Crash! Maddy leaped up from the desk in the back office, giving Toby a fleeting look before tearing out of the room. Only to freeze at the sight of Nick, on the ground with the display stand tipped over on top of him.
"What happened?" Maddy exclaimed.
"It was hilarious," Chip announced, snickering, as he bounced slightly in place, "Nick was working on setting the new display up when all of the sudden his feet went flying up into the air, and he tried to grab the display to catch himself, but instead he brought it down on top of him."
"Keeper's curse," Nick muttered, "Of all the times for it to act up."
"Are you okay Nick?" Toby asked as Vida reached out and helped pick him up.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Nick muttered, shaking his head, "Just lost my balance there for a second," he stared at the mess of the display table and cds that had been on it and grimaced, "I'll clean it up."
"Here," Maddy insisted, "Why don't you sit down, I"ve got this."
"No, I can clean it up," NIck insisted, kneeling down next to Maddy, "I"m not invalid, you know," he hissed into her ear.
"You told us yesterday that the Keeper's curse was acting up, right?" Maddy asked, "It doesn't matter what you do, something's bad is going to happen. You don't want to break these cds do you?"
Nick sighed, dropping the cds before almost tipping over, "Honestly, I haven't even moved?" he demanded.
"Hey, if the Keeper's Curse is acting up, doesn't that mean that Clare and Udonna are having a bunch of bad luck as well?" Chip asked, "Like Udonna is tripping all over Rootcore?"
"Clare bumbles enough that I don't think that a flare up in the curse will effect her much."
"But what about Udonna?"
"I have no idea, Xander," Nick muttered, pulling himself up.
"We might want to check on her," Maddy suggested, standing up as well, "I mean, I'm sure she's okay, she has Daggeron to protect her, but…"
"Come on, let's go!" Nick shouted, before walking straight into the doorpost.
"Is Nick alright?" Toby asked, "He's not usually this clumsy?"
"Don't worry, Toby," Vida insisted, "We'll take care of him. Come on, we better help him across the street, with his luck, he's going to gete hit by a car."
…
"I still don't get how you can whack your head hard enough to break the skin while traveling through a portal," Maddy insisted as she helped Nick clean the gash at Rootcore.
"When the Curse of the Keeper Family flares up, it can cause all kinds of trouble, you should be grateful that he hadn't been knocked unconscious, or given a concussion," Daggeron announced, "Let's just hope that Imperious doesn't hear about the Keeper's Curse flaring up, it will be dangerous for Nick to fight until it calms down again."
"So where are Udonna and Clare?" Nick asked as Maddy finally plastered a bandage on his forehead.
"I think Udonna might have accidentally been locked in her room this morning and is having a hard time escaping," Daggeron confessed, "You know how the Curse can be."
"No," Vida, Chip, Maddy, and Xander said in perfect unison.
"Yes," Nick confessed.
"Hey," Clare called out, rushing over to them before tripping and nearly faceplanting it, if Xander hadn't grabbed her at the last second, "Thanks Xander, have any of you seen Fireheart? I seem to have misplaced him."
"You misplaced a baby dragon?"
"The Keeper's Curse is acting up, Udonna still can't get out of her room!"
"You still haven't explained how you lost a baby dragon," Chip pointed out.
"I don't know how," Clare explained, "Jenji was telling me one of his stories, and Fireheart started to roar and cry and needed attention, so I went to take care of him. I put him down for his nap, and then… well… I had a situation, Keeper's Curse you know? Anyway by the time I came back, Fireheart was gone!"
"Hey, everybody," Jenji exclaimed bouncing up to them, "What's going on?"
"Nothing much," Vida insisted, "Just the Keeper's Curse is acting up and we can't find Fireheart anywhere."
"Geesh, sorry to hear about that," Jenji said, walking past quickly.
"Jenji!" Daggeron called out, "Do you know anything about where Fireheart is?"
"No!" Jenji insisted, shaking his head energetical.
"Jenji," Daggeron stressed using that same tone of voice that Nick's parents used when they knew that whoever they were talking to was lying.
"Okay, so Clare was so busy with Fireheart, I got jealous, so I… took hi out into the woods. Don't worry, I left him in a safe place."
"Where?" Maddy demanded.
"I'll come with you," NIck insisted.
"But the curse?" Maddy protested.
"The curse has been effecting my family for two hundred generations, maybe more, I can handle it."
…
"This is where Jenji left Fireheart," Maddy announced, looking around, "He's gone."
"Keeper's curse," Nick muttered, rubbing his head, where a headache was starting to form, "He's missing, and…" he trailed off, staring at a red blanket draped over a bush, "Is that my blanket?" he demanded, picking the red blanket up to check it, wincing when he heard a loud ripping sound, "Yes, yes it is," he concluded, pulling a face, great, it was ripped, sure he was sixteen, but this blanket had been there for him through so many hard times.
"Is that a baby blanket?" Maddy asked, a smirk on her face at the fact of the leader of her team, the son of the leader of the power rangers, carrying around a baby blanket as a teenager.
"Yeah," Nick said, "It was," he sighed, "This blanket, well… it's the only thing that I have from before my first adoption, from my birth parents, I was found wrapped in it when I was a baby."
Maddy's eyes grew round as she realized what he was saying, "Do you even know what happened to your birth parents?" she asked.
