Chapter Fifty-five

Back in Black

The attic was rarely used—or so Mr. and Mrs. Porter thought. They would have been deeply shocked to know that all of the things they'd stored in the attic over the years had been shoved as close to the door as possible, while a carefully-concealed tunnel through the boxes and bags and old furniture now led over to a small area of the attic. The improvised room had been meticulously cleaned, draped with black curtains for extra privacy and atmosphere. In the center of the room was a round table surrounded by nine mismatched chairs, the largest of which sat facing The Shrine.

Nine cloaked figures stood in front of the chairs, having rushed to the Shrine Room (as they were fond of calling it) after being summoned by coded text messages. They all looked expectantly at the leader, who got the chair facing The Shrine.

The leader held a candle torch over the black candle in front of her and lit the wick; the others followed her example. Then the leader threw back her hood—revealing Stacey.

"The second emergency meeting of D.O.R.K.S. will now come to order," Stacey said solemnly.

As one, all of the girls, save Stacey, sat. D.O.R.K.S. (Dr. Oliver's Royally Kissable Stalkers) had started last October. It had begun as nine girls looking to start their own club, but having nothing to really make a club about. Until the day they'd realized they all had a huge crush on Dr. Oliver.

It had gotten a little too elaborate somewhere along the way. The cloaks from Cyndi's mother's costume shop had made it feel more like a secret society than a club, and somehow it had all become a little more serious afterwards… a little too serious.

The Shrine was the most important part of the room, and it showed. It was set up on a heart-shaped red table at the back of the room, with a collage hanging behind it of various pictures taken of Dr. Oliver and clipped from the yearbook, red and black candles (red for love, black for secrecy) lining the edges, and various pieces of memorabilia in the center. Most of the memorabilia was comprised of graded quizzes and homework with little encouraging statements written by Dr. Oliver on them in red ink, but there was also a glass beaker that Dr. Oliver had touched (practically caressed, or so Betsy claimed), a lab coat that Dr. Oliver figured he'd lost (stolen by Stacey during one of the most daring capers D.O.R.K.S. had ever executed, after which she was unanimously voted President of D.O.R.K.S.), an empty pop can that Dr. Oliver's lips had touched (in a special place of honor, dead-center), a taped-up to-do-list that Gina had started to rip up and throw away before noticing a stray piece had fallen on Dr. Oliver's desk and he'd absently put it in his pocket (the piece that had said "Remember to feed dog" on it), an information sheet of random facts and trivia that Laura had compiled (she'd actually gotten the privilege of interviewing him for a journalism class assignment last semester), a receipt for a bag of Skittles that Amanda had offered to Dr. Oliver and he'd actually accepted, and, most importantly, a lock of his hair (Denise's older sister was a hairdresser at the shop where Dr. Oliver got his hair cut and Denise was getting her hair cut at the same time in the chair next to Dr. O's! and afterwards she'd "dropped" her keys and managed to grab some of Dr. Oliver's hair before her sister swept it up).

It was ludicrous. It was overly solemn. It was insanity. They were aware of all this. They were also aware of the fact that Dr. Oliver was just as far out of their reach as Brad Pitt. They just didn't care. It was more about the fun of having a club and doing secret missions and having something in common than Dr. Oliver himself.

The other members of D.O.R.K.S. looked expectantly at Stacey. She eyed The Shrine grimly. "There's a cop in town, investigating Dr. Oliver," Stacey began.

There were several gasps around the table, and one horrified whisper of, "Is Dr. Oliver okay?"

"I'm not sure," Stacey said gravely. "As you all know, he's still out of town, vacationing with Conner, Ethan, Trent, and Kira." A few sour expressions appeared at the mention of Kira. "But the cop was asking Tiffany about Dr. Oliver's connections to a gang. Tiffany mentioned that he might have bought his paleontology credentials on the black market."

"Did he?" gasped Amanda.

"Of course not," Betsy said with a snort. Then she frowned. "Did he?"

"We'd know if he had, right?" said Dawn.

"Oh, my god, how could we not know that Dr. Oliver bought his degree on the black market?" Laura wailed.

"Calm down!" Stacey snapped. "Tiffany was the one who planted the suggestion about the gang in the cop's head. The cop's from the Angel Grove P.D., so hopefully he'll go by Hanover Street, realize that there are no gangs there, and go home."

"Actually," said Mary, "I think now would be a good time to bring up these weird guys in Hayley's Cyberspace."

