Author's Notes: Quotes from future sections of the story can be found below; figured we'd leave some hints about the upcoming chapters. Hope you all enjoyed this. And a big thanks to all those who voted for us in the Guardians of Earth Awards; we won! The title is a subtitle to one of the "Green With Evil" episodes, btw.
Chapter Twenty
Out of Control
It was only a couple hours before closing time at the Youth Center, and the place was empty, save for Ernie, who was clearing off the last dirty table. "Hey, guys!" he called cheerfully. "Guess what I found yesterday!"
"Winning lotto ticket?" Zack asked.
"Even better." Ernie set down his tray and bustled over behind the counter, the ten ex-Rangers clustering around the counter. He lifted a large cardboard box onto the countertop and reached inside, producing an old newspaper with the front-page headline "Who is the Red Ranger?" above the sub-head "The Sentinel Hunts for Red's Secret Identity." A picture of the Red Ranger dominated the front page, surrounded by several smaller shots of various men… one of whom looked a whole lot like Billy. "It's all my old Power Rangers news clippings!"
"Oh, no," Jason whispered, staring at the picture while Tommy, Kimberly, Zack and Trini laughed and Billy groaned in a long-suffering sort of way.
"Ouch," Kira said, staring at the article. "The newspaper went on a hunt for Jason's identity?"
"For weeks," Jason moaned. "Everyone went on a hunt for my identity. That was right after the zord wreck."
"Wow." Ethan whistled as Ernie pulled out more papers. "You guys really downplayed how much damage was done."
"Dude, isn't that you?" Conner asked Billy, pointing to one of the pictures on the first paper.
"It was horrible," Billy said with a shudder. "People following me around for weeks, asking me to sign autographs in red ink. Wouldn't leave me alone. Tommy and I didn't speak for weeks."
"Why not?" Trent asked.
"It was right after the Ranger Parade. He had that fear of crowds for a good long while," Zack explained. He sighed wistfully. "Ah, memories…" Jason glowered at him.
"What exactly was going on there?" Ernie asked curiously. "I remember you guys coming in here covered in oil a lot after that… always with some silly excuse about broken cars and striking oil…"
"Well," Trini said slowly, "Goldar came into the Kinko's where Billy worked and tried to copy something. Billy went after him. By the time we got there, he'd been chasing Goldar in circles around the building for so long that he didn't realize Goldar was gone."
"So we thought he was overworked, maybe having a bit of a breakdown," Tommy said. "They say geniuses are prone to mental illness, you know."
"Really?" Ethan said, looking worried.
"Come on, Ethan," Conner teased. "You have nothing to worry about."
"Hey!" Ethan said indignantly. "You should talk!"
"Anyway, we got our zords and tried to chase him down and ended up crashing. Then we had to tow our zords back to our hidden base in the mountains," Kimberly continued. "Well, actually, we tried to tow them to a mechanic first, but no one could help us, and somewhere along the way the governor got us a marching band and a police escort."
"So they threw me to the fan girls in the crowd so they could slip away unnoticed," Tommy growled.
"Hey," Zack said, "it was for the—"
"If you say 'good of the team,' I'm going to kill you with Ernie's blender."
"Listen to him, Zack," Ernie said nervously. "I love that blender."
"I can't believe you told those reporters I was delusional," Jason said to Zack, glaring down at the papers.
"Hey, you were the one who let Tommy's name slip! What was I supposed to do, give them Tommy's full name and address?"
"How about, keep your mouth shut?" Jason said dryly.
"I hate to admit it, but Zack's right," Billy said fairly. "If he hadn't said that, someone might have stumbled upon Tommy's identity."
"This from the guy who begged me to morph at school to get rid of his fan club!" Jason retorted.
"Guys?" Conner said, smoothly interrupting before Billy could reply. "You've got to tell us this story."
"Yes, please do," Ernie said eagerly.
Jason merely groaned while his friends looked at each other, trying to decide where to start.
"Well," Tommy said slowly, "after Jason said my real name in front of those reporters following us, Zack said that Jason had had a head injury and heard voices. Billy made a comment about people being able to guess who Jason was by looking through medical records, and of course, everyone took his advice."
"Isn't that, like, illegal?" Kira asked. "Aren't those private?"
"Well, they're supposed to be," Kimberly said. "But people don't always follow the rules. And computer hackers are hard to trace."
"Trini and I caught a few of them, but we'd broken so many laws intercepting people that there was no point in going to the police with the information," Billy said with a sigh.
Tommy frowned, not liking the fact that Billy was letting slip that he'd committed a felony for the sake of Power Rangers work (who knew what Conner would do if he thought Ranger work was a good excuse for committing crimes) and Tommy hastily continued. "And reporters don't have to reveal their sources."
