![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: An Unexpected Mission
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rivulet027 and moonlite_n_rose
Fandom: Power Rangers with an AU ending for the Operation Overdrive Team-up.
Pairings: Billy/Trini, eventual slash and het.
Rating: Pg-15
Summery: The Once A Ranger vets team continue in Angel Grove with a new set of villains. Wherein Adam gains a team, gets a girl, a couple of tattoos and might just lose his sanity in the process.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Power Rangers, neither does MnR. We’re just playing in their toy box and we promise to put everyone away when we’re finished.
A/N: This story is originally being written in role playing format. All updates will first be posted here http://pr-stories.escape-from-reality.net/ and then added elsewhere.
Chapter 3:
A confused Dustin let Tori lead him away. "Dude, I'm like sorry?" he tried, "T, how bad was the bad that I just did?" Actually what had he done? "Is Bridge okay? I like didn't mean to hurt him."
"Bridge is fine Dustin. Okay," she paused, trying to figure out how to put this in a way Dustin would understand. "Bridge can feel what we feel; he can sense our emotions, among other things. It's even worse for him when he's in physical contact with one of us. So… no more skin to skin contact unless he okays it." She bit her lip, "We also have to work at keeping our emotions inside our skins, so to speak."
"Duuuude," Dustin shook his head at Tori's explanation, then he scratched his head, "So like how do we do that?"
"Well… grounding, centering, and shielding," she said tentatively, knowing he'd recognize at least the first two from the meditation they were all supposed to learn.
Dustin groaned, "But T, I like suck at that! Even Sensei said to let it be with trying to teach me." Dustin flopped down and wrinkled his nose, "Oh man, how am I going to do this?” He rested his chin in his hands with a frown.
Tori put her arms around him. "I don't know, but promise you'll try again? I promise I'll work on a way to make it easier for you to learn, I know you hate to be still," she said comfortingly.
"I'll try," Dustin promised with a sigh as he leaned into her, "if you promise not to hit me when I fall asleep."
He tilted his head to look at her, "T, you’re not mad at me are you? I really didn't know that it'd recharge my morpher when I pushed Kira out of the way. I just saw that thing hitting the others with that energy blast and it demorphing them and I know how to channel energy through me and redirect it into the ground so I...I just didn't want it to hurt Kira." He turned away and tugged on his hair, "And then it hit me in my morpher and that screwed up the whole channeling thing and you're not upset with me for sticking around are you? I know this was sorta your thing."
"Of course I'm not upset Dustin," Tori said, surprised at the outburst from her friend. "Frankly, we need all the help we can get, so I like having you here. It makes things a little easier on me, having you here too," she admitted. Having Dustin there was almost like having the team together again. "Kira's not mad at you either…she's just grumpy in the mornings, plus she's a female yellow, Adam's told me all about female yellows, they're feisty," she said kissing his forehead.
Dustin beamed a smile at her. Tori always managed to make him feel better. "Well apparently the male yellows are comic book geeks," he joked. He wrinkled his nose, "So we'll work on the meditating thing and hey maybe I'll get it right this time. And we we’ll also need Zords, and Cam can so help with that since our Zords are fixed and I really don't see Shane objecting to us using his Zord. Dude, do you think we could get our Tsunami Cycles back? Cause that would be like so cool."
Tori nodded. "I have an idea for your meditation, meditation more your style," she said with a grin. "I'll tell you more once I work out the details, I think I need to talk with Adam about it," she added before he could start pestering her with questions. "I should probably call Cam huh?" Tori pondered to him. "I mean, we need our zords… and it should be pretty simple to switch the focus for the Hawk from Shane to Bridge, at least temporarily. As for our cycles… I dunno, maybe we'll get something better, like a set of cycles for all of us rangers on this team," she said with a laugh.
"Yeah," he agreed, "there were only five and the Thunder's wouldn't be in the right colors and well I can't imagine Hunter letting anyone use his cycle without too many threats that we like so don't have time to deal with. New cycles would be cool."
"Neither one of those boys would let anyone use their precious cycles," Tori said shaking her head.
"Or their Zords," Dustin added with a shudder, "they'd kill us the first time one of their Zords even got so much as a scratch. I like would so not want to deal with that."
"Attachment issues galore with them," she laughed.
Dustin nodded his agreement.
"We'll talk to Adam about it later, after he's had a bit to process what's going on. I think out of all of us, he's hit the hardest, I mean for us, it's only been a few years, I borrowed that Ranger History Disk from Dr. Oliver, it's been ten years since Adam's been a full-time ranger. I can't imagine picking it up after living a normal life for so long," Tori sighed thoughtfully.
"Dude, ten years? That's like insane! Well, maybe we could like insist that he get the master bedroom when we move into that house Mr. Hartford is buying for us. I mean he is the one that's been putting his life together longer than us and he is our leader so it might help make him feel a bit better. Is that a good idea?"
"Like there was ever any doubt about Adam getting the master bedroom. He's our leader, he's the most experienced out of all of us, and I think he needs the solace the most out of all of us, except for maybe Bridge, but that's for different reasons," Tori said with a firm nod. "Adam is definitely getting the master bedroom, no ifs, ands, or buts."
Dustin nodded along with Tori, "And the others had better agree with us, we're trained Ninjas and Sensei's after all." He gave her another grin and bumped her shoulder, "This will work out. We'll kick these evil space whatever they are baddies butts. Hey, maybe we should all look at the website of the house first, it's got great pictures of each room. That way we can at least pick out which room everyone gets and there'll like be no fighting about it when we get there."
