Author's Notes: We here at OLaB have always tried to bring you an interesting, romantic, humorous story that doesn't disregard canon and plays havoc with clichés. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to do with the letter, also known as the bane of Tommy/Kim fans. As much as we hate to deal with it at all, it has to be addressed (unintentional pun, honest). We apologize for involving it at all and promise it'll be over as quickly as possible and we'll be back to business as… well, not usual, but you get what we mean. Until then, here it is, OLaB style. You have been warned.

Chapter 103

Lost & Found in Translation

It wasn't long before there were scorch marks all over the town square. In fact, when all was said and done, there were almost as many scorch marks as there were monster body parts.

"Tommy tried making them disintegrate like the Putties used to," Anton confided sheepishly to Cassie as they picked their way through a tangled pile of Tyrannodrone remains. "I pointed out that if they took a large amount of damage but remained otherwise intact, we could salvage parts to build more."

Carlos came up behind them, still in morph. "Why were you building these things anyway?" he demanded. A pile of charred limbs twitched and Carlos fired a blast before the Triptoid emerging from the pile could get far.

"The idea was a Ranger-based army. No more fighting minions; Rangers would have their own. To be used as stand-ins for the Rangers, to keep peace when the Rangers couldn't arrive promptly, to keep Rangers from being weakened and distracted by minions before the monster arrived…"

"Well, it was a nice theory," Cassie said, patting his shoulder.

Anton winced; he was bruised in more places than he cared to count. Still, the fight had been good for him in a lot of ways—it was gratifying to know that he no longer needed Mesogog's power to be a threat, that his knowledge of fighting hadn't vanished with his alter ego, and to know what it felt like to be on the good side for once, the side he would have chosen had Mesogog failed to take over.

It had taken hours to save the city, so to speak. Lightspeed Rescue, minus Carter, had arrived to help with the minions running amok, and once the dino-grizzly—Anton couldn't for the life of him remember what its name had been—had been vanquished, the Tyrannodrones had been easy to stop. They hadn't lost a single civilian, or even come across a serious injury. The mayor had emerged to issue a commendation to the civilians who'd been instrumental in defending the town, Anton among them. He smiled briefly at the three dirty, weary teenagers in China Express aprons, already thinking of places within Mercer Industries where the three might find a new line of work.

"How'd they get loose?" Carlos asked, idly sweeping his helmeted gaze over the remains of the battle, looking for any surviving monsters.

"It was the Invisiportal Network—Mesogog's method of teleportation, so to speak," Anton explained. "It's been out of commission since his destruction, but after an incident that stranded those three kids—" he nodded at Brad, Lin and Wang— "on the island for who knows how long, Elsa and I set about fixing it. Unfortunately, it randomized during reactivation and began momentarily activating every exit and entry point in the city—" Carlos and Cassie tilted their heads at him in confusion and Anton toned down his technical analysis. "It's fixed now, and it shouldn't do that again, but when it first turned on it began tossing monsters from the storage bay at that lab all over the city."

"And it's stopped," Carlos said.

"True enough. I do believe I'm out of monsters, but I haven't seen any of the portals go off in a while. There's one right over there by the fountain." Cassie and Carlos followed his gaze to the empty space near the fountain, which was free of any green energy sparks.

Carlos shrugged and they continued picking their way towards the fountain, where the mayor was shaking hands with another civilian who'd helped protect the fountain full of people from the attacking monsters. "So," Carlos said at length, "are you coming to the Ranger kegger?"

Anton looked expectantly at Cassie, but she remained silent. It took him a moment before he realized what Carlos meant. "You mean me?" Anton asked uncertainly.

"Sure. You're in on the secret," Carlos said. "And I know Karone really wanted to meet you guys."

"Me and Elsa?" Anton asked. He frowned. "Kegger?"

"It's a party at Adam's tonight. It's supposed to start in—" Carlos attempted to check his watch, realized he couldn't see his wrist, and glanced around before spotting the time display on a bank's automated sign. "Forty-five minutes, but it's going til late. We're all going to be pretty late. You should come; it's at Adam's house in Los Angeles."