"They go to jail when they don't, though, don't they?" Conner asked.
"If the judge is dead set on getting their source, yeah," Trini said. "The judge just charges them with contempt of court and holds them until either the judge or the reporter cracks. But the reporters who go to jail rather than talk are considered heroes by everyone else in their profession and every civil rights activist. Besides, no one in Angel Grove was very concerned with that sort of breach. Every able-bodied psych patient was a possible Red Ranger."
"The town went nuts," Jason grumbled. "Just like they did every other time they got some sort of clue about who one of us was."
Conner, who was now digging through the box of papers, clippings and magazines, yanked out another copy of the Sentinel, dated a week after the first Ernie had shown them. "Hey, which of you guys is this?" he asked, pointing at the picture.
Tommy stared at it in horror. It was a black-and-white photograph, a fifth-page article, but no less cringe-worthy than a front-page exclusive. There were Tommy and Kimberly, morphed and hugging tightly, a fiery explosion in the distance behind them.
Zack burst out laughing. Billy looked down at his feet. Trini seemed to be trying not to grin. Jason bit his lip, trying to decide whether to laugh or say something to distract Conner.
"That's me and Tommy," Kimberly said in a determinedly calm tone, taking the paper from Conner, who didn't put up a fight, but only because it was Kimberly and she was scary enough to Conner even before she'd wiped the floor with him in Jason's basement. "There was a lot of speculation about the Pink and White Rangers, too."
"Yeah," Tommy said, shifting uncomfortably.
"Jason was so happy when they started that," Zack said through his laughter. "He was glad to have the focus off of him."
"Ow! Ethan, that was my foot," Conner complained, looking at Ethan. Ethan, who'd made the attack deliberately in the hopes of making Conner realize his mistake, just rolled his eyes and fished a magazine out of the box.
"'Who is Billy Cranston?'" he read, turning to look questioning at Billy. A younger, cringing Billy, surrounded by various people, covered the front page of the magazine. "What's this all about?"
"Well," Billy said with a sigh, "the trouble with all those reporters going through medical records didn't end with Jason. My friends were worried about my mental health after my 'hallucination' of Goldar, so they convinced me to see a therapist. I figured it couldn't hurt, get some of the stress off my chest…"
"And, of course, Billy had been taking martial arts classes from Jason and training hard," Kimberly said. "It didn't help that he was—and still is—a genius."
"Exactly the sort of kid you'd expect to be leading the Power Rangers," Ernie said, nodding. "I remember people saying that the Rangers' voices sounded like teenagers, and that's why they were leaning more towards you all being younger than a lot of the candidates."
"So… everyone assumed Billy was the Red Ranger?" Kira said. They all nodded. "How'd you prove them wrong?"
"Well," Tommy said, "we all seemed to be snapping, one right after the other. Zack had his laughing fits—"
"Tommy had his fear of crowds," Trini interrupted with a smile.
"And Trini had a violent streak," Tommy retorted.
"So it was no surprise that Jason was about to crack," Zack continued. "Soon Billy lost it completely, and he took Jason down with him."
1994
"Isn't there anything good on?" Kimberly complained as Zack flipped through the channels.
"Cartoons, soap operas, picture of us… wait." Zack flipped back to the news, staring at a picture of the Power Rangers on the screen with a voice over of a Channel Six reporter. The words "The Hunt for the Real Red Ranger" were at the bottom of the screen in big bold letters.
"Due to a slip of information from the Blue Ranger we have managed to compile a database of possible Red Rangers, though only one can be our crime-fighting Kinko's spokesman." The screen changed to show profiles of various people, the reporter explaining each for the sake of the blind. "Dustin Andrews, age 31. Incarcerated for burglary and grand theft auto. He was released a year and a half ago on parole and is attending group therapy, where he is struggling to make up for his sordid past." Dustin was blond and toothless and had an intense gaze that could make children hide under their beds on general principles. Kimberly shuddered.
"Right, like HE could be the Red Ranger!" Jason spat loudly. "He's a thief! A dishonest person with no control over impulses! Are these people insane!"
"Aw…" Zack cooed, reaching to pat Jason's head. "Is someone jealous?"
"Zack, any part of you that touches me, you're not getting back."
"Alfonso Manquitar, age 59. Well-known in the fields of martial arts, kickboxing and electronics. Currently, he resides in Angel Grove Asylum." The picture was of an old man, with a full beard, hair coming out of his ears, and a bald head covered with liver spots. The lazy eye didn't help, either.