Tori nodded, smiling at Dustin's enthusiasm. "Let's go… I wonder if there is a lake near the house," she pondered as she grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the patio door once more.
Dustin poked her even as he followed, "Like maybe we should call Cam first, figure out what's going on with your shop and our Zords. I already called Kelly and told her I'd need to extend my leave of absence and Sensei told us to take as much time as needed."
"You're right, but my shop is taken care of. I told my employees that I was taking an extended leave of absence, and that Kelly was acting manager until further notice," she said shutting the door behind them. She headed into the living room and grabbed her cell phone, putting it on speaker and dialing Cam's number. At the sound of Cam's voice she grinned. "Cam, have I told you lately how much I love you?" She asked sweetly, like she always did when she had a favor to ask.
Cam sighed, "Alright, what do you want?"
"Nothing much… just the Dolphin and Lion Zords… and the Hawk Zord reconfigured so that Bridge can use it, if we get permission from Shane, so we can form the Storm Megazord to beat these new evil aliens that are trying to take over the planet," she swallowed a giggle and grinned at Dustin.
Dustin shared her grin.
Cam gave them an annoyed sigh just for good measure, "Shane'll say yes if he knows what's good for him. I'll need a look at Bridge's morpher, but it shouldn't be too difficult. Make a list of the power disks that you want. Did you want any of the other Zords? I also have the program for our transportation system, as that might actually prove useful." Cam paused for a moment trying to think, "Maybe I could come up with some new power disk designs. Would you be interested in CyberCam? I finally managed to work out all the bugs that Lothor gave him."
At the mention of CyberCam Dustin's eyes grew wide and he mouthed 'Say No' at Tori.
"I'll make a list of the power disks… and we'll only need the three zords for right now, Adam's working on the others, and…" she swallowed another laugh at Dustin's wide eyed look, "It's okay about CyberCam, er…Cam. We have an Alpha that will work just fine." In an attempt to steer the conversation away from CyberCam she added, "I'll head out to the academy tomorrow with Bridge so you can look at his morpher. I really appreciate this Cam, more than I can say."
“Sure you do. Now show me you appreciate it by actually getting me that list and then defeating these villains because I like my world without evil space aliens. They’ve already tried to recruit my cousins, except they threw in a clause of hitting them with some experimental ray that would ensure that they’d turned evil, would even go so far as to make them evil. If these things go after my cousins again…” Cam let the conversation hang there as he wasn’t sure he could put into words just what he wanted to do to these villains for threatening his cousins’ sense of right and wrong.
Dustin scowled, his face darkening as he promised, “They’re so dead Cam.”
He’d been responsible for Marah and Kapri’s basic training and no one, absolutely no one, went after his students. Especially not after he’d seen them struggle with the concept of if they were good or evil and then decided that they preferred to be good.
"We'll make sure they regret going after the girls Cam… no worries there," Tori said in a deceptively calm voice. In her head, the biggest tidal wave she could manage was waiting for the next time she saw the villainous couple of the year. How dare they try to subvert Marah and Kapri! They've been working so hard at being good and trying to be ninjas.
“Good.” Cam agreed, “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
"How dare they…" she muttered darkly.
“Obviously they have a death wish,” Dustin agreed.
From his place on the floor, snuggled into the blanket Xander tilted his head to look at the two of them. Tori was easily the calmest girl he’d met besides Maddy and now she looked ready to really hurt someone. Dustin usually wore a grin on his face, but now a scowl had taken its place. Curious he asked, “Who has a death wish?”
Tori looked down at Xander. "These villains, they tried to subvert Marah and Kapri," she said in her cool, controlled tone. "Marah and Kapri are still working on the whole good guys thing, and they tried to ruin that."
Remembering Cam was still on the phone she looked down at her cell, "I'm gonna let you go, we'll see you tomorrow Cam," with that, she flipped her phone shut. She looked at Dustin, "This just became a hell of a lot more personal now."
“Tell me about it,” Dustin agreed as he started to pace, hand clenching and unclenching in anger, “They just…dude. Dude!”
Xander blinked at them. He could understand not wanting his friends to be turned evil, that whole vampire incident with V hadn’t been pleasant at all. Still these two looked ready to go. He glanced over at Bridge, who was in a handstand eyes closed, no help there. Where were Kira or Adam? Maybe he should get one of them? “Okay,” he said sitting up and scrubbing a hand down his face, “but lets try and calm down first, no need getting ahead of ourselves.” Xander continued confused, "Were they team members?" He'd thought Tori was the only girl on her team.
Tori shook her head. "They used to work for Lothor, but decided to be good when they realized they kinda sucked at being bad, and Lothor was trying to use them for his grand master plan," she explained to Xander.
“Oh,” Xander said. He wet his lips thankful that they hadn’t succeeded as he thought of the villains he knew who’d turned good and how he’d feel if they were suddenly evil again.
Kira came out of the bathroom then, freshly showered, dressed causally in a yellow t-shirt and a pair of jeans, her hair hanging loosely on her shoulders. "Who? Marah and Kapri?" she asked, having heard Tori's explanation.
"Ruxandra tried to turn them evil, permanently," Tori said taking a deep breath, knowing deep down that getting upset about it wouldn't help anything, and would just make her reckless, but it was hard, knowing how hard the girls had worked.