"I'll… ask Elsa," Anton said, still startled to be invited to a Rangers-only get-together. "We've got to look in on Bob before we leave here, he's been taken off to the hospital, and it's quite a drive to Los Angeles…"

"We'd really like to see you there," Cassie said warmly. "I hear the Dino Rangers will be there. One of them's your kid, right?"

"Trent," Anton confirmed. "My son."

"We always have a ton of fun when we get everyone together," Cassie said. "And it'll be a great way for you to meet everyone."

"Won't everyone be at Power Rangers Day?" Anton asked. He definitely did want to meet everyone… he even had a gift for the Ninja Storm Rangers, something he'd found yesterday evening that they might appreciate.

"Yeah, but there, we can't really talk," Carlos said. "We'll probably get together after the shindig in the park, so it's no big deal if you can't make it tonight—" Anton smiled in relief— "but at Power Rangers Day we won't be able to be as candid as we'd like. Public identity Rangers like us and Lightspeed definitely can't mix much with secret-identity gangs like the Dino Rangers."

"Provided they even show up," Cassie complained. "Where are they?"

Carlos shrugged. "I don't know, but I'm sure they'll turn up."

"Tommy's been having a bit of a colorful week," Anton said mildly.

They drew nearer to the fountain, which was now emptied of citizens, save Brad, Lin, Wang, Chris, and three others who'd been given weapons by Elsa to join in the fight. Elsa herself was engaging in some light fencing with one of them.

"Well," Cassie said in a whisper, "think about coming tonight, Anton. Everyone's making it a priority to be there."

"I bet," Anton murmured. What could be more interesting than a gathering of dozens of Rangers away from prying eyes?

It couldn't have taken more than a few seconds for Hayley to climb out of the Jeep and come over to Tommy, but those few seconds felt like the longest decade of his life. The look on her face was merely thoughtful, giving nothing away, and he thought he might collapse from the tension. Had she managed to talk Kimberly around? Was she about to tell him that he had made a mistake, that Kimberly didn't want him anymore and there was no chance in hell he could ever have her?

Hayley stepped up on the sidewalk, regarded him pensively for a moment, and then turned to Trini. "Trini," she said, "how did Tommy and Kimberly break up?"

Tommy frowned and opened his mouth to ask Hayley what that had to do with anything—after all, Hayley had heard the story of the Dear John letter before—but Trini spoke first.

"Tommy dumped her in a letter," she replied promptly.

Every last one of the guys on the sidewalk turned to look at her, confused by her phrasing.

"No… Kimberly dumped him in a letter," Jason corrected her.

Trini frowned. "No, Tommy dumped her."

"I was there, Trini," Billy reminded her. "We all were." He gestured at Rocky and Adam. "Me, Tanya, Kat, Rocky—"

"I read the letter aloud," Adam added.

Trini's eyebrows rose. "You read the letter you sent her out loud to them?" Trini demanded of Tommy.

"No, he read the letter she sent me out loud to us," Tommy said impatiently. "What are you talking about?"

"What are you talking about?" she demanded.

Hayley nodded. "That's what I thought."

Tommy glared at her. "What's what you thought?" he asked, but Hayley wasn't listening. She simply turned and went back to the car. The moment the Jeep was shut behind her, Tommy could see her attempting to unravel the duct tape that bound Kimberly in place while talking excitedly with Kimberly. Confusion and worry combined within Tommy to form irritation. "The hell is going on?"

"Wait, wait, wait just a minute here," Jason said, holding up a hand and looking at Trini. "What's this about a letter Tommy sent Kim?"

"It said he understood they'd grown apart and he was sorry it ended but felt it was time to let her go," Trini said. The others stared at her. "Don't look at me like that! I know what I'm talking about. Kim showed it to me."

"Oh, that letter," Tommy said. The others looked askance at him. "She means the letter I sent Kim after she dumped me. The one saying I wasn't upset with her and I understood that she just wanted to be friends."

Everyone nodded in acceptance, save Trini. "No, no, no," she insisted, frustrated. "Kimberly didn't dump you. She would have told me."

"Yes, she did, Trini," Jason said gently. "We saw the letter she sent him. Didn't you?"

"There was no letter," Trini growled.

"Trini showed up a few days after you and Zack," Rocky reminded them. "And when she got there we told her—"

"We told her they'd broken up and she said we shouldn't talk about it," Jason said, something closed to panic mixing with realization on his face. "She said it was their business, not ours. We never told her about the letter."

