Always a Ranger - Part 19
Three of a Kind
By Jeannine Trevizo
It had been a
hard week. With everything that the team had gone through with Mesogog, the
white ranger still on the wrong team and the fact that he’d had to put Kim back
on a plane to
Yeah,
like there was such a thing as coincidence when you were a ranger.
Last but not
least of the list was the fact that he was having to
get ready to start giving his students their finals. The work that he’d had to
cram into the last two days to get the exams ready to be reviewed by the school
board had been exhausting. Still, none of it had been enough to discourage him
from deciding he was up to going out again when he got home and found the
message on his answering machine…
“Hey there
leader man, it’s the Zack man. Me and Adam are on our
way up to San Fran. So, we have to drive past Reefside, and Jase said we *had*
to stop in and see you and the ‘kids’. How about boys’ night out? Black rangers and all? Call my cell.”
It hadn’t
taken him more than a few minutes to look up Zack’s number and then call his
cell phone. Once he got a hold of them, he found out they were about half an
hour from Reefside. After offering up his bed and couch for the night, the
former rangers agreed that they’d stop off at Tommy’s and clean up before
they’d have some beers and something to eat. Tommy hung up in a good mood, but
felt guilty about that.
If he went
out with the guys, he’d have to call Kim now, or not
call at all. And after the last disaster of his not calling, he didn’t want to
worry her. Still, he hated the idea of a shorter call, but he didn’t have much
choice. He knew what Zack, Adam and he could get like, and him
getting home at an hour that would allow him to call her later wasn’t gonna
happen.
With a pang
of regret, Tommy dialed Kim’s number, listening to the phone ring once, and
then a second time before she picked up the line.
“Hello?”
“Hey
Beautiful,” he said across the phone line with a mixture of affection and
concern.
“You’re
early,” Kim said with a questioning tone, noting the time and the fact that
Tommy usually called later in the evening. “What’s up?”
“You’ll never
guess who’s coming through town.”
“Okay, I’ll
never guess. Who?”
“Adam
and Zack.”
“Together?”
she asked, surprised.
“They both
have business in
“So, what,
are the guys stopping by so you can all catch up?”
“Hey, three
black rangers in the same place? Gotta party.”
Kim laughed
at her love. Give the boys some time together and they were 17 again. She
wondered if she should warn Kira and the boys that their mentor was about to
relive his youth and that they should avoid the testosterone cloud that most
likely would appear over Reefside until Adam and Zack left town.
“Alright
then,” she commented with a light sigh. “Send them my love and I’ll talk to you
tomorrow.”
“What about
me?”
“What about
you what?” she asked, stifling a laugh.
“Are you
sending *me* any of that love you’re sending them?” he teased.
“You’re being
silly,” she chided. “I love you Tommy. Go have fun.”
“Love you too
Beautiful.”
With that he
hung up the phone and hurried to get ready for ‘company’.
-
About 45
minutes later there was a knock at the door, and Tommy rushed to open it,
finding two of his closest friends standing at his doorway. Adam looked good,
his Asian features now even more clearly defined by a close cut haircut, and
his physique obviously improved in the eight years since he’d retired from
ranger life. Zack seemed an older version of the hip-hop teen Tommy had met all
those years ago. Gone was the buzz cut, replaced with a short set of
dreadlocks. The African-American man seemed to have kept himself athletically
fit, but standing next to Adam made him look less buff. Hell, Tommy was feeling
a little inadequate next to his former black and green ranger, but he was still
the only one of the three in uniform these days.
“Zack, Adam!”
Tommy cried out enthusiastically, smiling a broad smile at two of his dearest
friends.
Zack stepped
over the threshold and wrapped his arms around his old friend in a bear hug.
“God, it is
so *great* to see you guys,” Tommy said as he pulled back from the nearly
bone-crunching hug Zack had given him.
“Hey! You
trimmed down the spikes. Much better,” Zack commented, noting Tommy’s newer
hairstyle, reaching up to mess with the short hair.
“It’s been
this length since just after the last time you saw me. Is it my fault you don’t
see your friends? Besides, it’s not like you have much to talk about,
‘Mr.-going-back-to-your-roots’,” Tommy remarked, pointing to his friends
hairstyle.