Kira gasped. "No way, they're okay though right?" She asked quickly. She didn't know them well, but she knew that they were good at heart, and had rescued the students from the academy, and rescued Sensei when Lothor had come back to try his hand at her team.
“Yes, thankfully,” Dustin told her, his pace agitated, “I’m just so argh…I know I like need to calm down, but I’m just so…I mean how dare they, right?” Dustin paused to run a hand through his hair. He forced himself to flop down in front of the computer desk and bring up the link to the house Adam had showed him. “We should pick out rooms,” he said in an attempt to clear his mind and think about something other than wanting to find these two baddies and to make them feel a world of pain.
"If there's a lake, I want one facing it," Tori said knowing what Dustin was trying to do, and following his lead. She could only imagine what Bridge would be feeling if they didn't manage to lock down their emotions.
"As long as it's my own, I don't care where it is," Kira said peering over Dustin's shoulder. “Damn… it's huge," she murmured appreciatively. "Oooh… I want that one!" Kira said pointing to one of the rooms that was shown; it was already painted a pale yellow.
"A yellow for our yellow," Dustin grinned at her enthusiasm and love of their new house, he quickly scrolled through the pictures for a lake view, "Well there’s a blue and a red facing the lake...dibs on blue T?"
Tori nodded. "Of course… like I'd really want the red room," she scoffed at the idea.
"I'll take green," Xander said as Bridge wandered over. Dustin glanced at Bridge and then looked back at the computer. He was everywhere with his feelings right now. With a sigh he spun out of the chair and announced he was going for a run. With a call that he'd just pick from whatever was left he was out the door.
Bridge watched Dustin leave with a frown. He had his shields firmly in place. He moved his frown to the other side of his face as he asked Tori, "Should I tell him I’m okay?" Bridge glanced at the pictures, "I'll take the other green room. Adam should get the master bedroom."
"We already decided Adam gets the master bedroom, since he's our leader and he's giving up more than most of us to come back to rangering," Tori replied firmly. She looked at Bridge for a moment before answering Bridge's first question, "Yeah, he really has a hard time controlling his emotions and learning anything that requires being still for any length of time. He fell asleep every time we tried to learn meditation. I'm thinking about attempting to teach him a method of meditation that involves moment, bo-fighting actually, that might be the key for him."
Bridge nodded at what Tori said, "I'll try and reassure him. I think I was mostly just overwhelmed because I thought I'd be going home and then we were all crammed together in this space and well none of you has the control Sky does, so I just got overwhelmed.”
Kira nodded in agreement, "I think so too, Dustin's body needs movement," she added as they scrolled through more pictures of the houses.
Xander wiggled his eyebrows at Kira, "And you'd know that how?"
Kira gasped at him, "What?!?!" She exclaimed as she all but launched herself at Xander.
Tori grabbed her and held her back, "Kira! No… we need him, you can't kill him!" She exclaimed. "Bridge you're closest… smack him!"
If there was one thing Bridge Carson knew it was that when a woman yelled an order you followed it. Confused Bridge said, “Okay.” He glanced at his glove to make sure it was secure then smacked a startled looking Xander upside the head.
Billy looked down at the quick sketch almost schematic that he’d drawn of the Mastodon Zord from memory. He frowned at it, he was sure he’d forgotten some components, but then he’d been on the phone with Jason and the one things he was still working towards improving was his ability to multitask. If what Jason had been telling him was correct, and it might not be as it seemed Jason had forgotten the first rule about assuming, Adam might be needing a zord.
Determined to find out and determined to find out how his friend would feel about Jason’s suggestion that he help teach in Adam’s absence Billy picked up the phone.
Adam was relaxing in the quiet of his bedroom. Kira had claimed the shower, Tori was still busy with Dustin, Xander was asleep and Bridge was still working on his shielding. He should really be doing something productive, like calling Billy, but the quiet was just too nice. Suddenly, the phone rang and he lazily grabbed it, "Hello?"
“Salutations,” Billy greeted with a grin, knowing that with that one word Adam would know who was calling.
"Billy! I was just thinking about calling you," he said a little cautiously, freaked out by the moment. "What's going on man?"
“Well I’ve heard a most disturbing rumor and I thought it best to check with the source of this rumor before I indulged in believing it,” Billy started to explain, “According to Jason, your temporary assignment has become a more permanent situation and he was inquiring as to my ability to cover some of your classes while you were away as he wasn’t completely prepared for this turn of events. However I thought it best to seek your opinion on the matter before I gave him my decision.”
"So Jason asked you to cover for me while I'm out saving the world again, only ten years older and the de-facto leader this time," Adam translated. "Go for it… if these baddies work the way Rita and Zedd used to, and something tells me they modeled themselves after those two, I won't have the time to work at the dojo," he sighed. "By the way… we have a small zord situation," he said tentatively, hoping he would be able to help. Billy was the best, bar none.
“I see, then I’ll let Jason know if I can fit it into my schedule. What exactly do you mean by small zord situation? Does anyone on your new team actually have access to their zords?” Billy asked, hoping he wouldn’t have to do everything from scratch. He also asked slowly and carefully, not ready to simply volunteer just yet.
Adam thought about it, "Well you know MY zord situation. Kira's zord was destroyed in the final battle. Bridge's zord is still in the future. Tori and Dustin should have access to their zords, we're going to see if Cam can't get their third zord to work for Bridge, and Xander IS his zord, so really, it's just a zord for me and Kira… which, should probably be something along the lines of a Pterodactyl, since that's her power, oh… and I was pondering the idea of them being able to combine with Xander's…" he trailed off, wondering if Billy would help or not, "I could really use your help man."