The others all turned to Mary curiously. Hayley's Cyberspace was a favorite hangout for D.O.R.K.S., because Dr. Oliver hung out there quite a lot, listening to that Kira girl's music (no one in D.O.R.K.S. was very fond of her), talking to Hayley (they were even less fond of Hayley) or hanging with Conner, Ethan and Trent. When discussing their various Dr. O sightings during meetings, Cyberspace came up no less than twelve times.

"There are these two guys in there, Bulk and Skull," Mary explained. "They're from Angel Grove, and they used to be friends with Dr. Oliver. They're claiming that he's the original Black Power Ranger."

There was an instant uproar.

"A Power Ranger?"

"No way!"

"Dr. Oliver?"

"That explains why he's so muscular!"

"And hot!"

"And why he wears black all the time!"

"Guys, no way is he a Power Ranger."

"We'd have known by now."

"Why would a Ranger study a boring subject like paleontology?"

"But wouldn't it be cool if he was?"

"Quiet!" Stacey commanded. "Let Mary talk."

They instantly fell silent and looked at Mary. Stacey sat, and Mary got to her feet. "They say that there was something on the news about it, and Bulk and Skull and some cop named Don—"

"Must be the same cop," Stacey muttered.

Mary gave her a little glare for interrupting, especially since Stacey had officially yielded the floor. She cleared her throat loudly before continuing. "After I realized what they were ranting about, I hopped on the computer and went through some websites. Apparently the news in Angel Grove is reporting Dr. Oliver might be the original Black Ranger. But—I did some research. Given our notes on his history, and matching it against the Power Rangers' histories, Dr. Oliver couldn't be the Black Ranger. He moved to Angel Grove ages after the Rangers appeared."

"That's some pretty careless reporting," Laura said angrily. The others nodded in agreement.

"I also checked for any more news from Angel Grove. Apparently the Black Ranger showed up at a hotel right next to Dr. Oliver, but that's just something I found on someone's blog as of right now."

"Still, if it's true…" Laura said.

"Can I tell my freaking story?" Mary demanded. The others nodded quickly. "Okay. So, yeah. The cop is probably just looking into Dr. Oliver because of that stuff about him being a Power Ranger. I doubt he's doing anything about Dr. Oliver's credentials being bought on the black market. Or a gang from Hanover Street."

"So Dr. Oliver okay?" Betsy asked.

"Well… here's the thing. The report I read, the one that mixed him up as the Black Ranger…" Mary took a deep breath, knowing the others weren't going to like this. "Apparently they thought that Dr. Oliver was the Black Ranger because the Black Ranger turned in a guy to the police that Dr. Oliver…" She swallowed hard and finished quickly, "That Dr. Oliver beat up for trying to steal his girlfriend's purse."

All nine of them were on their feet in an instant; a few actually knocked their chairs over.

"WHAT?"

"Dr. O doesn't have a girlfriend!"

"He's only been gone a week!"

"When did he get a girlfriend?"

"Laura!" Stacey practically screamed to be heard over the din. "Read the minutes from the last meeting. Anything pertaining to dating."

Laura, official scribe of D.O.R.K.S., thumbed through a black notebook until she found the last entry. "According to the meeting on June 5, 2004, Denise says that her sister was talking to Dr. Oliver during his haircut and she asked him how his romantic life was doing and he said, quote, 'I'm much too busy to date right now.'" Laura flipped through a couple of pages. "There haven't been any reports of any other women frequenting his life besides Kira Ford and Hayley. And Principal Randall, but that's just because everyone knows Dr. Oliver was the one to find out that Randall was an evil villain in disguise."

"So who's he dating?" Amanda demanded. "Kira?"

"He can't be dating Kira!" Dawn exclaimed in horror. "She never expressed any interest in him! Even turned down that offer to join D.O.R.K.S.!"

"No way is he dating Kira," Gina growled.

"Bitch," Betsy added darkly. "She's not good enough for Dr. Oliver."

"Guys," Stacey said carefully, "there's nothing we can do about a possible girlfriend until he gets back to Reefside."

"And then there's a lot we can do," Laura muttered blackly.

"Our main focus right now should be the cop," Stacey continued.

"Personally, I think we ought to take matters into our own hands," Gina said.

"How? What can we do against a cop?" Betsy asked incredulously.

"I'm sure we'll think of something. We just need a plan. Something that will scare the cop away."

"Like what?"

"I don't know," Gina said, shrugging. "But there's nine of us. Surely we can think of something."

"Well, those guys were driving an orange bus; it's parked at the café. If the cop's with them, he'll probably be going back there soon," Mary said.