Jason groaned in despair and laid his head down on the table. Trini patted his back soothingly and muttered something comforting in his ear.
"How would he get out of the asylum to fight?" Kimberly asked thoughtfully.
"Well, you know, Power Rangers can do anything," Zack said cheerfully. Jason growled and tossed a piece of wax fruit from the table's centerpiece at him.
"Apparently they can't duck too well," Tommy joked as Zack rubbed the side of his head.
"Rafael Sanchez, age 23. Released from Angel Grove Asylum three years prior and is now taking a boxing class." Rafael looked like a stereotypical gangster, with a do-rag on his head and tattoos covering his neck. Though they lived relatively sheltered suburban lives, the teens could pick out one or two gang symbols in the mess of tattoos surrounding a large, ornately detailed pot leaf. The only really out-of-place thing about his clichéd appearance was a neatly-trimmed mustache that curled at the ends. Jason took one look at the screen and Trini attempted to cushion his forehead as he tried to slam it repeatedly against the table. The remaining wax fruits rattled in their glass bowl.
"And finally, William Cranston—"
Jason's head shot up and everyone stared at the TV.
"—gymnast and martial artist who recently decided to undergo therapy for unknown reasons. These are only a few clues to the identity of the Red Ranger; Channel Six will continue the search tonight at eleven…"
Slowly, everyone turned to look at Billy. He looked back at them, equally surprised. Silence settled over them for a long while. Of course, Zack was the first to finally break it.
"…Billy… you're the… and you never told us?"
The next few days alternated between hell and darker hell for Billy. There were the random people coming up to him for autographs (as the wrong-colored Ranger), the death glares Jason threw at him all the time, the groupies crowding him between every class, and the countless other things he didn't want to think about. Bulk and Skull, as always, managed to make everything worse, but then again, that was what they excelled at. Bulk and Skull alternated between trying to convince everyone that Skull was the real Red Ranger (Bulk was just smart enough to realize no one would believe he was the Red Ranger), and trying to get Billy to divulge even a tiny clue about the identity of the other Rangers. Billy was so annoyed by this point that he almost told them that he had never actually met them, they just fought crime and had communal sex together, but he was too afraid it would end up on the news (like everything else he'd said lately), so he simply glowered at Bulk and Skull each time they approached him and spent the rest of his time trying to give his crowd of fans the slip. Finally, Billy couldn't take it anymore. Billy decided it had to end. Now.
And Jason was the only person who could help him end it.
Jason wandered down the hallway, fingering the hall pass he'd stuffed in his pocket. He was being sent to the office for some random reason with about ten other people and that guy who always got called to the office no matter what had happened. It was probably some P.R. thing (public relations or Power Rangers, it didn't really matter), like "Being the Friend of the Red Ranger." Again. One of those things where he got to sit down and talk about how great it was to be best buds with a Ranger, especially the Red one. And oh, he'd never have guessed. I mean, Billy? Leader of the Power Rangers? He doesn't seem like the type at all. Not at ALL. AT ALL!
Jason grimaced at the rather bitter irony. That stupid P.R. thing would have been aired, too, if Zedd hadn't sent one of his monsters and the Red Ranger had gotten the idea to lure it over to the area near the news building—because of course the street was really wide there honest, much better battleground than the park, cuz you know the park has all those people milling about in that wide open space—and the ensuing battle had destroyed half the news building "before" they could stop it. If only the Red Dragonzord hadn't head-butted the monster when he was standing right in front of the building… then it wouldn't have collapsed like that and burst into flames… it was an accident, really… and downtown Angel Grove was very good at evacuating so it's not like anyone died… and it's not like he'd meant to kick a corner of the building across the street when he'd converted the Dragonzord to Warrior Mode and tackled the monster…
"PSST! Jason! C'mere!"
Stopping, Jason turned towards the sound and saw a hand beckoning to him from the janitor's closet. Coming as close as he dared, Jason peered into the dark. "…Billy?" He crept closer. "What are you—hey!" Billy's hand shot out and grabbed the front of Jason's shirt and hauled him in, shutting the door. Alone in the dark with Billy, the closet seemed quite ominous.
"…Billy. I'm going to ask you this very caref—"
"Jason, Jason, JASON! You HAVE to help me! I can't take this anymore!"
"Calm down, Billy. First off, I don't know if I care. Second, I have to get to the office—"
"No, no you don't. I called you out by calling the office from the payphone outside the office—you know, the only one that's not out of order?—and I nearly went into severe and sudden cardiac arrest every time a faculty or administration member walked by the window!"
"…Okay, now I'm confused—"
"I'm not speaking techno or riddles!"