Of course he knew Adam’s zord situation, Adam didn’t have a zord, he had a start from scratch situation. Billy began fixing the schematic he had in front of him as he pondered what to say, “First of all who is Cam and if he can help you with three zords how is he unobtainable to help you with the other two? Also combining zords would depend on your meaning when you say that Xander becomes his zord.”
Satisfied with what he had on the Mastodon Zord he began sketching out what he remembered about Kim’s original zord. That should work for Kira and Adam, provided of course he remembered correctly. He’d likely need to call Kim and find out from her, what could’ve been better about her Pterodactyl Zord if she had had the options of changing things about it and of course it’d have to be yellow instead of pink. He’d also need to get a hold of Tommy, as he knew Tommy had records of everything, some pictures of the zords; also any schematics he had would be of great usefulness. An e-mail to either Tommy or Hayley would work for that, but he’d have to find his laptop first. Where had he put his laptop?
"Cam is… or rather was, the Ninja Storm rangers tech man. He created their zords, and even though they were pretty much totaled after the final battle, he had a self-repair mechanism built into the zords and after a bit, they managed to pull themselves back together. You guys would get along great… anyway, the reason I don't want to get him involved is because he's really involved in running the Wind Ninja Academy at the moment… and to be honest, I'd rather have you do it… you know the schematics of the old zords the best," Adam said as he sat up on his bed. "As for Xander, I mean that quite literally, he becomes a gigantic mechanical looking minotaur, sort of."
While Adam was replying to Billy, Trini walked into his workroom, carrying his laptop.
“I’d want to see that actually and maybe acquire this Cam’s e-mail address?” Billy hinted.
"Babe…your laptop was in the living room, I figured you'd eventually need it," she said as she set it on the table next to him.
How Trini did it Billy would never know, but without her he was certain half of his experiments would never get finished and he’d be completely lost. “Thank you,” he told her as he put a hand over the phone and gave her a quick kiss in thanks. He settled the phone back to his ear attempting to think of the easiest and quickest way to relay the situation to her, “I have to admit that I’m uncertain Adam. I’m at a few critical junctures with certain experiments and designing zords takes times.” He leaned forwards and added something he’d just remembered to the pterodactyl.
"Billy!" Adam half pleaded with him. "I can give you Cam's email address, but I really need your help with this man… please."
Trini cuffed Billy gently on the side of the head. "You will help him with his zords, won't you?" She said crossing her arms over her chest and giving him her patented 'yellow' look.
“Ow,” Billy hissed as he glanced up at Trini. He waved his hands at the schematics as if to say ‘see working on the problem already’ before he told Adam, “Trini says that yes I will and I know better than to argue with Trini. I’ll need to contact Hayley and see if I can get any schematics of the old zords, then I’ll contact Kim and have her look over the schematic I already have drawn up, I’ll likely take the time to pay Zack that same curtsey. Then I’ll need you and Kira to look over the designs and suggest any idea you might have. Also we’ll need to brainstorm on where exactly we’re going to get the parts and I’ll need to actually see Xander’s zord before I can even begin to fathom how we’ll put them all together.” He really was going to need this Cam’s e-mail address.
Trini leaned down and grabbed the phone, "Don't let him kid you Adam, while I did tell him to help you, he was already working on the schematics." She laughed as Billy yanked the phone away and gave her an indignant look.
Adam laughed, "I really appreciate it Billy. I'm sure Hayley will give you the schematics she's got, and I think her and Tommy managed to back up all the files from the remains of the command center, that should help you too. I don't know about the parts… we may have to put in a call to Hartford, he built all of Overdrive's zords."
“Intriguing,” Billy mused, already in this short amount of time he had two other tech’s names. While bouncing idea of Hayley and Justin made for good conversation he was always up for adding some new techs to his list of friends. He copied down the contact information as Adam gave it to him. After he had them down he wrapped his arms around Trini, pulling her close and into his lap. He gave her a quick hug and handed Adam off to her as he sent quick e-mails detailing where he was at with schematics and the help he could use with ideas to Cam, Hayley and Tommy. Hopefully he’d have a rough start on their zord and megazord designs by the end of the day. He gave Trini a quick kiss on the cheek and began to type up additional e-mails to Kim and Zack. He shook his head with a smile, “Trust Adam to find me such an interesting puzzle to work with.”
After she got off the phone with Adam she looked over the emails he was writing. "What are friends for?" she said with a soft laugh. "Do you think you'll be able to get this to work? I know the combining is going to be a pain, considering you've got three completely different sets of zords, unless you just use the schematics for the dactyl and repaint it yellow…" she pondered that.
“Well as I’ve just added two techs to my list, both of whom seem to understand zord building, I’m sure we’ll mange to come up with something.”
"I always thought Kim’s zord would look good yellow," she giggled. "Don't tell her I said that though."
He joined in her laughter, pausing to give her a kiss on the cheek, “If she really doesn’t like it we’ll blame Tommy.”
“Yeah, it is his fault… that was his team," Trini agreed, wrapping her arms around him. "Have I told you today that I love you? Cause I do," she said kissing him softly.
Billy accepted the kiss and reciprocated. “You might have reminded me this morning,” he teased as he pulled away. He cupped her cheeks and smiled, it never ceased to amaze him how beautiful she was. Happy that such an amazing woman could love him he kissed her again.
"Well… let me remind you again," she murmured readily accepting his kisses.