"OOH! OOH!" Denise suddenly shouted. "What if we do emergency procedure number eight?"

"Isn't that the one with the Jell-O?" Dawn asked.

"No, silly, that's twelve. Eight is that thing with the hubcaps," Gina corrected.

"No, it isn't," Denise said. "That's four. Eight is that thing we did to Cyndi's little brother when he caught us sneaking into the attic."

"Would that work on a cop, though? Her brother's, like, nine."

"Worth a shot. If not, we could always run."

Stacey stood back up. "All in favor of doing emergency procedure number eight?"

They all raised their hands, save Dawn. "I still say that's the one with Jell-O," Dawn grumbled.

"No, that's twelve!"

"We should have kept a list."

"Well, we'll make one and put the thing we did to Cyndi's little brother as eight now," Stacey said, rolling her eyes. "Are we agreed?"

There was a general murmur of "Yeah" and "Whatever." "Good," Stacey said. "Let's get going."

Melissa groaned in frustration as the server refused to let her log on. She'd completely forgotten all about the fact that Reefside Tech was supposed to be posting her grades today, and she knew that if she didn't have them today her father would assume she'd gotten bad grades and freak out. High gas prices meant she couldn't afford to alienate him, even for the few weeks it would take to convince him that she hadn't used her computer skills to hack into the school's records and change her grades (like she was willing to risk doing that again).

So she sat in Cyberspace, glaring at the computer screen as it once again informed her that the college website was experiencing heavy traffic. Muttering about talking to a voodoo priest about her classmates keeping her stranded in the café for longer than was necessary, she glanced cautiously around the café. The weird newcomers named Bulk and Skull were currently harassing a couple of eighth-grade boys in the corner; Hayley was too busy with waiting tables to chastise them. Apparently the guy who'd teamed up with Bulk and Skull a little while ago had grown tired of the charade and tried to slip off. Unfortunately, this meant Bulk and Skull were trying to get answers about his whereabouts out of everyone else, certain that the "Blue Ranger" had rushed off to a battle and hadn't wanted anyone to see him leave because as long as no one actually saw him morphing he could deny it later, "just like Tommy," whoever that was.

Shaking her head, Melissa turned back to the computer and clicked refresh one more time just as a hand landed on her foot beneath the table. She screamed, wondering who dared crawl under her table. Deciding she should check the identity of the person she was about to kick to death for looking up her skirt, she bent down to glare under the table and found herself nose-to-nose with the Blue Ranger guy.

"Shh!" he whispered desperately. "PLEASE don't give me up!"

A wave of sympathy, combined with the thought that the guy had really nice blue eyes, made her nod and sit back up. Everyone in the café was now staring at her.

"Sorry!" she said quickly. "I… uh… dropped my straw? It… startled me…"

A kid at the counter tossed a fresh straw at her, and everyone went back about their business. Under the cover of leaning in closer to the computer screen, she hissed, "What are you doing?"

"Every time I get near the door they start to turn around and I have to hide again!" the guy whined. "I was lying behind the counter for twenty minutes!"

Melissa frowned, pressed her legs a little tighter together, and asked, "What the hell made you chat them up, anyway?"

"I like telling funny stories," he said miserably. "I wanted to see how believable I could be, but then I got bored, and I tried to go away, and they offered to fight the monster with me, and I… I don't know. Lapse in judgment, I guess."

Melissa rolled her eyes and clicked refresh a few more times. When her school website still failed to come up, she sighed and stood. "Come on. Hide behind me and we'll inch towards the door. If they see you, I'll try and hold them off and you can make a break for it."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" he moaned quietly.

Melissa headed for the door as nonchalantly as she could, which wasn't very easy with the guy clinging to the back of her shirt, his face buried between her shoulder blades. They were at the back of the café, and she was taking care to hug the wall, so it was going to be a long walk, but she was fairly certain she could make it. A few feet from her terminal, she caught Hayley's eye; Hayley smiled and nodded. At least she had an ally, then…

Melissa was just considering making a break for the door when Bulk suddenly whirled on his feet; he moved surprisingly fast for his size. "I know!" Bulk proclaimed, pointing straight at her. "The Pink Ranger probably knows where he went!"

"I thought she was the Yellow Ranger, Bulky," Skull said, scratching his head.

"Come on, Skull, any idiot can tell she's Pink," Bulk said patronizingly, despite the fact that Bulk had been the one to originally tag Melissa as Yellow.

"Hey!" Melissa complained, forgetting her mission. "What is that supposed to mean?" Behind her, the "Blue Ranger" whimpered.

