So, I know it started as a one shot but then Minh happened. Now it's going to be four or five chapters fanfic, each one in a different year. All of them are going to be centred around Trini and the Pai Zhua academy or Jungle Fury. I'm also planning another fanfic in this universe of Trini helping RJ train the Jungle Fury rangers, but we'll see when I'll write this rewrite.
1998
It's been two years since Trini arrived to the Pai Zhua academy. She missed her old friends back in Angel Grove but she enjoyed dedicate herself to the life of solitude and training. She wasn't completely alone but she wasn't with teenagers. RJ was younger than her in seven years and all the masters were really old. Not that she was a teenager anymore. She is in her twenties and she chose to spend her time as a student in secret academy. Where she is the only adolescent. It's not a normal life. But how you can return to a normal life when an alien decided you and your friends needs to be heroes and save the world from evil? You can't return to normality from that. It's been a long time since Trini thought about being a ranger, those memories were far away in her youth. The Pai Zhua academy was isolated so they barely had access to the news, which was good for Trini because when she Jason and Zack was at the peace conference every time they saw something about the Power Rangers they became depressed they can't help. It wasn't easy to here about their friends' adventures and not share it with them. She had a new life now, without fighting evil and hearing about her friends saving the world. Or that what she thought. She didn't expect to suddenly hearing a conversation about the Power Rangers in the middle of a lunch in the academy.
Trini sat with RJ as always. Most of the times Dominic would have eating with them as well but he just got a new roommate so he tried to get to know him. His name was Jarrod and he was ten years old boy who got an invitation to join the academy.
"The power rangers looked so cool, it's nice to know they still out there." Dominic told Jarrod.
"Yes, they are like modern heroes. They are so interesting, the rumours say there were several groups, but they all have the same idea." Jarrod explained. Trini gulped and slumbered in her seat, she needs to think how to deal with this conversation, this is the last topic she wants to speak about.
"What are you talking about? What are the Power Rangers?" RJ wondered.
"Dude, you never heard about them?!" Jarrod exclaimed.
"RJ grow up in the academy all his life. He ate pizza for the first time only two months ago." Dominic explained.
"And it was amazing exprience! When I'll leave to my spiritual journey, I'm going to eat pizza every day." RJ declared.
"That remind me how me and my friends drank milkshakes and smoothies every day," Trini chuckled, "be careful with that addiction." She hoped that would steered away the conversation from the Power Rangers.
"We can order pizza to the academy?" Jarrod asked.
"You are asking if we can practically or if we allowed to do it?" Dominic smirked.
"If we allow to do it." Jarrod clarified.
"Technically no, but we snuck out to the forest nearby and order it in our day off," RJ explained, "when you live in this place for your whole life you know how to bend some rules."
"It was one time, don't cross any lines here," Trini resigned. She was the adult here, and RJ and Dominic love to be mischievous sometimes. But Jarrod is a rookie and the last thing he needs is to get in trouble on his first month.
"Jarrod, these are Trini and RJ by the way." Dominic remembered he should introduce them officially.
"Nice to meet you, Jarrod." Trini greeted him.
"Hello guys, I'm glad to meet other fellow students like you," Jarrod bowed slightly and then he looked at Trini, "aren't you a bit older to be a student?"
"I am. I joined late, but I'm devoted for the training and decided to dedicate my life for it." Trini answered.
"Alright, cool, so what animal spirits you have? I've got the lion and Dominic told me he is the rhino." Jarrod wondered.
"I have the mantis spirit." Trini told him.
"I'm in training with my father on the Shark technique..." RJ phrased it carefully, not saying he has the shark spirit, because it's not true. "Anyway, what did you said about modern heroes?" he asked, curious about their earlier discussion and deliberately changing the subject.
"You haven't heard about the Power Rangers?" Jarrod asked surprised.
RJ sighed, "Again, I grow up here and I barely know anything about the outside world." Trini could see RJ is frustrated. She knew he has a hard time mastering the Shark technique and that he thinks he might have different spirit animal but he can't say any of these to his dad. The new boy couldn't know RJ's spirit animal is a sour subject but she knew. So, she let RJ have a light discussion on legendary heroes and she'll deal with it.
"They are group of ninja heroes with rainbow colors from Angel Grove and have giant robots to help them fight monsters and aliens and save the world." Jarrod explained in general.
"And once in a while they changed their costume and gear, this team looks different then the team who was active by the time I came here." Dominic added.
Trini took a sip of water while Jarrod talked and she almost chocked when he said ninjas. She wasn't a ninja, it wasn't accurate, but her friends eventually got ninja powers after Rito destroyed their zords, Kimberly told her about that. But it was weird to hear about the rangers from an outsider point of view. Because they could have looks like ninjas.
"Rainbow colors? That's sounds ridiculous." RJ shook his head.