Authors:
rivulet027 and moonlite_n_roseFandom: Power Rangers with an AU ending for the Operation Overdrive Team-up.
Pairings: Billy/Trini, eventual slash and het.
Rating: Pg-15
Summery: The Once A Ranger vets team continue in Angel Grove with a new set of villains. Wherein Adam gains a team, gets a girl, a couple of tattoos and might just lose his sanity in the process.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Power Rangers, neither does MnR. We’re just playing in their toy box and we promise to put everyone away when we’re finished.
A/N: This story is originally being written in role playing format. All updates will first be posted here http://pr-stories.escape-from-reality.net/ and then added elsewhere.
Chapter 3:
A confused Dustin let Tori lead him away. "Dude, I'm like sorry?" he tried, "T, how bad was the bad that I just did?" Actually what had he done? "Is Bridge okay? I like didn't mean to hurt him."
"Bridge is fine Dustin. Okay," she paused, trying to figure out how to put this in a way Dustin would understand. "Bridge can feel what we feel; he can sense our emotions, among other things. It's even worse for him when he's in physical contact with one of us. So… no more skin to skin contact unless he okays it." She bit her lip, "We also have to work at keeping our emotions inside our skins, so to speak."
"Duuuude," Dustin shook his head at Tori's explanation, then he scratched his head, "So like how do we do that?"
"Well… grounding, centering, and shielding," she said tentatively, knowing he'd recognize at least the first two from the meditation they were all supposed to learn.
Dustin groaned, "But T, I like suck at that! Even Sensei said to let it be with trying to teach me." Dustin flopped down and wrinkled his nose, "Oh man, how am I going to do this?” He rested his chin in his hands with a frown.
Tori put her arms around him. "I don't know, but promise you'll try again? I promise I'll work on a way to make it easier for you to learn, I know you hate to be still," she said comfortingly.
"I'll try," Dustin promised with a sigh as he leaned into her, "if you promise not to hit me when I fall asleep."
He tilted his head to look at her, "T, you’re not mad at me are you? I really didn't know that it'd recharge my morpher when I pushed Kira out of the way. I just saw that thing hitting the others with that energy blast and it demorphing them and I know how to channel energy through me and redirect it into the ground so I...I just didn't want it to hurt Kira." He turned away and tugged on his hair, "And then it hit me in my morpher and that screwed up the whole channeling thing and you're not upset with me for sticking around are you? I know this was sorta your thing."
"Of course I'm not upset Dustin," Tori said, surprised at the outburst from her friend. "Frankly, we need all the help we can get, so I like having you here. It makes things a little easier on me, having you here too," she admitted. Having Dustin there was almost like having the team together again. "Kira's not mad at you either…she's just grumpy in the mornings, plus she's a female yellow, Adam's told me all about female yellows, they're feisty," she said kissing his forehead.
Dustin beamed a smile at her. Tori always managed to make him feel better. "Well apparently the male yellows are comic book geeks," he joked. He wrinkled his nose, "So we'll work on the meditating thing and hey maybe I'll get it right this time. And we we’ll also need Zords, and Cam can so help with that since our Zords are fixed and I really don't see Shane objecting to us using his Zord. Dude, do you think we could get our Tsunami Cycles back? Cause that would be like so cool."
Tori nodded. "I have an idea for your meditation, meditation more your style," she said with a grin. "I'll tell you more once I work out the details, I think I need to talk with Adam about it," she added before he could start pestering her with questions. "I should probably call Cam huh?" Tori pondered to him. "I mean, we need our zords… and it should be pretty simple to switch the focus for the Hawk from Shane to Bridge, at least temporarily. As for our cycles… I dunno, maybe we'll get something better, like a set of cycles for all of us rangers on this team," she said with a laugh.
"Yeah," he agreed, "there were only five and the Thunder's wouldn't be in the right colors and well I can't imagine Hunter letting anyone use his cycle without too many threats that we like so don't have time to deal with. New cycles would be cool."
"Neither one of those boys would let anyone use their precious cycles," Tori said shaking her head.
"Or their Zords," Dustin added with a shudder, "they'd kill us the first time one of their Zords even got so much as a scratch. I like would so not want to deal with that."
"Attachment issues galore with them," she laughed.
Dustin nodded his agreement.
"We'll talk to Adam about it later, after he's had a bit to process what's going on. I think out of all of us, he's hit the hardest, I mean for us, it's only been a few years, I borrowed that Ranger History Disk from Dr. Oliver, it's been ten years since Adam's been a full-time ranger. I can't imagine picking it up after living a normal life for so long," Tori sighed thoughtfully.
"Dude, ten years? That's like insane! Well, maybe we could like insist that he get the master bedroom when we move into that house Mr. Hartford is buying for us. I mean he is the one that's been putting his life together longer than us and he is our leader so it might help make him feel a bit better. Is that a good idea?"
"Like there was ever any doubt about Adam getting the master bedroom. He's our leader, he's the most experienced out of all of us, and I think he needs the solace the most out of all of us, except for maybe Bridge, but that's for different reasons," Tori said with a firm nod. "Adam is definitely getting the master bedroom, no ifs, ands, or buts."
Dustin nodded along with Tori, "And the others had better agree with us, we're trained Ninjas and Sensei's after all." He gave her another grin and bumped her shoulder, "This will work out. We'll kick these evil space whatever they are baddies butts. Hey, maybe we should all look at the website of the house first, it's got great pictures of each room. That way we can at least pick out which room everyone gets and there'll like be no fighting about it when we get there."