"You never did tell us where you really were on the night of April 13!" Bulk said, ignoring her question.

"Yeah! All right, Pinky, where's Blue, and why aren't you at the same battle?" Skull demanded.

"For the last time, I am not—" Melissa began heatedly, but Hayley jumped in front of her, breaking her eye contact with Bulk and Skull.

"Look!" Hayley shrieked, pointing wildly. "It's the Black Ranger!"

Bulk and Skull turned, as did half the people in the café. Hayley grabbed Melissa's arm and shoved her violently towards the storeroom. Melissa dove into it, the Blue Ranger right behind her.

"Great," Melissa groaned as the squeezed into the storeroom. "Now we're going to have to start over."

"Sorry I got you into this," the guy said miserably. He held out his hand. "I'm Chris."

"Melissa," she replied, shaking his hand. "It's okay. You know, if we make a break for the parking lot, we could probably lose them dodging behind cars…"

"Do you hear that?" Chris asked suddenly. "A sort of… beeping?"

Melissa nodded and looked around, startled to find a small door behind her. "Ooh! A door. Hopefully it's a back way out."

She popped it open and they crowded into an even smaller office. On the desk in the corner sat a very powerful computer with odd attachments that even a techie like Melissa couldn't identify. The screensaver was up, but as they watched it turned itself off, displaying a wooden house surrounded by woods. A guy was standing on the front porch, peering in the windows. A message saying "Intruder Alert, front main entrance" was flashing across the bottom of the screen. The screen divided itself, now showing four other places in addition to the house—what looked like the same house's back door, a dinosaur skeleton on a table, a large skeleton carved into a side wall, and what looked like a sheer cliff face. The other four images were labeled "currently secure."

The man on the front porch began jiggling the doorknob. Before Chris or Melissa could react, the beeping reached an ear-splitting volume and the camera angle showing the man became full-screen again. "WARNING" was now flashing over the picture.

"What the hell is going on?" Chris demanded, but before Melissa could offer any theories—all of which would have involved the words "I don't know"—Hayley burst into the office. She rushed over to the computer screen, looking furious.

"That little prick! Cop or not, he's going down!" Hayley growled, typing in a few commands on the keyboard. The beeping shut off, replaced by a cool, computerized voice.

"Security level successfully upgraded. Select mode."

Melissa's eyes widened and she leaned around Hayley to see the keyboard. Hayley typed in "detain." Startled, Melissa began to speak, but the computerized voice interrupted.

"Detainment mode activated. Do you wish to incapacitate the subject?"

Hayley hesitated for a moment, then hit the N key, typed "Power down auxiliary command post," and leaned away. The computer shut itself down. Hayley spun around, noticing Chris and Melissa for the first time.

"Latest computer game; I'm testing it for a friend," she said, shoving them both bodily back into the storeroom. She closed the office door firmly; they heard a lock click, and then Hayley was pushing past them into the main room.

"This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder," Chris said ruefully, then jumped as Hayley started screaming.

"OUT! Everybody out! We're closed! Right now! OUT! OUT!"

Melissa peeked out of the storeroom. Bewildered, the customers were being herded out, Bulk and Skull in the middle of a crowd of teenagers, Hayley shouting all the while, the customers protesting but not actually holding their ground.

"You two, too!" Hayley shouted over her shoulder as the last of the customers stalked out. "Come on; Bulk and Skull are gone!"

Melissa and Chris darted out of the storeroom. "Is everything okay?" Melissa asked worriedly as she passed.

"Fine, fine," Hayley said distractedly, ushering them outside and turning to lock the door behind her.

Hayley rushed off the moment the three of them hit the sidewalk. Chris tapped Melissa on the shoulder, nodded at Bulk and Skull, who were standing about thirty feet away with their back to Chris and Melissa. Melissa dashed off around the other side of the building, Chris on her heels.

"Well, that was fun," Chris said sarcastically as he leaned against the wall to catch his breath.

"Tell me about it," Melissa muttered.

Chris grinned. "I guess I owe you one, eh? Can I buy you dinner, or are you going to require my soul or something?"

She laughed. "Dinner would be nice. Though I'm going to get back to you on the soul."

He chuckled. "What do you think that computer thing was about?" he asked. "In her private office?"

"Who knows? Guess it doesn't matter, does it? It probably was just a computer game or something." He laughed. "Or maybe Hayley's the real Power Ranger."

Melissa cracked up. "Yeah. Right. And that's why those two goons were staking out the café."

They laughed, and then the two headed for Melissa's car, the incident quickly forgotten as they turned their attention to each other, already discussing which restaurant they should go to.