“It’s edgy.
Sue me.”
“Hey Tommy,”
said Adam, moving into the doorway to give his former ‘boss’ a similar hug as
Zack moved past them into the main area of the living room.
“Good to see
you man,” remarked Tommy as he thumped Adam’s back.
“Nice place.
Woody. Small. Wouldn’t have thought you’d be into
someplace like this,” Adam commented, looking around the small house.
“It’s not the
outside,” Tommy said, waving at the guys to follow him, “so
much as the inside that’s important.”
Confused, the
two men followed their former leader towards the back part of the house. When
they got to the kitchen, Tommy leaned down and popped the hidden lock on the
trap door and opened it slowly. He turned to note the mouths hanging slightly
open and bulging eyes as they stared at the passageway.
“Do I want to
know what’s down there?” Zack asked, smirking.
“Come on,
stop being a wuss,” Tommy shot back, making Zack and Adam grin.
With that,
the three rangers climbed down the stairs, and Tommy turned on the lights,
showing the cavernous area of his ‘basement’. The main computer console stood
at the back and center, with all the other pieces of equipment and artifacts
all along the room.
“Welcome to
the DinoRanger’s command center.”
“Shit!” Zack
exclaimed, staring as he wandered about. Adam just whistled low and long.
“Jason said you were back in the saddle, but I had no idea.”
“Well, I
wasn’t originally. I was just looking for the dino gems, but then I ended up creating
a ranger team…”
“You?!” Adam nearly squeaked out as his voice
pitched higher than he would have liked.
For the
original teams, they’d always had a mentor – an otherworldly presence that gave
them the power. The thought that Tommy had accomplished something that Zordon
or Dimetria had only done in the past was mind-blowing.
“I had help.
A brilliant woman I met in college. She’s been a good friend and has really
helped us build what we needed to keep the planet safe.”
“Wow… you
guys made morphers and everything?” Adam asked, and Tommy lifted his arm, the
long sleeve of his black t-shirt sliding down to show the silver cuff with the
embedded black gem.
“You man have
more ranger lives than a cat,” Zack commented sarcastically as he reached over
to look over the metal cuff. “Nice. Still, I liked Billy’s communicators best.”
“Me too,”
Tommy admitted.
Before he
could continue the three turned their heads as the sound of grating rock and
machinery began from deep back in the cave.
“Company?” Adam asked in a familiar tone that Tommy
recognized as being one he used when they were expecting putties or cogs to
drop on them at any moment.
“It’s
probably the team.”
Both Adam and
Zack relaxed visibly, and the three of them stood there as Kira, Conner and Ethan
strode into the command center, stopping dead in their tracks when they saw
that Dr. O wasn’t alone.
“Uh, Dr. O… are these ‘old’ friends?” Ethan questioned, his eyebrows
rising as he posed the question.
Tommy knew
what he was referring to. After Kim and Jason’s visits, the new rangers had
actually gotten used to expecting anyone he was visiting with had been a ranger
at one time. And of course, that really was the case 99 percent of the time.
“Very
old. This is Adam and
Zack,” Tommy introduced, waving toward each man in turn. “They’re actually my
predecessors in a way. They were the first and second black rangers.”
Conner looked
over the two men and nodded his obvious approval. Kira glanced from them to Dr.
O and then back again. Ethan was smiling and moved forward to reach out and
offered him his hand. Both looked at him surprised, but shook his hand.
“I’m Ethan,
the new blue ranger. And I have to tell you, I’m so glad to see that the whole
of the ranger community was a bit more ethnically diverse than the recent old
rangers we’ve had come through town.”
Conner and
Kira looked at Ethan like he’d grown a second head, shocked and appalled. Zack
and Adam smothered laughter and Tommy simply sighed. He should have known that
his cyber-geek wouldn’t tiptoe around a subject he wanted to address. And he
was right… right now he was the only minority on the team. Of course, if they
were able to finally bring
“The kid’s
got guts. Guess it comes with the suit,” Zack commented humorously. “So I can
guess colors, but names would be nice.”
“Sorry,”
Conner spoke up, moving forward and offering his hand to the two former black
rangers, Kira following him. “I’m Conner, and this is Kira.”