"The letter Kim sent me," Tommy said. He frowned at Trini. "She really never showed that to you?"

"What are you talking about?" Trini demanded. "Tommy, Kimberly told me how it went down. She said you sent her a letter, out of the freaking blue I might add, and it said that you felt they'd grown apart recently and it was for the best—"

"I sent that letter after she sent me a letter," Tommy insisted. "I guess she never told you."

"I don't—" Trini began, but Jason spoke over her.

"Guys," he said, "something isn't right."

"What?" Zack asked, looking from Tommy to Trini to Jason and back again.

"If Kimberly dumped Tommy, who would Trini go to visit first?"

"She visited Kim first," Rocky said.

"Exactly."

"You're not making any sense," Adam complained.

"Yes, he is," Billy said suddenly. "Guys… if Trini heard that Kimberly dumped Tommy, her first step would be to visit Angel Grove. She would come comfort Tommy first. He would be the one who—"

"Needed her the most," Zack agreed, catching on. "She would check in on Kimberly afterwards, and make sure Kim was okay, too. But she'd go to the person who got dumped, followed by the one who did the dumping. She'd know the dumper would feel almost as bad as the dumpee, but the dumpee would feel worse."

"She'd prioritize," Jason agreed.

"Oh, god," Adam said, sitting down on the curb as it sank in.

"Yet she didn't prioritize them," Jason continued. "She went to Kimberly first, Tommy second."

"I thought of that, way back when," Billy said. "I figured Kimberly had just called her first."

"If she had heard about Kim dumping Tommy from Kimberly, she would have consoled Kimberly over the phone and then she would have called here," Jason said. "She would have checked in on him, if not driven here first. Regardless, she did it wrong. And she doesn't often do it wrong."

Tommy swallowed. "I have an awful feeling," he announced, "that I'm not going to like whatever the hell you guys are talking about when I figure out what it is."

Tommy's brain wouldn't wrap around it. The implications were too horrible. Worse than losing Kimberly could ever have been. He couldn't face it. He refused to let the logic seep in.

"I don't understand," Trini said softly. "Are… wait. Are you saying Kimberly broke up with Tommy and didn't tell me about it?"

"No, Trini," Jason said, taking a shaky breath. "I'm saying maybe we were wrong about Kimberly breaking up with him all along."

"No," Adam said, slamming a fist against the cement. He hopped up and looked at Jason. "I read that damned thing aloud. I was the one who—"

"It wasn't like Kimberly!" Jason exploded, as if finally confessing something he'd wanted to say for years. "Tommy said she'd never mentioned another guy in any of her letters. And he's right—she never mentioned another guy to anyone. Including us."

"Because she didn't want it to get back to Tommy," Adam argued, his tone almost desperate. "We went through this. The reasons why it wasn't like Kimberly."

"The excuses why," Jason replied. "They were theories. None of us thought to talk to Kim. Hell, none of us even asked her his name."

"Why should we? We didn't want to know. We didn't want to know who she dumped Tommy for. We didn't want to meet the guy and smile politely! We knew there wasn't a one of us who would punch him out!" Adam shouted. "We didn't want to know! All we had were theories why she wrote that stupid thing!"

"Adam," Trini said awkwardly, "I think… I really think that if Kimberly had done what you seem to think she'd done she would have told me."

"I was there!" Adam roared. "I read that thing aloud! I was the one who told him she was dumping him! It can't… I don't…" Adam trailed off, horrified. "No way," he muttered uncertainly.

"Set up," Jason said, his tone grim. "Someone sent Tommy a letter dumping him."

"Who would do such a thing?" Trini wondered, speaking more to herself than to them. "Why would anyone want to hurt them?"

"I can't think of anyone who would," Jason said. "But it explains a lot."

"So… wait," Adam said slowly. "What you're saying is that someone wrote a letter from Kim to Tommy and then… what?"

"Then Tommy wrote a letter to Kim," Jason explained.

"Saying that he was okay with breaking up," Zack said. "Kim thought he was dumping her."

"They… no." Adam shook his head stubbornly. "They would… we would… someone would have noticed."

