Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of "Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue," they belong to Haim Saban. Just borrowing them.

Author's Note: The three seasons I watched when I was a kid were "Lost Galaxy," "Lightspeed Rescue" and "Time Force" and so I'm really excited to try my hand at this. This started as a submission for NaNoWriMo but I didn't make my word count. Didn't stop me from wanting to keep going. Constructive criticism is usually warranted and always appreciated. I don't withhold chapters for reviews and hits, I'm posting this regardless, but I'd love to know what you think!

Chapter One: Un-Retired Rangers

"Hey! You forgot these!"

Carter Grayson briefly considered turning around at Captain Bill Mitchell's voice. After all, they didn't know for sure what kind of emergency lay ahead of them if they followed the fire truck from Mariner Bay Engine 7. The practically-indestructible material of a Lightspeed ranger suit might come in handy. Especially if this was a fire and not a car accident or medical emergency. Or…Carter thought darkly, if somehow one of the dark creatures from the Shadow World had managed to sneak back out.

But if lives were at stake…there was no other course of action. So, morpher or no morpher, Carter kept running. He heard the footfalls of Dana Mitchell's heels and her brother Ryan's black boots hot on his heels, caught the flashes of Kelsey Winslow's and Chad Lee's jackets and heard their sneakers. Then, he heard a pair of cowboy boots and silently applauded Joel Rawlings for joining them. They worked best as a team, and Carter didn't want to face whatever was ahead without the people who'd protected the city and saved his life more times than he could count in the past year.

More sirens echoed up ahead, and Carter began to realize that whatever was up ahead was no mere traffic accident. When the six young people arrived at the scene, Carter was more than thankful that his team was along for the ride.

Engine 7 from Mariner Bay Fire Department had pulled up next to a small warehouse near the pier. Carter knew this place was a storage hub for a nationwide manufacturer of boat parts- outboard motors, rigging, sails, fiberglass, radios…plenty of things that required fuel, electricity and power, and plenty of things that could easily start and sustain a fire. Flames licked the skylights on the upper floor and smoke poured from any vent it could find, erupting into the blue sky and turning the area a hazy gray.

"Whoa," he heard Kelsey breathe behind him. "Whoa" was an understatement. Engine 7 was joined by a truck from Ladder 4, Carter's old unit. Two ambulances arrived with MARINER BAY AMBULANCE emblazoned on their sides in teal lettering. Dana recognized a few old co-workers from her time as paramedic as they jumped out of the ambulances, anxiously awaiting orders.

Carter looked around for the person in charge of the blaze, the incident commander. He spotted Captain John Olliver rattling off instructions to the crew of Engine 7. This was the guy to talk to. "John!" Carter called, and John Olliver glanced his way. John was a thirty-year veteran of the Mariner Bay Fire Department. Carter threaded his way through the crowd of people and stepped up to the silver-haired man in a pair of jeans and a black jacket with MBFD stitched on the back. "Grayson," Olliver greeted him. "Day off?" he asked pointedly, well aware of Carter's other identity as the Lightspeed Rescue Red Ranger. Their identities were public knowledge, and his orange and black jacket was a dead giveaway.

"Just retired," Carter replied. "How can we help?" John glanced back to see five young people anxiously standing ten feet away.

John remembered Carter from his days at Ladder 4 before his temporary reassignment to Bill Mitchell's Project Lightspeed. He was a good firefighter. Now, he looked at Carter's blue jeans and work boots and rescue jacket.

"How long since you've been on a fire?" Olliver asked.

"About a year," Carter replied honestly. "In gear that wasn't a Lightspeed suit anyway."

"And your…friends?"

"Less than that," Carter said, not liking the line of questioning. "But they're trained-"

"To enter a burning building?" Olliver interrupted. "Grayson, I can use you," he said, and then, looking over his shoulder, spotting a familiar blonde haired woman, "and Mitchell," he added, pointing at Dana and jerking a thumb at her to join the conversation. He had known Bill Mitchell's daughter since she was small and also knew her as Lightspeed Rescue Pink and a damned good paramedic. "The rest of your team is gonna have to go stand behind the line," he said as Dana came up to join them. John looked even less impressed with her gray skirt and pink blouse and heels.

Dana's eyes narrowed as she caught him looking her up and down, and looked up at Carter questioningly. Carter looked at Olliver. "Put the rest of my team to work, sir," Carter told him, an order-not a request. He wasn't going in there without them. In fact, Carter was already shrugging off his Lightspeed jacket and rolling up his sleeves.

"They've had first responder training, sir," Dana told Olliver. "We can use them." She heard a yell, saw a couple of firefighters already bringing people out of the building. She turned to Ryan and Joel. "Ryan, Joel, handle crowd control."