Meanwhile, Hayley raced towards Tommy's house, intent on dealing with Don once and for all.

Tommy's cell phone went off once again and he sighed heavily. Hayley had been calling every so often ever since he'd arrived at the carnival, as if sensing he was doing something she disapproved of. He pulled the phone from his pocket, intent on turning it off once it stopped ringing—but he noticed the caller ID was an unknown Angel Grove number. He frowned, wondering who it could be—everyone he knew was programmed into his phone under a specific name.

"Hello?" he asked carefully, trying not to sound too much like himself in case Hayley had used some sort of crazy hacker trick to get an Angel Grove area code to show up just so that he would answer the phone—or, worse, driven to Angel Grove and used a pay phone, in which case he needed to start running.

"Tommy? It's Anna."

"Hey, Anna!" Tommy said happily, relieved not only to hear from her but to have escaped one of Hayley's elaborate traps. "What's up?"

"I'm back in the carnival. Over by the Ferris wheel."

"I'll come pick you up; wait there."

Tommy hung up. "Guys, Anna just called; I told her I'd go get her."

"Aw, man, we're next in line for the water-gun-race," Rocky complained.

"I'll go by myself," Tommy told him. "Just wait here until I get back."

"Can I come?" Ethan asked eagerly, anxious to spend a little more time with Anna.

Tommy shrugged, deciding he'd worry about Ethan dating on Tommy's watch some other time, like when there wasn't a Kimberly to win over. "Sure."

Tommy and Ethan broke off from the others and went to pick up Anna. The three easily fell into conversation as they headed back towards the water-gun-race game.

Tommy spotted them quickly; Billy, Rocky, Conner, Jason, Adam and Zack were all playing, lending an odd sort of color-coordination to the game while Kimberly and Trini cheered them on and Kira and Trent hung out at the next game, both trying their luck at a ring toss. Tommy was about to head over when he saw something that made him stop dead in his tracks.

Davey, the little boy who'd wanted autographs at the gas station, was standing about twenty feet down from Kira and Trent, not far from Tommy, Ethan and Anna. Davey was standing with his mother… and no less than ten clowns.

"Look, Uncle Bonkers!" Davey shouted, pointing straight at Trini. "It's my friends!"

"Wait here," Tommy muttered to Ethan and Anna, a plan—albeit a psychotic one—forming within his head in mere seconds. Tommy rushed by the clowns, hoping Davey wouldn't spot him as he ran to Kira and Trent as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, grabbed their arms, and yanked them away from the game, back past Davey, and over to Ethan and Anna.

"Your friends?" asked Uncle Bonkers. Tommy wondered if Bonkers was really Davey's uncle, or if "uncle" was just included in his "clown name."

"Yeah. They're clowns, too. Mom, can we go say hi?"

His mother burst into a fit of giggles as she realized who Davey was talking about, so she didn't answer. So Bonkers took it upon himself to head over.

"Dr. O!" Kira complained as Tommy finally released her. "What are you doing?"

Tommy kept his eyes trained on the others. "Paying you back for the countermeasures thing and for the whole riding-in-my-car thing."

"Countermeasures?" Anna repeated, confused.

"Slight near death experience, nothing exciting," Trent told her. Anna gave him an incredulous look.

"What? How?" Kira asked Tommy.

Tommy jerked his head at the clowns. "Look."

"So?" Anna asked, shrugging. Kira, Ethan and Trent, however, tried to look a little deeper.

"It's a clown," Kira said, confused.

Trent and Ethan's eyes widened. "You told us to warn you if we saw a clown!" Ethan hissed.

"Trini's scared of clowns!" Trent added.

"I know," Tommy said with relish, feeling a great retort to Trini's meddling as Uncle Bonkers tapped her on the shoulder and tried to offer her a balloon animal.

Trini turned, saw clown, and punched clown.

"Argh!" the clown shouted, landing heavily at Trini's feet.

"No!" Jason yelled, leaping off the stool in front of the racing game.

"Evil bastard!" Trini screamed.

"Bonkers! Bonkers!" shouted another clown, rushing towards his fallen comrade with the others on his heels.

"Clown down!" screamed another member of the clown posse.

"Is there a doctor in the house?" shouted another. Tommy let out an evil laugh.

It was total chaos. The clowns rushed at the Rangers, attempting to reach their coworker, but Trini only saw a clown army coming for her and she dropped immediately into a martial arts stance. Seeing this, the clowns stopped short, warily preparing for a battle as Rocky, Adam, Jason, Zack, and Billy tried to get to Trini to stop her, Conner gaped incredulously, and Kimberly—being leery of clowns—bolted across the midway.