“Nice to meet
you,” Kira said, nudging Conner out of her way as she made sure she asserted
her ‘I may be a girl, but I can kick your ass’ attitude
Zack threw a
look to Tommy as the new rangers backed up slightly.
“Nothing like
chips of the old blocks, huh?” Zack asked Adam, and he nodded in agreement.
“That’s what
Kim says, at least,” Kira remarked suddenly, and all three of the older rangers
turned their heads to stare at her.
“How’s
that?” Adam asked
quietly.
“We were
discussing the previous yellow rangers. She mentioned again that I reminded her
of the original yellow ranger.”
Tommy and
Zack looked at each other, and then turned to Adam. Tommy and Zack had served
with Trini, while Adam had only known her briefly before he, Aisha and Rocky
took over for Zack, Jason and her, and then afterwards during the time when the
rangers had kept the friendships in place. Still, it was a surprise for all of
them that Kimberly had brought up Trini with Kira.
“Yeah, she
briefly mentioned Trini’s passing away,” Conner explained briefly.
“We hadn’t
mentioned it before so we wanted to say that we’re sorry about Trini dying,”
Ethan remarked and the three older rangers observed his sincerity.
“Thanks guys.
I think that if you said that to Kim that she really appreciated it,” Tommy
replied, a half smile on his face.
The three
teens gave him a look that said they knew what he meant, and again he wondered
just how much Kim was helping him mentor these new rangers.
“So,
dino rangers again?”
Adam said, breaking the tension.
“Yeah, back
to the beginning,” Tommy remarked.
“We even have
an evil ranger we’re trying to save,” Conner blurted out, and Kira and Ethan
both glared at him, the yellow ranger smacking him on the arm.
“Evil
ranger?” Zack
questioned, looking to Tommy with a mixture of concern and memory.
Dropping his
head, Tommy ran a hand through his hair. Damn, he wished that they could find
*some* way to break through the evil imprint on the white gem. He didn’t know
what kind of damage this was going to do to
“Tommy?” Adam
questioned, moving to place a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“Sorry guys,”
Tommy said as he raised his head to glance at Adam and Zack. “One of the gems
got found by the bad guy, and its turned one of the
students at the high school, one of my students into an evil ranger. We’re
still trying to find a way to break the power of the gem over him.”
“Wow… I don’t
know what to say bro,” Zack commented, reaching out to Tommy, and the new black
ranger caught his arm in a crushing handshake.
“History
repeats itself… I just had hoped it wouldn’t ever happen again, you know?”
Zack and Adam
nodded, and then turned to look at the new rangers who were now facing
something that the original team had seen, and that Adam had watched his friend
and former ranger leader deal with the repercussions for years. The two men
could only hope that they survived better than their predecessors.
“You guys
okay so far?” Zack asked the kids.
“Yeah. You know, at first we didn’t know how
far back this ran and how deep the scars were for Dr. O and Kim and the
original team. But as time’s gone on, Kim’s really helped us all get through
it,” Kira explained, recalling her own special situation, and how only Kim
could understand how she was feeling.
“Sounds like
our Kimmie is still saving your butt ‘oh fearless leader’,” Zack smarted off,
receiving a punch in the arm from Tommy and a glare from Adam.
“Uh, anyway,
it looks like we came at a bad time,” Ethan spoke up, realizing that they’d
been talking all this time, and Zack and Adam had to be visiting Dr. O for some
other reason than trading battle stories with the new kids on the ranger block.
“It’s okay
Ethan. What were you guys here for anyway?” Tommy asked, going instantly into
teacher/mentor mode.
“We thought
we’d check on the raptor cycles. Hayley said they were fixed, but…” Conner
squeaked out, feeling the focus of their teacher now falling on them.
“Well, how
about you guys come by tomorrow and we’ll look over everything. I’ll plan a
training session this weekend and we can make sure they’re working alright.”
“Sounds good
Dr. O,” Conner answered, and then turned to the former rangers. “And it was
great meeting you guys.”
“Same here
Conner. You guys keep up the good work, okay?” Zack replied, nodding to the
younger man.
