Ay Yi Yi, call from TJ Johnson, Tommy lifted himself on his arm, glancing at his wife, who lifted her head from her pillow.
"TJ doesn't usually call us," she said, "Something must be wrong."
"Yeah," Tommy agreed, reaching over and grabbing his phone, putting it on speaker, "TJ what's up?"
"I need you and your wife to meet me at Andrew Hartford's Manor just outside of San Angeles," TJ announced.
Kim sat up in bed, "Why?" she asked.
"Andrew Hartford is that rich archeologist, right?" Tommy asked, "He's donated quite a few finds to Mercer's Museum."
"The one who thinks he's Indiana Jones?" Kim added.
"Exactly," TJ said, "His last expedition took a turn to the unexpected when he stumbled upon the Corona Aurora."
Tommy groaned he had only met the explorer a couple of times, and all he would talk about was the Corona Aurora. He doubted that he actually just stumbled upon it. He'd spent half his life looking for it, "What happened?" he demanded.
"When he found the Corona Aurora, he awakened some ancient evils that are on their way to Earth as we speak. The Corona Aurora's guardian, the Sentinel Knight, told him that he needed to form a power ranger team to protect the crown and get the gems. From what I can tell, Sentinel Knight provided them with everything but a connection to the morphin grid and a team."
"And you need us to do that?"
"Well as the Power Couple, that's kind of your thing," TJ Johnson announced, "If the Morphin Grid doesn't pick them, you do."
"Don't tell Dana that, she still thinks making her the pink ranger was her dad's idea," Kim said, climbing out of bed, "We'll be there soon, hopefully, Hartford is just like Mitchell and already has a team picked out that would actually work, with a minor tweak here and there."
"You can't blame him for wanting to keep Dana out of it, now can you?" Tommy insisted, "Trust me, if I had my way Nick and Kira wouldn't have been power rangers… Although, both of them matured a lot during their service, especially Nick."
"Come on Handsome, let's go," Kim shouted, "Do you have any idea on how much trouble those creatures can cause before we get a team formed."
"Unfortunately I do," Tommy announced, "Keeper's curse, why did this have to pop up on the one weekend the kids are all at their grandparents' house? I was looking forward to sleeping in."
…
Mr. Hartford glanced up as TJ Johnson hung up the phone, "Well?" he asked. He wanted to get the team put together as soon as possible, preferably, before Mack learned about what was going on and offered to help.
"They should be here in the next couple of minutes," TJ announced, "Before you do, you have got to swear to secrecy, the Power Couple's identities are secret, and they would prefer if they remain so."
"Of course," Mr. Hartford announced, "I totally understand."
He had barely finished talking then a bright flash of white and pink filled the room in front of him, before dying down to reveal two young adults.
TJ smiled, "Glad you can make it so quickly."
"You're lucky that the kids are at Nana Scotts for the weekend," the male,who had short brown hair and sharp brown eyes, announced, patting him on the back as he walked past, "I didn't need to find a babysitter," he stopped in front of Mr. Hartford, "Mr. Hartford, "I'm Dr. Tommy Oliver, Leader of the power rangers," he announced, "And this is my wife, Kimberly, the Hart of the Power Rangers."
Mr. Hartford took Tommy's hand and shook it, "You look familiar?" he confessed.
"I'm an associate of Dr. Mercer, I was with him when you donated some ancient Egyptian artifacts to his museum," Tommy explained, "Unfortunately, except for a few exceptions, Power Rangers is a volunteer position, and don't pay the bills."
"I plan to pay my rangers, with benefits," Hartford offered, "Here, I've been picking out potential members."
"You've been provided with five morphers, right?" Kim asked, stepping forward to peer over Tommy's shoulder, as he glanced at the top profile in the folder he had been handed, "Not him."
"Agreed," Tommy announced, crumpling up the paper and tossing it into a nearby wastebasket.
"What's wrong with him, he knows how to fight, surely you need a power ranger who knows how to fight?"
"He also has a terrible temper with no control over it," Kim announced, "He'll get someone killed."
"Oh," Hartford said as Tommy crumpled up the next one as well, "And what was wrong with that one? TJ told me I'll need a smart one."
"Book smart, absolutely, but she's too timid," Tommy announced, "She'll never be able to fight properly."
Hartford watched as Tommy and his wife flicked through all the papers, crumpling up most of them. Only two profiles survived their first pass.