Kira started forward to go help, but Tommy held out a hand to stop her. "How exactly does letting Trini get into a brawl with a bunch of clowns pay us back?" Kira demanded.

"You'll see," Tommy said in a self-satisfied way.

The leader of the gang of clowns took a swipe at Trini with what looked like a toy magic wand. Jason let out a roar and dove at him. Adam tackled Jason, accidentally knocking Zack aside; Zack fell to the ground and rolled over Bonkers. One of the clowns must have figured this was another attack on poor Bonkers and he lunged at Zack while the clown Jason had tried to kill kicked at him and Adam, who were now rolling around the midway.

"Security! Someone bring security!" shouted the smallest clown, who was hiding in the back as his friends all surged forward and attacked, while Davey's mother held Davey firmly, keeping him out of the fray. Billy found himself fending off a clown in patched overalls. Conner wrestled another renegade clown to the ground. Trini, realizing her mistake by this point, gave the leader an apologetic look, grabbed his magic wand and whapped him sharply over the head with it; he swayed about and toppled over. Rocky tried to pull Adam and Jason apart and found himself being bombarded by bowling pins that another clown was pulling out of his pocket (Tommy figured the pins were for juggling displays). Adam and Jason rolled back over Bonkers and crashed into a game, covering themselves in a shower of stuffed animal prizes. Bonkers suddenly sat up and dove into the pile of stuffed animals, swinging madly.

"This is… this is painful," Trent murmured.

"I've seen worse," Tommy told him conversationally.

"No wonder the simple act of meeting you made my life a whole lot weirder," Anna said, shaking her head. "You're actually used to this sort of thing? Yeah, that explains a lot."

Bonkers and Adam were now dueling with stuffed animals—Adam was grimly waving a large green frog, while Bonkers whacked at him with a huge elephant. Jason managed to rescue Rocky by grabbing the water gun from the racing game and squirting Rocky's clown mercilessly; the game attendant desperately tried to turn off the water supply but couldn't, as the game hadn't been finished. Billy and Conner were now in a spectacular fighting match with a clown who seemed to know quite a lot of kung fu.

"Whoo! Clown fight! Clown fight!" Davey shouted.

"This has been a really weird week," Davey's mother muttered.

A crowd began to gather, assuming this must be some sort of entertainment planned by the carnival. The small clown who'd been hanging back apparently decided to get into it and started pelting Conner with stuffed animals from the pile around Adam and Bonkers. Billy dropped the Kung Fu Clown and left Conner to be thrown into the stuffed-animal pile by Small Clown. Adam managed to disarm Bonkers, and thought Bonkers was out of the fight until Bonkers revealed that he carried around all the supplies necessary for juggling flaming torches. Jason tried to turn his water gun on Bonkers' torches, but the game attendant, determined to help his fellow carnies, threw an around Jason's neck and tried to choke him from behind. Rocky's former foe, now soaking wet with his clown makeup smearing to make him look like something out of Stephen King's wildest nightmares, was squaring off with Trini, looking like a parody of a Mike Tyson match, Trini all grim determination and flawless fighting stance, the clown hopping around like a guy trying to dance on hot coals.

Adam tried to run from the flaming torches, but the growing crowd prevented him from getting far. He chucked his stuffed frog at Bonkers, hoping to knock a few of the torches to the ground, but to his horror Bonkers somehow managed to include the frog in his juggling, so it was three fiery torches and a slightly-singed toy frog. It took Tommy a moment to realize he'd lost sight of Zack… and he was completely unsurprised to find him in the dead center of the midway, fighting his clown via a break-dancing contest, where one would do a series of moves and then glare challengingly at the other and waiting for their opponent to produce a routine worthy of responding to. Davey was cheering for Zack something fierce—or rather, he was cheering for "Tinkle" something fierce.

Jason flung the game attendant over his shoulder, where he landed on Conner, who was being buried alive in stuffed animals by Small Clown while the clown Conner had subdued earlier held Conner down. Unfortunately, this was totally the wrong move on Jason's part; three game attendants jumped in—one glaring as he detached his wallet chain from his wallet, another removing his belt and wrapping it around his hand so that the buckle was over his knuckles, and the last brandishing a broken bottle from the ring toss bottle game. Jason sighed resignedly, planted his feet, and motioned for them to bring it on. They started to circle him, but Trini happened to toss Soaking Wet Clown in their direction, where he slammed into Wallet Chain and sent them both stumbling into the water-gun-race game, which still had several active guns. Rocky, meanwhile, squared off with Patched Overalls Clown.