Another round
of handshakes and smiles went around the room, and the new rangers finally
exited the way they came in. As they left, Adam and Zack turned to their former
leader, regarding him carefully. Tommy waited for one of them to break the
silence and tell him what they thought. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Raptor
cycles? Man, you have
all the neat toys,” Zack joked, and Tommy couldn’t help but laugh.
Zack and Adam
joined him.
“Okay, so you
met the new team and saw the basement. Now, how about some
dinner?”
-
Over dinner,
the three talked about the more ‘safe’ topics that anyone could overhear - Adam
and Zack’s career moves, and Tommy’s teaching. The ranger stuff would come
later, when there wasn’t anyone else around.
“So what’s
the job opportunity in
“Adam’s got
an interview with a prestigious Martial Arts academy looking for an
instructor,” Zack blurted out, and got smacked by Adam.
“It is not.”
“Yes it is,
and if you’d been the one to tell Tommy, you’d have downplayed the whole
thing.”
“Guys…”
“Sorry.
Anyway, I’m heading up for an audition with the national company of ‘Rent’.
They had one of their leads leave, and rather than promote one of the really
green understudies, they’ called a few agents looking for talent, and so I got
the call to go and show ‘em my stuff.”
“That’s really cool,” Tommy said, truly impressed by his friends career
moves.
“Well, I don’t know if I’ll get it, but at least they asked me to come interview,” Adam commented, munching on a bite of his
chicken.
“Please, you’ve only gotten better since graduating high school,” Tommy
complained. His friend was good at what he did, and he was just too
self-conscious to acknowledge it.
“I guess…”
Zack sighed as he took a drink of the iced tea he’d ordered. Between
Jason, Tommy and Adam, he didn’t know which one was the worst at playing down
their accomplishments. Then, he had to amend that as he reminded himself that
the man who was now the new black ranger had a PhD and had created a ranger
team.
He figured Tommy won.
“Anyhow, so you’re teaching high school… how the hell did that happen?”
“I decided I needed to give something back for all of the damage I did
during my PhD studies. Something good had to come out of it, or it would have
been a total disaster.”
“That sounds logical,” Adam remarked.
“Still, it’s tough imaging you as the teacher.”
“If I put on my glasses and my sport jacket, would that help?” Tommy
joked around a mouthful of steak.
The other two occupants at the table just laughed.
-
Once dinner
was done, there was a debate about going somewhere and having a few drinks. But
it was shot down quickly when the issue of talking about ‘business’ was brought
back up again. So they ended up stopping off at the local 7-11 and picking up
several six packs of beer and some snacks before heading back to Tommy’s place.
The three
jumped out of Tommy’s jeep and headed inside his house. Zack dropped the beers
and snacks on Tommy’s coffee table while Adam snagged a bag of the Doritos from
the place Zack had set them and plopped down at one end of the sofa. Tommy went
over and checked his message machine, and then snagged a bottle of beer from
the bag. Grabbing his computer desk chair, he turned it around and sat, popping
the top off and gulping down a swallow. Zack came back from the bathroom and
got a beer for himself and then handed one to Adam, who gratefully took his.
Zack settled into the other end of the sofa and took a sip and then focused on
the subject of the conversation.
“So, you and
this Hayley chick built morphers and all this other technology?” Zack asked.
“Yeah. I got really luck that she’s been on
board. Actually, Adam, you meat Hayley in
“Wait… the
read-head right?” Adam remarked, his mind finally remembering the visit he and
Jason had made to see Tommy years back.
“Yeah, that’s
her. Anyway, she’s Billy smart. And after she figured out who we were…”
“Wait! She
knows we were rangers?” Adam yelped, nearly spitting out a mouthful of beer.
“You didn’t
tell her, did you?” Zack asked, shocked.
“She figured
it out. I’m not sure how. But she came to me with too much information for me
to be able to refute, so…” Tommy explained somewhat sheepishly, and took
another gulp of his beer.
“Wow.”
“Anyway, its’ done, and if she hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here
now.”
“
“And obviously you have some other help in the mentor department, if I
get what the kids were talking about,” Zack noted.
“What do you mean?” Tommy questioned.
“Kim.”
