seeing.
"She must've drawn in quite a crowd tonight."
When they walked in her statement proved to be true. Most of Reefside High must've been there! Charissa saw a familiar red head through the crowd, struggling with a full tray of drinks.
"Charissa, you're here!" Haley shot her an apologetic look. "Interested in helping out a girl? I didn't expect this many people to show up!" Charissa laughed.
"Sure, no problem, I could always use the extra cash."
"Thank you so much, these are going to table 3, do you mind?" Haley handed off the tray to the blonde and took off to make more drinks.
"I'll come join you guys once it slows down," Charissa said and went to deliver the drinks to the girls at table 3. The group of four struggled to make their way through the crowd to an open table. They didn't get very far from the entrance when Jace bumped into a tall brunette, who also happened to be wearing red.
"Sorry man, my bad..." he looked into the face of the guy he bumped. "Conner!"
"Hey Jace! How's it going?" Conner clapped the younger boy on the back, glad to see an old teammate. The dark haired boy that had been standing next to Conner turned around when he heard a familiar name.
"Christopher!" Jace greeted his other former soccer teammate. "What are you guys doing here?" Jace was so caught up greeting his old friends that he didn't even see the look that crossed one of his current teammate's faces.
"I'm just, uh, I'm going to get some air." Melissa told her friends and all but ran for the door. Rachel reached up and smacked her brother on the back of the head.
"Ow! What was that for?" Christopher exclaimed, bringing a hand up to his head. Rachel glared and crossed her arms. Andy looked back at the retreating form of Melissa as Jace also looked to his new friend for an explanation.
"Those two used to date. Let's just say it didn't end well." Christopher rolled his eyes and those watching could tell that this was a worn out argument between the siblings. Charissa chose that moment to walk up to them with a now empty tray.
"Oh, so that's why I just saw Melissa walk out like she was on fire," she gave Christopher a pointed look.
"Should someone make sure she's okay? Questioned Andy, looking at the entrance. As if on cue a high pitch scream could be heard from outside of the cafe.