Two security guards arrived on the scene, stared for a moment, and promptly began radioing for backup. Tommy smirked at one of them as Adam swept Bonkers' legs out from under him; many people screamed as frog and flaming torches tumbled to the ground, the latter setting the former on fire. Billy grabbed a couple of water guns from the game and let loose, but the frog was apparently highly flammable, and it didn't help that Wallet Chain and Small Clown attempted to rush Billy at the same time. Meanwhile, Zack won the dance-off (or rather, he got bored with his inferior opponent and kicked him, not hard enough to do any real damage but hard enough that he wouldn't be getting up anytime soon) and wandered by, walking on his hands for reasons unknown and heading to help Conner, who was slowly being suffocated by dozens of stuffed animals. Trini joined Jason, the two of them back-to-back and using almost identical fighting stances as they were surrounded by Broken Bottle, Belt Buckle, and a couple of clowns. Bonkers somehow managed to convince Soaking Wet Clown to help put out the fiery frog, and the two had forgotten Adam, who found that Kung Fu Clown had gotten back up. Water-Gun-Race-Game Guy had taken over the burial of Conner in stuffed animals, but he and Conner's other attacker were taken by surprise when Zack ran up, still on his hands.

Guards and random well-built employees began arriving from all directions, shoving through the crowd, which was cheering on both clowns and Rangers. One went to rescue Small Clown and Wallet Chain, both of whom were rather skinny and easily lifted by Billy, who had one in each hand, holding them a foot off the ground by the front of their shirts. Three guards went after Jason and Trini, both of whom looked like they would need a stern talking to even after the game attendants and clowns backed away, shouting "They started it!" at the top of their lungs. Yet another guard merely watched in open-mouthed amazement at the display Kung Fu Clown and Adam were putting on, while two more doused the fiery frog (in addition to Bonkers and Soaking Wet Clown, both of whom were wearing flame-retardant clothing but relatively inflammable wigs). The clown leader had apparently gotten back up and helped Patched Overalls Clown subdue Rocky; they dragged him to a guard, which Rocky didn't realize was a guard until he'd thrown Leader Clown off of him and into said guard.

Rocky might have been in it deep if it hadn't been for Zack and Conner, who decided to make a stand from behind the railing of the ring toss game, flinging stuffed animals and baggies of water (prepped to hold the live goldfish that were in the bottles the rings were being tossed at) at the guards, the crowd, and their friends. The baggies of water (and whatever saline solution was intended for eventual goldfish prizes) exploded like water balloons.

"Zack, Conner, quit!" Anna screamed over the noise of the crowd, praying she didn't get noticed by any carnival employees, most of which knew her on sight. "They need those bags! The goldfish in the bottles will die if they're not moved into the bags tonight! They can't survive in those bottles much longer!"

Zack and Conner weren't mindless fishy killers, so they returned to stuffed animals and then went on to rings. It was a brave front (well, no, it was psychotic, but under different circumstances it might have been a brave front if it hadn't been for the fact that they were chucking little pink unicorns and cutesy stuffed tigers at rent-a-cops in the middle of a county fair) but eventually the two ran out of ammo (despite the fact that the crowd gleefully tossed them all manner of things) and they came out from behind the ring toss with their hands up. The clowns and the game attendants nursed their injuries and watched smugly as Jason, Trini, Zack, Billy, Rocky, Adam and Conner were all marched down the midway towards the front gate.

"Are they going to be arrested, do you think?" Kira asked worriedly.

"Nah," Anna said confidently. "They'll just be thrown out. Carnival security doesn't have the power to arrest anyone, and since they probably won't be able to get any reliable witnesses or anything since all the customers are wandering around and you never know who really saw what, they'll just ban them all from the carnival. No way will they be able to make a case worthy of presenting to the cops."

Kira shook her head. "So, again—how does this pay us back for that countermeasures thing?"

Tommy pulled a wad of bills out of his wallet; he gave a few to Anna to cover the cotton candy, then held the rest out to Trent. "Here. Cash advance on your dad's card, Trent. He told me to make sure I kept cash in case someone wouldn't accept the card, or I was buying something that credit cards wouldn't pay for. Take this, go enjoy the carnival. Meet me at the entrance in three hours."

"You're turning us loose?" Kira asked in surprise as Trent divided the money between himself, Kira and Ethan. "But—"

Tommy grinned. "I was going to leave you to be kicked out with the clowns, but I remembered I owe you."