Tommy found his face burn with sudden embarrassment. While he knew that
he was grateful that Kim was not only with him, but helping with the team, the
fact that Zack was asking about this seemed to signal that his love life was
now up for discussion, and when Adam turned to stare at him, he knew what was
coming.
“So, does
that mean that you and Kim are back together again?” asked Adam as he took
another swig of his beer.
“Yeah.”
“Jase said as
much. I have to say though bro, it’s ’bout time,” argued Zack, finishing the
last gulp of his bottle and reached across the coffee table for another.
“What does
that mean?” Tommy asked indignant.
“I mean that
you should have fixed things with the woman years ago. While I wasn’t there
when the whole mess happened, what were you thinking not at least calling her?”
Tommy looked
to Adam and saw his friend shrug.
“I always
wondered about that too. And then you went skiing with Billy and Kat…”
Sighing,
Tommy took another drink from his beer and looked to his friends.
“You guys are
about eight years too late to be giving me pointers on fixing my relationship
with Kim.”
“Obviously
you finally got your act together because you’re together, and she’s been
helping out and all, but damn man, it took you two long enough.”
“We talked
after Trini’s funeral,” Tommy stated, and the two friends nodded, remembering
seeing the two former lovers leave together, and then hearing the news that
Tommy and Kim had talked things out finally. “After that, we sort of got to be
friends…”
“Tommy, you
two were never just friends,” Zack said with a smirk.
“I know.
Still, we did that for a year, while I was working on the PhD… then we just
stopped pretending.”
“Good,” Adam
stated firmly, and Tommy stared at his mild mannered friend.
“By the way,
Jase wanted me to let you know that he’s getting that speech ready,” Zack said
with a wink and a smirk.
“What
speech?” asked Adam, confused as Tommy groaned and rolled his eyes.
“The whole
best man one. Seems that Jase figures sooner than later he’ll
be getting ‘the’ phone call.”
“She hasn’t
even moved in yet.”
“She’s moving
in?” Adam questioned.
That
surprised Tommy. He was sure that Kim had to have told Aisha. The two were
still best friends. And Aisha, Rock and Adam had always been the tightest of
the teams. That he was asking…
“Didn’t you
talk to Aisha?” Tommy asked.
“I’ve been
busy. Rocky mentioned that ‘Sha had news, but he hadn’t gotten the specifics.
Guess we’re out of the loop.”
“But Jase is
sure that once Kim’s out here, all shacked up with our fearless leader that
Tommy won’t wait long before finally making an honest woman of our little Kim,”
Zack explained, nodding and winking at his friend.
“I haven’t
decided when to ask her yet,” Tommy said with an embarrassed
look.
“But you will
ask her, right? Come on, you want to marry her, don’t you?” Zack asked, and
Adam pricked up his ears, wanting to hear the answer to this too.
Of course,
Tommy knew the answer to that. Hell, he’d know the answer when he’d seen her
that first weekend in Reefside when he’d promised himself he’d never let her
leave again. Even if he had to marry her to do it.
Then they’d talked about Kim’s Freudian slip, bring to light the fact that both
of them had been mulling over the idea of getting married in their heads.
“Yeah. I think I have since I was seventeen.
But I think we both were concerned about trying to live together… you know,
making it work 24/7 before we talked any more about it…”
“Please,”
Zack stated confidently. “If anyone was meant to be together, it’s you guys.
Hell, if Kim hadn’t gone to
“I know,”
Tommy mumbled, and then looked at his friends, deciding that if he might as
well confide in someone. “On her last visit, I realized that I wanted to marry
her. That's of course as soon as I can get the guts up to ask her.”
Zack sighed.
For the man whom so many former rangers considered the ‘greatest’, he was
continually intimidated by a slip of a woman. Not to say that Kim couldn’t kick
Tommy’s ass if provoked, but just on general principle, it was pretty funny.
“You my
friend have got to get over this issue. She’s gonna say yes, you just have to
ask her,” Zack said, and the two looked at each other as the echo of times past
settled over them.
“I will.”
Zack glanced
at Adam and the Asian man winked at him as the trio continued to talk and drink
before crashing for the night.
Yeah, Zack
thought, Jase better get cracking on that speech.
-End-
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