A/N: Have to say, this one is one of those that took me a few tries to get right, but somehow, after rereading it, it just screamed that this was what it was supposed to be all along. Enjoy!

"…": characters talking to each other

'…': characters talking to themselves

"words": other side of a phone conversation

(…): extra facts about something in the story

(Takes place three years after "Mystic Fate II; two years after "Now the Final Fury")

Theme 41: Match

Loft, Jungle Karma Pizza, March 31, 2010, 5:30 am – Ocean Bluff, CA, USA

Lily Chilman shook her head as she listened to her friend on the other line. She and her predecessor-in-Yellow Chip Thorn had been in contact for a few months ever since the last Power Ranger Reunion at Turtle Cove on the Animarium. Meeting the actual Wild Zords had been amazing to say the least, and she was positive that Jarrod had fallen on his butt in shock at Cole Evans' Red Lion Zord's greeting, followed by its snatching the reformed Noble Lion for a... "talk" in the jungle, causing Cole Evans to run after his personal Zord, concerned over the fate of the young man.

"Are you sure, Lil?" Chip asked concern lacing the request. Lily could just see her ginger-haired friend lounging on a beanbag in Rock Porium, hiding the cell phone from Nikki Slambrook who, oddly enough, had a strong aversion to the small electronic devices.

"Absolutely. They are a match made in heaven if I ever saw one!" Lily exclaimed reclining on her hammock. Retrieving her yellow cheetah that the boys (Jarrod and Flit included) had collectively chipped in to buy for her birthday last month she snuggled it. Granted, it was about three feet tall, but she felt it was an excellent gift.

Chip hesitated with his next words, but when he spoke them they were enough to get the Yellow Cheetah scrambling out of her hammock to the extent that she ended up tripping over her own feet. "Well, uh, if you think that they're such a match made in heaven, Lily, then you're in for a rude awakening. They're, uh, dating other people."

"What?" Lily all about shrieked. "How could you let that happen?"

"Hey! Don't blame me here! How in the hell am I supposed to tell Xander and Vida that they need to start dating each other because the newest female Ranger demands it?" Chip paused to regain control of his temper which, while normally mild and very hard to ignite was currently on the edge of sparking a random electrical storm outside; the clouds were already rolling into town. Toby shot his employee a knowing glance as he hurried outside to move his Jimmy Hendrix-cutout back into the store to prevent it from getting wet.

"Well, duh, you're like a mage or something! Can't you do something to get them together?" Lily asked after a moment once she'd made sure that none of her fellow employees and Rangers had heard her impromptu scream.

Chip resisted the urge to somehow invent a spell on the fly that would allow him to reach through the phone and strangle his successor. Don't get him wrong, he liked her; he really did. However, she was a Matchmaker, one of the most dangerous forms of female Rangers, and one whom he was sure would be killed and spit out by the combined anger of Xander and Vida.

"Listen, Lil, I may be a mage, but some things are beyond my control. This is one of them. I am not going to try to play matchmaker with two of my best friends for fear that they will kill me and I'm almost one hundred percent sure that Vida'll castrate me." He gulped at the thought, not wanting to imagine it actually taking place. He knew that Vida was capable of such a deed, even if it was done verbally. Xander, he was sure, would not appreciate being told who to date as the last time someone had tried to do that, Xander's eyes had turned so cold and impersonal that he had felt as if he was looking at a human glacier. He shivered. No, there was no way in Infershia that he was going to interfere in his friends' relationships... even if he personally agreed with everything that Lily said.

Lily huffed in annoyance as she picked up her cheetah from where it had landed on the floor, gently placing it back onto her hammock. Honestly, why couldn't she make Chip see that bringing the two Mystic Force Rangers together wasn't going to be as difficult as he thought?

"Fine. I'm going to come down to Briarwood and do it myself!" Lily declared hotly already moving to pack a duffel bag with some clothes and necessities. "I'll be there soon!" Ignoring Chip's heated protests, she turned off the cell phone and tossed it into the duffel, blithely ignoring the now frantic rings.

As Lily marched down the stairs and out of Jungle Karma Pizza, ignoring the startled looks from her co-workers she vowed to make the two Rangers see that they were a match made in heaven... even if it meant that she had to interrupt dates and lock them into a broom closet along the way. Now, if only she could hotwire Jarrod's new black motorcycle she'd be in business...