"You owe Conner, too," Trent pointed out.

Tommy arched an eyebrow. "Somehow, I figure no matter how much I owe you, Conner still owes me more." Kira, Ethan and Trent nodded in agreement.

"Why'd you let them be kicked out by the clowns, though?" Ethan asked.

"Just settling a few scores," Tommy said nonchalantly.

"This is about Kim, isn't it?" Trent asked, noticing that she was now leaning against a game booth across the midway from Davey, his mother and his clowns, rolling her eyes as her friends were escorted out. "You're planning to, you know—"

"I don't owe you that much," Tommy interrupted firmly. "Go. Have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't want to explain to your father."

"Gotcha," Kira said, taking Trent's arm and leading him off in the opposite direction of the twice-banned group. "Coming, Ethan?" she called over her shoulder.

Ethan shook his head, figuring they could use a little alone time… and he was still quite interested in seeing if he was correct in thinking Anna might be interested in him. "No, you guys go. I'll hang with Dr. O."

Kira and Trent waved and disappeared into the crowd. Ethan looked expectantly from Dr. O to Anna. "So? Where we heading?"

"We're not heading anywhere," Anna said firmly. Tommy and Ethan looked at her, taken aback. "Ethan, you and me are going to go find a cotton candy vendor. Tommy's going to go hang out with Kimberly."

"I can do that any time," Tommy told her. "I haven't seen you in ten years."

Anna shrugged. "It's not like we're going to lose touch now that we've finally met each other again. You've got my number, I've got yours, you need to go take care of your little… unfinished business." She nodded at Kimberly; Tommy reddened slightly. "We'll hang later. How often do you get to relive your first date with an ex you're looking to get back with?"

Tommy smiled softly. "Thanks, Anna."

"Anytime, Tommy. Remember what I said about buying her cotton candy." Tommy laughed, and Ethan and Anna departed.

Tommy grinned, grateful that Anna had made the only tricky part of his plan—getting rid of her and Ethan—easier for him. Much as he wanted to see Anna again, his evil plot was top priority at the moment, and like she said, they certainly weren't going to be strangers from now on. Tommy took a deep breath to prepare himself, and headed for Kimberly.

"Hey."

Kimberly narrowed her eyes at him warily. "Hey."

"Looks like it's just you and me."

Kimberly sighed. "I think I'll go meet up with the others."

Tommy reached out and lightly put a hand on her arm. "Hey, wait."

Kimberly gave him a suspicious look, but she didn't jerk her arm away. "What?"

Tommy thrust his hands in his pockets and looked down shyly. "Why don't we… you know… hang?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You want to hang?"

"Yeah. I mean, I know I was teasing you on the Tunnel—" He grinned. "But that's what you get for tormenting me with fries," he finished, in the same tone she'd said "but that's what you get for looking down my shirt and nearly killing us all in the process," when trying to convince him to enter the carnival.

Kimberly stared at him, mouth agape at his audacity, but then she chuckled. "You're getting better at retaliating."

"Thank you." They shared a smile, and then Tommy turned serious. "Look. All joking aside—I miss you. I miss being around you and… well, I don't have the foggiest idea what you've been up to for the last eight years. All I know is that you've been in a few of Tanya's music videos and you gave up pro-gymnastics three years ago. There has to be more than that."

Kimberly nodded slowly. "Nothing on the level of Dino Rangers, exploding islands, and tomato-sauce fires, but yeah."

"So tell me all about it. I want to know who you've become, and I want you to know who I am now. I want to know you the same way I know the others. You were right—we should have stayed friends. So let's start acting like it. Besides…" Tommy grinned again. "I promised Kira, Ethan and Trent they could go explore the carnival—figured they could use some normal time, and I kind of owed them one. So let's me and you go do something. Ride some rides, get some cotton candy, play some games… and talk. Catch up."

Kimberly considered it for a long moment. Finally, she said, "Promise to win me more cute stuffed animals?"

"All you want. I'll even pay for some of them."

She laughed. "You've got yourself a deal, Oliver. I want to find that damned balloon dart game again."

Tommy motioned with a flourish for her to lead on. Kimberly grinned and skipped off.

Tommy followed, fighting the urge to cackle. She'd fallen for it. She was so totally going down.

End Notes: D.O.R.K.S. was thought up by the latest edition to our writing team, Brynhild GoUrL. A little over the top, but useful as a plot point in future stories and, of course, fun for us, so hope you liked.

Dedicating this chapter to Pink-Green-White-4ever, who is absolutely nifty.