"No, I mean, what's so important that you nearly got caught doing something… bad… by people who'd probably give you their first born?"
"It has to STOP!"
"What has to stop?"
"The fans, the crowds, the signing autographs that are the wrong color, the stares—"
"The Red Ranger thing? …Wait. Just how, exactly, do you want me to help?"
"Morph!"
"…Morph?"
"Yes! Morph! And wander around the halls! So people can see you and see me so this grievous oversight can come to an end!" Billy's tone was frantic and desperately, and though he wasn't laughing Jason was reminded strongly of a maniacal cackle.
"But this whole thing is your fault!"
"I do admit that my overzealous commenting to throw the demonic Paparazzi-like individuals off the scent is a primary cause of this unsavory turn of events but I am requesting that you help me in this endeavor so life may return to its prior norm."
Jason stared at Billy in the blackened shadows of the janitor's closet. "…Oh for the… whatever! Fine!"
"I knew you would see the positive ramifications of this undertaking!" Billy stumbled out of the closet, startling a random student. He looked oddly at Jason and Billy before running off when Jason glared at him. "Give me a few minutes to get back to class to reinforce the fact that I am not your secret—"
"You could just beep me."
"…Huh?"
It occurred to Jason suddenly that Billy wasn't quite in top form today. Raising his arm, Jason tapped his communicator. Billy nodded and scurried off and Jason closed himself back into the welcome darkness of the janitor's closet.
Sighing, he beat his head against the wall and accidentally whacked himself with a mop. "I knew there was a good reason I applied to go to that Peace Conference…"
Veronica strolled through the hall, feeling quite pleased with herself. She'd managed to miss a good twenty minutes of her utterly boring class by telling her male teacher she was having "woman troubles," and she'd spent the majority of that time chatting with her boyfriend in New York (once that nerd Cranston had gotten off the pay phone; she couldn't believe people actually thought that loser was the Red Ranger) and practicing a nice apologetic expression for when she returned to class.
As she passed the janitor's closet, she paused, listening hard. She could hear movement in the closet, accompanied by an odd beeping in the form of a slightly catchy tune. Someone was in there… and that meant she might be able to score a juicy piece of gossip. After a moment she heard a deep, vaguely familiar male voice muttering "Tyrannosaurus," and suddenly a flash of red light shone brightly through the cracks around the closet door. Startled, she waited, staring at the door expectantly.
There are plenty of odd candidates for sneaking around in a high school closet. Teachers, for one. Or two students who by all rights should dislike each other, such as a jock and a punk, or a geek and a cheerleader. Veronica, however, felt she was very prepared for any sort of shock, no matter who it was. Personally, she was hoping for nerds; the little do-gooders doing something wrong was definitely a story worth retelling over and over to a crowd of admiring friends and classmates. She didn't know what the red light was all about, or why someone would say "Tyrannosaurus" while hiding in a closet, but she was waiting eagerly with a malicious gleam in her eye, utterly ready for anything.
Except a superhero.
Veronica stared at the Red Ranger, her jaw hanging open nearly to the point of falling off. The Red Ranger looked around cautiously for a moment before spotting her. "Oh," he said uncertainly. "Hi."
"You… you… you're…"
"I'm the Red Ranger?" he said. "Yeah. I am."
Veronica turned and calmly ran like hell. When confronted with a Red Ranger coming out of a closet, there was only one thing to do—tell everyone you ever met.
Minutes ticked by slowly in Miss Appleby's class. It was sixth period, and students were bent over their class work. Well, some of them were… most were either talking quietly, staring off into space, writing notes/stories/poems, or other things not allowed during class time. Bulk and Skull were sitting near the back, conspiring about something undoubtedly Power-Ranger related. Kimberly was writing a response on a note to Tommy, her ink choice a bright pink that threatened to burn your retinas if you looked at it too long. Tommy sat a seat away on her right, doodling aimlessly all over his homework while waiting for Kimberly to finish. The poor soul sitting between the lovebirds was timing herself to see how much work she could get done before she got tricked into passing the note. Miss Appleby was at the chalkboard, writing something for her next class.
Suddenly, the door flew open, startling everyone. Standing within the frame was Veronica, who by all rights should be in an entirely different classroom. Before Miss Appleby could demand what she was doing, Veronica boomed out her earth-shattering news. "THE RED RANGER'S HERE!"
"Actually, I think he's in Mr. Dorsey's trig class right now," said a random girl in the back, pulling out a red notebook covered in pink hearts and leafing through it. Tommy and Kimberly looked at her in horror as her friends crowded closer to her desk.
Veronica shook her head violently. "No, he's here! Walking around the halls! With the SUIT!"