Tori nodded, smiling at Dustin's enthusiasm. "Let's go… I wonder if there is a lake near the house," she pondered as she grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the patio door once more.
Dustin poked her even as he followed, "Like maybe we should call Cam first, figure out what's going on with your shop and our Zords. I already called Kelly and told her I'd need to extend my leave of absence and Sensei told us to take as much time as needed."
"You're right, but my shop is taken care of. I told my employees that I was taking an extended leave of absence, and that Kelly was acting manager until further notice," she said shutting the door behind them. She headed into the living room and grabbed her cell phone, putting it on speaker and dialing Cam's number. At the sound of Cam's voice she grinned. "Cam, have I told you lately how much I love you?" She asked sweetly, like she always did when she had a favor to ask.
Cam sighed, "Alright, what do you want?"
"Nothing much… just the Dolphin and Lion Zords… and the Hawk Zord reconfigured so that Bridge can use it, if we get permission from Shane, so we can form the Storm Megazord to beat these new evil aliens that are trying to take over the planet," she swallowed a giggle and grinned at Dustin.
Dustin shared her grin.
Cam gave them an annoyed sigh just for good measure, "Shane'll say yes if he knows what's good for him. I'll need a look at Bridge's morpher, but it shouldn't be too difficult. Make a list of the power disks that you want. Did you want any of the other Zords? I also have the program for our transportation system, as that might actually prove useful." Cam paused for a moment trying to think, "Maybe I could come up with some new power disk designs. Would you be interested in CyberCam? I finally managed to work out all the bugs that Lothor gave him."
At the mention of CyberCam Dustin's eyes grew wide and he mouthed 'Say No' at Tori.
"I'll make a list of the power disks… and we'll only need the three zords for right now, Adam's working on the others, and…" she swallowed another laugh at Dustin's wide eyed look, "It's okay about CyberCam, er…Cam. We have an Alpha that will work just fine." In an attempt to steer the conversation away from CyberCam she added, "I'll head out to the academy tomorrow with Bridge so you can look at his morpher. I really appreciate this Cam, more than I can say."
“Sure you do. Now show me you appreciate it by actually getting me that list and then defeating these villains because I like my world without evil space aliens. They’ve already tried to recruit my cousins, except they threw in a clause of hitting them with some experimental ray that would ensure that they’d turned evil, would even go so far as to make them evil. If these things go after my cousins again…” Cam let the conversation hang there as he wasn’t sure he could put into words just what he wanted to do to these villains for threatening his cousins’ sense of right and wrong.
Dustin scowled, his face darkening as he promised, “They’re so dead Cam.”
He’d been responsible for Marah and Kapri’s basic training and no one, absolutely no one, went after his students. Especially not after he’d seen them struggle with the concept of if they were good or evil and then decided that they preferred to be good.
"We'll make sure they regret going after the girls Cam… no worries there," Tori said in a deceptively calm voice. In her head, the biggest tidal wave she could manage was waiting for the next time she saw the villainous couple of the year. How dare they try to subvert Marah and Kapri! They've been working so hard at being good and trying to be ninjas.
“Good.” Cam agreed, “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
"How dare they…" she muttered darkly.
“Obviously they have a death wish,” Dustin agreed.
From his place on the floor, snuggled into the blanket Xander tilted his head to look at the two of them. Tori was easily the calmest girl he’d met besides Maddy and now she looked ready to really hurt someone. Dustin usually wore a grin on his face, but now a scowl had taken its place. Curious he asked, “Who has a death wish?”
Tori looked down at Xander. "These villains, they tried to subvert Marah and Kapri," she said in her cool, controlled tone. "Marah and Kapri are still working on the whole good guys thing, and they tried to ruin that."
Remembering Cam was still on the phone she looked down at her cell, "I'm gonna let you go, we'll see you tomorrow Cam," with that, she flipped her phone shut. She looked at Dustin, "This just became a hell of a lot more personal now."
“Tell me about it,” Dustin agreed as he started to pace, hand clenching and unclenching in anger, “They just…dude. Dude!”
Xander blinked at them. He could understand not wanting his friends to be turned evil, that whole vampire incident with V hadn’t been pleasant at all. Still these two looked ready to go. He glanced over at Bridge, who was in a handstand eyes closed, no help there. Where were Kira or Adam? Maybe he should get one of them? “Okay,” he said sitting up and scrubbing a hand down his face, “but lets try and calm down first, no need getting ahead of ourselves.” Xander continued confused, "Were they team members?" He'd thought Tori was the only girl on her team.
Tori shook her head. "They used to work for Lothor, but decided to be good when they realized they kinda sucked at being bad, and Lothor was trying to use them for his grand master plan," she explained to Xander.
“Oh,” Xander said. He wet his lips thankful that they hadn’t succeeded as he thought of the villains he knew who’d turned good and how he’d feel if they were suddenly evil again.
Kira came out of the bathroom then, freshly showered, dressed causally in a yellow t-shirt and a pair of jeans, her hair hanging loosely on her shoulders. "Who? Marah and Kapri?" she asked, having heard Tori's explanation.
"Ruxandra tried to turn them evil, permanently," Tori said taking a deep breath, knowing deep down that getting upset about it wouldn't help anything, and would just make her reckless, but it was hard, knowing how hard the girls had worked.