"Not together, each team member has his own color, but they are colorful like rainbows, here look." Jarrod passed him a newspaper. Trini didn't notice he has one until now and it's sounds so weird to think of them like a rainbow.
"Most of the times there is also a red ranger in the team he probably was elsewhere or something." Dominic said.
"This is not a rainbow, there is no silver, black or pink in rainbow." RJ mentioned.
And that attracted Trini's attention. "Can I read it?" She asked and RJ gave her the newspaper. In the front page were five rangers; silver, black, blue, yellow and pink. The red was notably missing. She didn't recognize the suits. They had five tiny squares on their chests. She knew Tommy retired so they were completely new team without anyone of the originals.
Even though they were with their suits in the picture it was written down that the rangers transformed in front of the whole crowd. Trini gasped on that.
Zordon's voice rang in her mind: "...Keep your identity secret, no one may know you are a power ranger..."
It was a blunt violation of his rule! They were lucky no one pictured them transforming. She realized they were in their final battle and probably they probably didn't have a choice, but it still caused her a bad feeling, like it's betraying of all the values of the power rangers.
"Trini, you are from Angel Grove, right?" Dominic asked her, causing her to snap back from her thoughts.
"Yes, I do, but I left in the middle of my high school for a peace conference." Trini answered, hoping to avoid from the follow-up question.
"Have you ever saw the Power Rangers?" Jarrod asked, enthusiastic.
"Yes... they once saved me and my cousin, Sylvia in a fair with evil clowns." She told them, deciding to mention the safest thing who won't lead them to suspect she was a ranger in her youth.
"That's so cool," Dominic smiled.
"It was actually a bit scary, to live in a city targeted by an evil alien while you trying to hang out with your friends and being a good student." Trini mumbled, trying to act as civilian and not as someone who faced those aliens.
"The robots are really huge, like in building size?" Jarrod wondered.
"Yes, they are really big." Trini mentioned.
"The robots are animal based?" RJ wondered.
"Sometimes, it's depending on the team." Jarrod explained.
"I wonder if it's similar to the growing technique. On what energy does robots work? If we channel it to are spirits then maybe we could do something similar?" RJ muttered.
"Wait, what? The growing technique? What is it?" Jarrod asked, filling left out.
"We actually don't know as well," Dominic reassured him.
"Oh, I shouldn't say that..." RJ lowered his head and looked at the table.
"Now you need to explain." Dominic demanded.
"He doesn't have to do anything, if it's not something he can say so he shouldn't say." Trini defended him.
"Thanks Trini, but I already mentioned this anyway. It's advanced level of battle technique, you use your spirit animal into ginormous silhouette." RJ explained.
"We can do it?" Dominic asked puzzled.
"No, none of us are masters and it's really complicated." RJ clarified.
"Theoretically, are you saying the masters can summon robots like the Power Rangers have?" Jarrod asked excitedly.
"I don't see why not, the animal spirits are energy, it can be used for it. The Power Rangers powers work on some kind of magical energy." Trini shrugged, not thinking enough on what she is saying.
"Nice, it could become useful." RJ muttered to himself with a weird grin on his face.
"And why is that RJ? We need to know something? There is a evil monsters we need to fight in?" Dominic teased.
"No, no, of course not. I just thought hypothetically it could be cool to think we can become Power Rangers, but there is no reason to the Order of the Claw to do it we strong enough without alien powers, we have the power of ourselves and that the most important thing. I just amused myself with the idea, nothing more." RJ chuckled; a bit nervous. "Anyway, Jarrod, tell us about yourself we barely know you and we should get to know each other because we are going to spent a lot of time together." RJ drifted the discussion to a safer subject, and none of them mind because Trini didn't want to continue talking about the rangers it was too risky for her and Dominic wanted to know his new roommate better.
Little did they know RJ asked his questions for a reason, that he heard the masters' conversations, that he knows there is a great evil trapped inside a box and could escape at any point. The masters can deny it as much as they want so he won't be worried, but he has a reason to worry. For centuries there weren't new animal spirits in the order and now they got a lion, mantis and rhino, it's could be foreboding. It could be a sign Dai Shi will escape soon. RJ knew he can escape at any moment and he knew that if it'll happened the old masters would be in a grave danger and he might need to step in and take responsibility to defeat it. At least now Jarrod and Trini gave him a great solution if the problem arise. Channel the energies of the spirit animal to create rangers, could be the andvantage they will need in the battle against Dai Shi.
Author note: So what are you saying about my foreshadowing to the future? I was always curious how RJ find people to connect him to the morphin grid, I really wonder who created the morphers for him. I know it is AU and in canon it definitely not Trini but here in my fic it's going to work perfectly. And it's nice to think RJ might heard about the rangers from Jarrod, which could make sense because RJ probably didn't have many connections to the outside world so if he heard about the rangers before he left the academy it could be only from Jarrod.
