The next day, after spending so much of his morning keeping up the act of a perfectly ordinary high school student the way he and the rest of his fellow Animorphs had done for so long back in Century City, Tommy tracked the Red Ranger down. The pair of them had formed at least something of a rapport as fellow martial artists, and Tommy would have almost been willing to call the pair of them friends, if the Red Ranger hadn't been an avowed enemy of Empress Rita.
The pair of them had made tentative plans to exercise together, but given everything that had been happening, Tommy hadn't bothered to rearrange his schedule in preparation.
"Hey, Tommy, I know I promised to work out with you, but something came up. It's sort of an emergency," the Red Ranger said, having caught up to him in the halls while the rest of the students had been making their way out of the building.
"Oh? It's that urgent?" he asked, suspecting he knew the reason but not about to say anything.
"Yeah, it's not something I can really afford to put off," Jason said, sounding perfectly contrite.
Tommy pulled his lips back slightly, offering a small smile. "I understand; you can't really predict these kinds of things," he said.
"Yeah, you can't," the Red Ranger said, an answering smile on his face; Tommy was pleased to know that his skills at operating covertly hadn't deserted him, but there was something about the Red Ranger's smile had… annoyed him. "I'll catch you later, okay?"
"Yeah, later," he said, smiling slightly as he waited for the Red Ranger to turn away from him.
A beam of light shot from the Power Coin that Empress Rita had granted to him when she made him her Green Ranger, and the Red Ranger vanished from the school that both of them spent so much of their time at. As promised, my Empress, he mused, tucking his Power Coin back in his pocket and turning to make his way out of the school at last.