Kira gasped. "No way, they're okay though right?" She asked quickly. She didn't know them well, but she knew that they were good at heart, and had rescued the students from the academy, and rescued Sensei when Lothor had come back to try his hand at her team.
“Yes, thankfully,” Dustin told her, his pace agitated, “I’m just so argh…I know I like need to calm down, but I’m just so…I mean how dare they, right?” Dustin paused to run a hand through his hair. He forced himself to flop down in front of the computer desk and bring up the link to the house Adam had showed him. “We should pick out rooms,” he said in an attempt to clear his mind and think about something other than wanting to find these two baddies and to make them feel a world of pain.
"If there's a lake, I want one facing it," Tori said knowing what Dustin was trying to do, and following his lead. She could only imagine what Bridge would be feeling if they didn't manage to lock down their emotions.
"As long as it's my own, I don't care where it is," Kira said peering over Dustin's shoulder. “Damn… it's huge," she murmured appreciatively. "Oooh… I want that one!" Kira said pointing to one of the rooms that was shown; it was already painted a pale yellow.
"A yellow for our yellow," Dustin grinned at her enthusiasm and love of their new house, he quickly scrolled through the pictures for a lake view, "Well there’s a blue and a red facing the lake...dibs on blue T?"
Tori nodded. "Of course… like I'd really want the red room," she scoffed at the idea.
"I'll take green," Xander said as Bridge wandered over. Dustin glanced at Bridge and then looked back at the computer. He was everywhere with his feelings right now. With a sigh he spun out of the chair and announced he was going for a run. With a call that he'd just pick from whatever was left he was out the door.
Bridge watched Dustin leave with a frown. He had his shields firmly in place. He moved his frown to the other side of his face as he asked Tori, "Should I tell him I’m okay?" Bridge glanced at the pictures, "I'll take the other green room. Adam should get the master bedroom."
"We already decided Adam gets the master bedroom, since he's our leader and he's giving up more than most of us to come back to rangering," Tori replied firmly. She looked at Bridge for a moment before answering Bridge's first question, "Yeah, he really has a hard time controlling his emotions and learning anything that requires being still for any length of time. He fell asleep every time we tried to learn meditation. I'm thinking about attempting to teach him a method of meditation that involves moment, bo-fighting actually, that might be the key for him."
Bridge nodded at what Tori said, "I'll try and reassure him. I think I was mostly just overwhelmed because I thought I'd be going home and then we were all crammed together in this space and well none of you has the control Sky does, so I just got overwhelmed.”
Kira nodded in agreement, "I think so too, Dustin's body needs movement," she added as they scrolled through more pictures of the houses.
Xander wiggled his eyebrows at Kira, "And you'd know that how?"
Kira gasped at him, "What?!?!" She exclaimed as she all but launched herself at Xander.
Tori grabbed her and held her back, "Kira! No… we need him, you can't kill him!" She exclaimed. "Bridge you're closest… smack him!"
If there was one thing Bridge Carson knew it was that when a woman yelled an order you followed it. Confused Bridge said, “Okay.” He glanced at his glove to make sure it was secure then smacked a startled looking Xander upside the head.
Billy looked down at the quick sketch almost schematic that he’d drawn of the Mastodon Zord from memory. He frowned at it, he was sure he’d forgotten some components, but then he’d been on the phone with Jason and the one things he was still working towards improving was his ability to multitask. If what Jason had been telling him was correct, and it might not be as it seemed Jason had forgotten the first rule about assuming, Adam might be needing a zord.
Determined to find out and determined to find out how his friend would feel about Jason’s suggestion that he help teach in Adam’s absence Billy picked up the phone.
Adam was relaxing in the quiet of his bedroom. Kira had claimed the shower, Tori was still busy with Dustin, Xander was asleep and Bridge was still working on his shielding. He should really be doing something productive, like calling Billy, but the quiet was just too nice. Suddenly, the phone rang and he lazily grabbed it, "Hello?"
“Salutations,” Billy greeted with a grin, knowing that with that one word Adam would know who was calling.
"Billy! I was just thinking about calling you," he said a little cautiously, freaked out by the moment. "What's going on man?"
“Well I’ve heard a most disturbing rumor and I thought it best to check with the source of this rumor before I indulged in believing it,” Billy started to explain, “According to Jason, your temporary assignment has become a more permanent situation and he was inquiring as to my ability to cover some of your classes while you were away as he wasn’t completely prepared for this turn of events. However I thought it best to seek your opinion on the matter before I gave him my decision.”
"So Jason asked you to cover for me while I'm out saving the world again, only ten years older and the de-facto leader this time," Adam translated. "Go for it… if these baddies work the way Rita and Zedd used to, and something tells me they modeled themselves after those two, I won't have the time to work at the dojo," he sighed. "By the way… we have a small zord situation," he said tentatively, hoping he would be able to help. Billy was the best, bar none.
“I see, then I’ll let Jason know if I can fit it into my schedule. What exactly do you mean by small zord situation? Does anyone on your new team actually have access to their zords?” Billy asked, hoping he wouldn’t have to do everything from scratch. He also asked slowly and carefully, not ready to simply volunteer just yet.
Adam thought about it, "Well you know MY zord situation. Kira's zord was destroyed in the final battle. Bridge's zord is still in the future. Tori and Dustin should have access to their zords, we're going to see if Cam can't get their third zord to work for Bridge, and Xander IS his zord, so really, it's just a zord for me and Kira… which, should probably be something along the lines of a Pterodactyl, since that's her power, oh… and I was pondering the idea of them being able to combine with Xander's…" he trailed off, wondering if Billy would help or not, "I could really use your help man."