"Will Aston and Rose Ortiz," Tommy said, "Will certainly knows how to think on his feet, a quality that a power ranger needs, but he is a bit of a loner, and a power ranger needs to work as a team…"
"But he's adaptable," Kim announced, "He'll figure it out if we give him the opportunity. Especially if we put someone on the team who is used to being on a team…" she trailed off, "Someone like Ronny, she was captain of her girl's soccer team."
"No," Tommy announced, "Not Ronny!"
"Why not?" Kim asked, "She knows how to fight, she's even-tempered, and she knows how to work on a team."
"She's naive," Tommy insisted.
"So were we," Kim insisted, "The only cure for that is experience."
"But…"
"Tommy, the fact that Ronny's name popped into my head as someone to balance Will's weakness tells me that she's supposed to be a part of the team."
"But…"
"She's dedicated, and determined," Kim interrupted, "That's exactly what we need here," She arched an eyebrow, "Can you give me one reason why Ronny isn't a good choice for this team that doesn't involve the fact that she is our daughter?"
Tommy groaned, "No," he admitted, "So we have two members out of five."
"Three out of five," Hartford announced, "I'll be red."
"Leader and Mentor?" Tommy asked, "That might not be a good idea."
"Yes, I'm sure" Hartford insisted, "I won't make someone do something that I wouldn't do myself," he then pointed to the second profile, "What about Rose."
"Smart, and knows how to apply it from what I've read about her," Tommy announced, "Not a very strong fighter, but has amazing reflexes. She will be a perfect addition to the team."
"Well," Kim said, "If you insist on being the red ranger."
"It's the right thing to do," Hartford insisted.
"Then we only have one more slot to fill," Kim announced, "And a major flaw that we need to compensate for."
"A major flaw?" Hartford demanded.
"A team needs to be balanced, or the enemy will be able to tip it," Tommy explained.
"And everyone so far is rather serious," Kim added, "Which is great, but you need something to balance it out, or else your team will burn out quickly. Tommy any suggestions?"
"Only one comes to mind, Dax Lo. He's a stunt double in Hollywood. He works with a former teammate of mine. He's just what we need to balance out the team."
Kim nodded, "He can be a handful at times, but his cheerful personality will give the others a boost when things get difficult."
"Perfect," Hartford announced, "Will you be contacting them, or am I?"
"It would be better if you contact them," Tommy announced, "And I would prefer that they didn't know that we helped pick them out. Most of the time Power Rangers are just at the right place at the right time. I don't want to cause friction between teams by having it be common knowledge that we handpicked a team."
"Besides," Kim agreed, "If Ronny ever found out that we're the ones that picked her, she'll think that we just picked her because she was our daughter and not because she has the skill set we needed for the team. She suffers from some self confidence issues, not that she allows anyone to know about it."
"Of course, I'll contact them and have them here by next week."
"Everything is ready for you," Tommy announced, "Good luck, if you ever ran into a problem your team can't handle, call me, and I'll send some reinforcements. The rest is up to you and your team." There was a beam of white and pink light and they were gone.
TJ, who had just been hanging out in the corner the whole time, smiled, "I'll see myself out," he announced..
…
"I don't understand why you threw such a fit when I suggested Ronny," Kim insisted, "You didn't have a problem when Kira and Nick joined."
"I didn't have much of a choice," Tommy pointed out, "Both of them fell in being in the right place at the right time. Besides they were different, they didn't want to be power rangers, they didn't have this expectation of what it would be like that would easily be shattered. Ronny on the other hand, believes that being a power ranger will be this amazing experience. Both of us know that that's not true."
"Kira needed to learn how to work with others, Nick needed to learn responsibility, and Ronny needed to learn that being a Power Ranger isn't all fun and games, it is a serious business. We've tried to teach her that. Zordon knows that we didn't shelter her as a child about what happens in the Power Ranger world. She's just one of those who won't get a full grasp on what war really is like until she is in the middle of it. She needs personal experience. This will give her that."
"Just because I know you're right, doesn't mean that I like it," Tommy announced, slumping down on the couch, "I don't know why, but I just can't help feeling like something bad will happen if Ronny joins the team."
"Why?"
"I don't really know."
"Ronny's strong," Kim insisted, "She'll be fine. She'll have amazing teammates to help her. There is nothing to worry about. Besides, she's twenty now, a full-blown adult, and she's been living on her own for a couple of years now. You can't hold on to her forever."
"I know," Tommy said, "but that. doesn't make things easier."