"No, I was found by a tree in the park by a young couple out on a moonlit walk. That's all I know. I don't even know what my birth name is."
"So your parents named you Nick?"
"My first… well second set of parents, I guess, I was adopted by a couple with the last name Russel, they died when I was three, I barely remember them, then my aunt and uncle adopted me, but they didn't realize how much work a little kid was, and I was constantly getting into scrapes and that kind of thing. We believe that my birth parents might be Keepers and I was just effected by the curse back then. Anyways, they decided I was too much of a hassle and dropped me back into the system, I was put into a home, but then the dad got transferred and they didn't want me, so I ended up with my parents. They wanted me."
"So, it worked out in the end, you have amazing parents," Maddy pointed out, "I see the way your eyes light up when you talk about them, and they seem to really care about you."
"I know, but, I always kind of wondered, what happened to my real parents, and why did they abandoned me."
"Who knows, maybe they had a good reason," Maddy pointed out, "I mean, according to Udonna, they were in the middle of a war at the time you were found. Maybe your parents got caught up with that. The Keeper's Curse can cause a lot of strange things to happen, right?"
"Absolutely," Nick said, looking furlornly at the ripped baby blanket, "I wonder if Nana Scott can fix this? When will I have time to take it to Angel Grove, gosh I wish we can teleport."
Maddy grabbed the blanket and held it in her hands, "I know someone who can fix it," she offered, "My grandmother, she's a whiz with a needle and thread."
"Do you think she would fix it for me?" Nick asked, trying hard to conceal his eagerness of getting his blanket mended without having to make the long drive to Angel Grove to his own grandmother's house.
"Sure, I'll go ask her," Maddy offered.
…
"Grams?" Maddy called out, entering the dimly lit apartment, "You home?"
"I'm in the kitchen Sweetheart," an aged voice called out. Maddy quickly followed the voice into the room.
"Grams, I'm wondering if you can help me with something?" Maddy asked, nervously, holding up the red blanket, "This belongs to one of my friends, it's really important to him. It's the only thing he has left from his Bio parents, do you think you can fix it."
Aged spotted hands reached out and grabbed the blanket, examining it, "I don't know if I can fix it so that it looks new," Grams Rocca announced, "But I can mend the rip easy enough, come back tomorrow for it."
Maddy's phone chimed as she smiled, "Thanks Grams, you're the best," she announced, pecking the old lady on the cheek before leaving, answering her phone once she was outside, "What's up?"
"The Keeper's Curse has struck again," Daggeron announced, "Nick and the rest of the team where turned into feathers, and I can't find Jenji anywhere. If he doesn't return to his lamp soon, he'll die."
Maddy sighed, "Of course, I'll look for him, he can't have gone far, and he should be easy enough to spot."
"Good luck," Daggeron said.
"Well, I'm not a Keeper, so I have that going for me."
…
Udonna sighed, grateful that the Keeper's Curse had finally settled down enough to allow her to leave her bedroom. Although at the time she finally got out of her room she was ready to turn back around and go back in. Nick, Xander, Chip and Vida had all been turned to feathers, Maddy and Jenji were fighting the monster that had done it. However, she was glad she hadn't turned back inside when Fireheart showed up with Phineas.
"Tomorrow we'll work on the landing," Phineas called out to Fireheart before turning to Udonna, "Thanks for letting me dragonsit."
Udonna gave Daggeron a confused look, dragonsit? What exactly had she missed today, "Any time Phineas," she said politely knowing full well that Phineas was probably not going to get anywhere near Fireheart again.
"I never got to see the other baby I left in the human world," Phineas announced.
Udonna froze picturing a baby wrapped in a red baby blanket, it couldn't be, could it, "He's probably all grown up, it was sixteen years ago after all."
Udonna's eyes grew round as she glanced at Daggeron, a man she had always considered a brother, could it be? Could Bowen really be alive?
"What baby?" Udonna asked, sixteen years ago, that would put it at the same age as Bowen.
"Baby, I didn't say baby," Phineas insisted.
Udonna gave him a look.
"Her will is too strong, I must tell the truth," Phineas sighed, "Look, when Callendar and Daggeron where having their little dispute, I found a baby. With the war going on, I knew that I couldn't take care of him, so I took him into the human world, left him somewhere safe, it was all grassy and there where lots of kids running around."
"A park?" a new voice suggested as Maddy walked up, a red square in her hands.
"Maybe, I don't know, is that what you call it?" Phineas asked.
"Let me get this straight, Phineas, you found a baby in the woods near Daggeron and Callendar, and took him into the human world?"
"Yeah," Phineas replied, "It didn't seem like a good idea to just leave him laying there with Daggeron and Callendar fighting."
"Wait," Maddy said, "You telling me that sixteen years ago, you found a baby and took him to the human world and left him in a park, in Briarwood?"
"Yeah," Phineas stated, "What about it?"
"Nick was found in the park here in Briarwood as a baby sixteen years ago," Maddy said, "He was telling me about it. The only real clue about who his real parents are is the fact that Koragg is related to him and he's a Keeper. The only thing he has from that time period is this blanket." Maddy held the blanket up, "That's why I'm here, it got ripped during the whole Keeper's Curse flare up, so I had my grandmother fix it for him."
Udonna grabbed the blanket, a strange look on her face, "Nick is Bowen, he's my son," she turned to Phineas, "Phineas, you saved my son."