"Who?" Jason asked. "We're friends with both of them. We tried to stay out of it. Trini didn't want to upset Tommy, so she didn't ask him why he'd done it. We didn't want to upset Kim, so we didn't ask her why she'd done it. And they didn't want to hash it out. They didn't want to deal with it."

"That's why he and I were going to bring Kimberly to Angel Grove," Zack said, nodding at Jason. "We were going to bring her back to talk things out with Tommy."

"He was with Kat then, but we wanted them to try to work it out and get to be friends again," Jason added.

"I had to cancel, so Jase went and got her," Zack said.

"And we got kidnapped by Divatox instead," Jason finished. "Between him being with Kat, us attacking you guys when evil, and the fact that months had gone by, we all just let it drop." He sighed. "It's my fault. I was upset, I had my own stuff to deal with. Losing the power, being evil… I didn't have time to face Tommy and Kimberly's problems, too. I should—"

"Don't you dare start to talk like that," Tommy interrupted, and fell silent again.

"I should have been there for you," Jason muttered. "I should have put—"

"Shut up, Jason," Billy said mildly. "You know there wasn't a damned thing we could have done to prevent it or to repair it. I had my own problems, too. That doesn't mean I couldn't have tried harder before running off to Aquitar."

"I read the letter aloud," Adam said quietly. "I didn't want to look Tommy in the eye and mention Kimberly's name."

"It's not our fault, Jase," Zack said.

"You know that, so focus on the problem," Tommy added darkly.

"Getting Kimberly back," Jason agreed, nodding, but he still looked troubled.

Tommy shook his head. "Not just that. If it wasn't our fault… whose was it?"

A lengthy silence settled over the group. "It could have been anyone," Jason said finally. "Anyone who—"

"No, it couldn't," Tommy said firmly. "Someone did this on purpose. Someone had to put some thought into it. That means they had a motive."

"Which narrows the suspect pool," Billy agreed, frowning thoughtfully.

"Hey—someone had to know he got his letters from Kim sent to the Juice Bar," Rocky pointed out. "So… it was someone who went there."

"Someone who went there a lot in the afternoon when the mail came," Jason agreed.

"Someone who wanted them broken up," Adam added.

"Who would do such a thing?" Trini repeated.

"I can think of a few people," Zack said. "Lot of guys into Kimberly."

"Little silly, though," Jason said. "Kimberly was in Florida. So it was probably someone who was into Tommy, not someone who was into Kimberly"

"Yeah," Rocky said. "They'd have to be all sorts of stupid to try to break Tommy and Kim up so they could get with Kimberly when they knew that their next problem would be getting with Kimberly when she was all the way across the oh my god tell me someone else is thinking what I'm thinking."

Everyone turned and stared at him. "What?" Zack asked.

Rocky swallowed, thinking hard before hesitantly speaking up. "Think about it. Someone with the hots for Kimberly. Someone who was always in the Juice Bar. Someone who wouldn't mind stepping on Tommy's toes. Someone not that smart. Someone always hatching crazy, harebrained schemes."

They stared at him a little while longer before a smile broke out on Jason's face. "No," he said, "it couldn't possibly be him."

"You're joking, right?" Zack demanded. "I mean, come on. That's low. Too low for him."

"He can mimic handwriting," Billy disagreed. "I tutored him once. I caught him doing it."

"He was always in the Juice Bar, and we ran into him a lot," Rocky said. "Hell, we saw him more than we saw Cogs."

"He had a thing for Kim," Adam said. "For years, didn't he? Kimberly said he'd been following her around since elementary school."

"And the whole thing implies it was someone who lacks foresight," Trini continued. "It would be just like him to come up with a crazy plan and implement it without thinking through the consequences; we saw him do it a lot. He's probably the only one who wouldn't think about the fact that once he had them broken up he would have to somehow strike up a relationship with someone in Florida and the fact that she'd never shown interest in him before."

"And he wasn't exactly Tommy's best friend," Zack said thoughtfully.

"Things were better towards the end," Rocky added eagerly. "She was nicer to him."

"Yeah, after that time at the dance, they started being friends," Adam said. "She even gave him her contact information so that she could keep in touch with him."

"So it wasn't until Kim was in Florida that he thought he might have had a chance," Jason growled. "Things changed between them and he hoped it would keep on changing."

"I'm going to kill him," Tommy said in the calm tone of one announcing it was lunchtime.