Tommy and Kimberly glanced at each other sharply. "Monster attack?" Kimberly mouthed, horrified.
Tommy tapped his communicator and shrugged, as if to say "I haven't heard anything." He looked down at his wrist suspiciously, held the communicator up to his ear and shook it violently. Kimberly did the same. When this yielded no results, they looked back at each other and shrugged again.
Miss Appleby frowned and set her chalk down with a snap. "Is this another one of your clever excuses to get out of class and disrupt mine?"
"No, it isn't, I swear! I heard someone whisper 'Tyrannosaurus' on my way back from the bathroom and I stopped to see who was in there and the Red Ranger came wearing the suit!"
"It's Billy Fergston!" someone shouted.
"Craigstein!" someone else corrected.
"CRANSTON!" Tommy and Kimberly yelled angrily.
"He's proving he's really the Red Ranger!" another student exclaimed.
"Why would he have to prove it?" someone else asked. "We all know it's true." Kimberly rolled her eyes and struggled to keep her mouth shut. Tommy suppressed a laugh.
"Settle down!" Miss Appleby shouted, and everyone instantly quieted. "I'm going to the office to see about this. Everyone, stay where you are." Miss Appleby marched out the door, dragging Veronica off by the arm.
"D'you think he's really in the hall?" someone wondered dreamily.
"Of course not!" Bulk roared, standing. Skull followed suit. "Do not be fooled by an imitator with a cheap costume! This—" Bulk wrapped an arm around Skull's neck and pulled him to him, despite the fact there was a desk between them— "is the real deal! He's seen it all! Show them, Skully!"
The now-free Skull ran down the aisle and took a flying leap onto Miss Appleby's desk. He teetered a moment, nearly falling off, then turned around, striking a heroic pose. Someone in the back clapped faintly for three whole seconds.
"Yes! This man has seen action!"
"I've seen ack-she-on!" Skull repeated proudly.
Bulk began stalking around the classroom, occasionally leaning over a startled and disgusted classmate, staring at them all with wide, dramatic eyes. "He's seen his life dangle before his eyes as he thought his doom was nigh!"
"But I kept on truckin'!" Skull snapped his fingers and bobbed his head like a redneck with delusions of country music stardom.
Bulk leaned his considerable girth over Kimberly, gazing down at her in a boogeyman sort of way, waggling his fingers. She scrunched up her nose and scrunched down in her seat, cringing and wondering why the desk had to have that stupid bar blocking her in. "He's seen the bowels of hell, so dark and disgusting! Mere humans would run screaming away!"
Skull smiled brilliantly and jerked his thumb upwards towards himself. "Not me, muchachos!"
"Yes this—this is a man who's looked fear in the face, laughed and said—"
"Do I know you?"
"Yes, ladies and germs, Eugene Skullovitch is the real deal!"
With a final pose, Skull called out, "Red Ranger, ACTIVATE!"
Kimberly and Tommy, unable to take it any longer, burst into loud, hysterical laughter. "Oh," Kimberly gasped, "you can't pay for entertainment like this!"
Without warning, the (real) Red Ranger stepped into the room, gave a half-hearted wave, then stepped out again as though it were the most common thing in the world to be a superhero randomly popping into a classroom and waving. Everyone stared blankly at the spot where he'd been, and then Bulk and Skull bolted after him, screaming, "IMPOSTER! Stand and fight! IMPOSTER!" while echoing each other perfectly.
Tommy and Kimberly looked at each other, wide-eyed, before sweeping everything off their desks and cramming it into their book bags. Racing for the door, they collided with about seven other students who had either done the same thing a second earlier or had just left everything behind. A few well-placed elbows and knees got Kimberly and Tommy through first, and they dashed down the hallway after Jason.
And now, for a taste of things to come:
1) Trent, not sure if Kira was in a "me-hate-Conner" mood or a "me-hate-everyone" mood, backed right into the headboard as Kira stalked towards him…
2) Kimberly stood before him, clad in her pink silk tank top and pajama shorts, holding her toothbrush in her mouth and a sparechange of clothes in her hands…
3) With a tone of pure bitch-slapping challenge, Kira added, "How much do you like your job, teacher man?"
4) In the slight pause that ensued, they could hear Bulk over the phone saying, "Don't worry, we're fine. That giraffe was no match for me! We couldn't get the monkey in, though, so we're working on a way to take off the orange paint."
5) Understanding and pure evil lit on Zack's face. "Did someone sneak her in whilst I was sleeping for a little hanky-panky?"
6) "I'm going to hell," Ethan whimpered.
"Yeah," Trent said fervently, "you really, really are."