Of course he knew Adam’s zord situation, Adam didn’t have a zord, he had a start from scratch situation. Billy began fixing the schematic he had in front of him as he pondered what to say, “First of all who is Cam and if he can help you with three zords how is he unobtainable to help you with the other two? Also combining zords would depend on your meaning when you say that Xander becomes his zord.”
Satisfied with what he had on the Mastodon Zord he began sketching out what he remembered about Kim’s original zord. That should work for Kira and Adam, provided of course he remembered correctly. He’d likely need to call Kim and find out from her, what could’ve been better about her Pterodactyl Zord if she had had the options of changing things about it and of course it’d have to be yellow instead of pink. He’d also need to get a hold of Tommy, as he knew Tommy had records of everything, some pictures of the zords; also any schematics he had would be of great usefulness. An e-mail to either Tommy or Hayley would work for that, but he’d have to find his laptop first. Where had he put his laptop?
"Cam is… or rather was, the Ninja Storm rangers tech man. He created their zords, and even though they were pretty much totaled after the final battle, he had a self-repair mechanism built into the zords and after a bit, they managed to pull themselves back together. You guys would get along great… anyway, the reason I don't want to get him involved is because he's really involved in running the Wind Ninja Academy at the moment… and to be honest, I'd rather have you do it… you know the schematics of the old zords the best," Adam said as he sat up on his bed. "As for Xander, I mean that quite literally, he becomes a gigantic mechanical looking minotaur, sort of."
While Adam was replying to Billy, Trini walked into his workroom, carrying his laptop.
“I’d want to see that actually and maybe acquire this Cam’s e-mail address?” Billy hinted.
"Babe…your laptop was in the living room, I figured you'd eventually need it," she said as she set it on the table next to him.
How Trini did it Billy would never know, but without her he was certain half of his experiments would never get finished and he’d be completely lost. “Thank you,” he told her as he put a hand over the phone and gave her a quick kiss in thanks. He settled the phone back to his ear attempting to think of the easiest and quickest way to relay the situation to her, “I have to admit that I’m uncertain Adam. I’m at a few critical junctures with certain experiments and designing zords takes times.” He leaned forwards and added something he’d just remembered to the pterodactyl.
"Billy!" Adam half pleaded with him. "I can give you Cam's email address, but I really need your help with this man… please."
Trini cuffed Billy gently on the side of the head. "You will help him with his zords, won't you?" She said crossing her arms over her chest and giving him her patented 'yellow' look.
“Ow,” Billy hissed as he glanced up at Trini. He waved his hands at the schematics as if to say ‘see working on the problem already’ before he told Adam, “Trini says that yes I will and I know better than to argue with Trini. I’ll need to contact Hayley and see if I can get any schematics of the old zords, then I’ll contact Kim and have her look over the schematic I already have drawn up, I’ll likely take the time to pay Zack that same curtsey. Then I’ll need you and Kira to look over the designs and suggest any idea you might have. Also we’ll need to brainstorm on where exactly we’re going to get the parts and I’ll need to actually see Xander’s zord before I can even begin to fathom how we’ll put them all together.” He really was going to need this Cam’s e-mail address.
Trini leaned down and grabbed the phone, "Don't let him kid you Adam, while I did tell him to help you, he was already working on the schematics." She laughed as Billy yanked the phone away and gave her an indignant look.
Adam laughed, "I really appreciate it Billy. I'm sure Hayley will give you the schematics she's got, and I think her and Tommy managed to back up all the files from the remains of the command center, that should help you too. I don't know about the parts… we may have to put in a call to Hartford, he built all of Overdrive's zords."
“Intriguing,” Billy mused, already in this short amount of time he had two other tech’s names. While bouncing idea of Hayley and Justin made for good conversation he was always up for adding some new techs to his list of friends. He copied down the contact information as Adam gave it to him. After he had them down he wrapped his arms around Trini, pulling her close and into his lap. He gave her a quick hug and handed Adam off to her as he sent quick e-mails detailing where he was at with schematics and the help he could use with ideas to Cam, Hayley and Tommy. Hopefully he’d have a rough start on their zord and megazord designs by the end of the day. He gave Trini a quick kiss on the cheek and began to type up additional e-mails to Kim and Zack. He shook his head with a smile, “Trust Adam to find me such an interesting puzzle to work with.”
After she got off the phone with Adam she looked over the emails he was writing. "What are friends for?" she said with a soft laugh. "Do you think you'll be able to get this to work? I know the combining is going to be a pain, considering you've got three completely different sets of zords, unless you just use the schematics for the dactyl and repaint it yellow…" she pondered that.
“Well as I’ve just added two techs to my list, both of whom seem to understand zord building, I’m sure we’ll mange to come up with something.”
"I always thought Kim’s zord would look good yellow," she giggled. "Don't tell her I said that though."
He joined in her laughter, pausing to give her a kiss on the cheek, “If she really doesn’t like it we’ll blame Tommy.”
“Yeah, it is his fault… that was his team," Trini agreed, wrapping her arms around him. "Have I told you today that I love you? Cause I do," she said kissing him softly.
Billy accepted the kiss and reciprocated. “You might have reminded me this morning,” he teased as he pulled away. He cupped her cheeks and smiled, it never ceased to amaze him how beautiful she was. Happy that such an amazing woman could love him he kissed her again.
"Well… let me remind you again," she murmured readily accepting his kisses.