"I mean, I'd ask him about it first," Rocky said reluctantly. "I could be wrong. It's just a theory."

"One that makes a whole lot of sense," Zack said. "He'd tried a million things over the years. I caught him once telling everyone who might even think about taking Kim to the eighth grade prom that she had mono."

"We've got the whole ride there to think it over, come up with other theories," Jason pointed out. "What do you say, Tommy? Think it's worth talking to him about?"

"I think," Tommy began, but just then the Jeep's driver's side door opened and both Hayley and Kimberly tumbled out. Bits of duct tape were clinging to Kimberly's skin, and bits of rope were clinging to the stray pieces of duct tape, and Hayley was still trying to pick the lock on Kimberly's handcuffs with a safety pin, but Kimberly was now mobile and she rushed straight towards Tommy, her expression both excited and furious.

"I know who it was!" Kimberly shouted. "I think so, anyway. It all makes sense. We were talking, and we were just—"

"Wait, have you figured it out yet?" Hayley interrupted, glancing around at them. "Tommy, Kimberly didn't dump you. Someone else did it. Someone sent you that letter and hope that—"

"We got there," Tommy cut in impatiently. "Who do you think it was?" he asked Kimberly.

"I know… okay, this is going to sound crazy, but… but…" Kimberly exhaled sharply, took a deep breath, and blurted out, "I think it was Skull."

"I agree," Hayley added. "Of all the people it could have been, he seems the most likely candidate. I can't be sure—I wasn't there and I don't really know him, but I think—"

"He used to write me letters in Florida," Kimberly said. "Then he went on this quest to rescue Bulk from outer space or… I don't know, something, he just said he was going to find Bulky no matter how lost the galaxy was, and I never got back in touch when they came back to Earth but he's probably the only one who could fake a letter from me, he had my address, he knew Tommy would—"

"We think so too," Jason said.

Kimberly breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. I thought it was kind of silly, I mean, and I don't want to think the worst of someone, but if anyone—"

"I'm going to find him," Tommy explained conversationally. "I will make him stop being alive anymore."

Kimberly smiled at him, her eyes gleaming. "I'm going to help."

"He'll be at Power Rangers Day," Trini said. "I'd bet on it."

"That's tomorrow. We're going to kill him now," Tommy pointed out.

Jason cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the Dino Rangers, who were standing at the other end of the sidewalk, talking alone. "Guys! Come here."

The four teenagers trotted up and before anyone could ask what was going on Kimberly was flinging herself at Conner. This momentarily terrified him, so the flying hug was complicated by the fact that he was in a martial arts stance when she threw her arms around him, but it worked nonetheless.

"Thank you," Kimberly whispered fiercely. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"Uh…" Conner patted one clenched fist awkwardly against her. "Sure?"

"Get in the car," Jason said, jerking his hands at Zack's SUV. "Zack'll explain on the way. Trini and I will ride with Tommy and Kim. Hayley and Billy with Rocky and Adam."

The group started to scatter, but Tommy called out, "Hey," and they all stopped and turned to look at him.

Tommy marched over to Kimberly and shoved his lips against hers. Kimberly didn't hesitate in the slightest before responding, pressing closer to him, her hands sliding up his chest to his neck. Tommy attempted to do the same, but his fingers got caught in the remnants of all the duct tape.

When they broke the kiss quite some time later, Tommy stared down at her while he attempted to unstick her forearm from his shirt. "I don't know what's about to happen," he said, "and I don't care if it was Skull or Zedd or the Pillsbury Doughboy or God himself who broke us up. You're mine."

Kimberly returned his gaze, unsurprised by his actions and unoffended by the tone in his voice that implied his words were irrefutable fact.

"Let's get to the bottom of this," Kimberly said finally. "You and me are another story."

Tommy nodded. "I want to know what happened. But I'm not letting go of you again."

Kimberly shook her head. "Not now. I can't think now. I can't feel now. I want to deal with this, with him." She swallowed and inhaled shakily. "But I'll listen. I'm through running, Tommy. Running and hiding is what caused this mess in the first place."

"They are so naming their firstborn after me," Conner said smugly.

"Conner," Tommy said, stepping away from Kimberly and heading for the Jeep, "don't push your luck."