Ryan clapped Joel on the back and nodded to his sister. The two men headed toward the gathering crowd of people. Joel gravitated toward the media, who were already trying to get past the line and hassling the two cops assigned to keep people out of the area. Joel was familiar with most of them as many of them covered the air shows where he performed as the Sky Cowboy. Ryan jogged over to two other Mariner Bay police officers who were standing near a crowd of civilians- friends, family members and ambulance chasers. She saw him gravitate toward a little boy who couldn't have been more than six, patting him on the back, no doubt reassuring him that whatever relative he had inside the building was going to be fine.

Olliver sighed, realizing it was all of them or none. And with some of the fire crews at training or handling smaller blazes elsewhere in the city, they really needed the help. "You two-" he pointed to Kelsey and Chad- "talk to Smith over at Ladder 4, see if he can put you to work."

"Tell them Carter said put you to work," Carter cut in, and his former Blue and Yellow Rangers nodded. Happy to be doing anything, Kelsey and Chad soon found themselves with smaller buckets and hoses watering down the grass and bushes nearby in an effort to keep the fire from spreading-just in case. Dana glanced at Carter. She was so used to taking orders from him that it felt a little strange to be delegating the team. Carter only smiled reassuringly-he was fine with it.

Carter set his Lightspeed jacket on the truck step and pulled on pants, a jacket and a helmet. He grabbed an SCBA rig as well and slung it over his back. He looked over at Dana and flashed her a thumbs-up. Dana nodded, mouthing Be careful as he turned and headed into the building. Kelsey had always teased her about being the most empathetic on their team, and while Dana would deny it, as the team's medic in the field, she was very concerned with the health and well-being of her team. Watching Carter going in there, knowing he didn't have a morpher or access to his ranger suit, worried her. She had to remind herself that Carter had been a firefighter for four years before joining Lightspeed at 22. Still….she worried.

The situation report that Olliver had given Carter was that there were some workers on the second floor that had been near the source of the blaze, which was still under investigation. Nobody coming out seemed to know how it happened and the flames needed to be put out first before the investigators could get in to look at it. Five employees were still unaccounted for. Carter made his way into the building and up the fire escape stairwell to the second floor. He caught a glimpse of a ladder through one of the skylights and the smoke, and broke a window on the upper floor so they could get a hose and extra guys in faster. It was hot-wow, was it hot. Carter hadn't been in a real fire in almost a year. It felt different to not be protected by the ranger suit. Remember you've done this before, Carter reminded himself. It was just taking a little bit of getting used to was all. He opened up his O2 valve a little more and fresh oxygen filled his mask. He saw a figure hop off the ladder and come into the room, angling toward him through the smoke. Carter recognized him as Zach Anderson, a guy he'd worked with at Ladder 4 before Lightspeed. Zach was easy to spot-he had a bright yellow patch on his jacket of a smiling ball of flame. He tapped Carter on the shoulder in recognition. Carter was sure Zach was smiling if he'd been able to see his face. He pointed right, and Carter followed him.

They'd taken about two steps when Carter felt the floor start to give. He shoved Zach to the side as the floor collapsed beneath their feet, and flames and smoke from below rushed for the exit.

Outside, Dana helped load a stretcher into an ambulance. As the paramedics jumped in behind them, Dana slammed the doors shut and pounded on the bumper, hard. Two quick taps, and the ambulance came to life, sirens and lights, and sped out of the area toward Mariner Bay General. She had a moment to breathe, and then she was meeting a firefighter on the ground that had just brought another man from the building. She could do the visual assessment easily-smoke inhalation, eyes raw from tearing up from the smoke… "Take him to Wilson and Grant," she told the firefighter, pointing to the second ambulance and its crew. "And get him some water!"

"On it!" Ryan yelled at her, grabbing a water bottle handed to him from a jogger that had stopped and tossing it to her. The hospital was going to be busy, Dana thought. Dana looked back at the building. By her count, and John Olliver's, there were two people still unaccounted for. Both had been assigned to work the top floor.

Something made Dana turn back to the building, and she heard one of the guys from Ladder 4 yell, "Get down!" and slide down a few rungs of the ladder, as a giant plume of smoke and flame exploded from the window. The heat wave rumbled down the building, singing the hair on Dana's arms.

She heard Olliver yelling for people to back up, but she found herself gravitating closer to the building. Carter is still in there…. "Carter!" she yelled, knowing it was useless-there was no way he'd hear her over the roar of the flames, the sirens, the shouting voices...He has to be okay. Please let him be okay...

At her voice, Ryan, Joel, Kelsey and Chad all turned and stared, frozen, at the warehouse.

Inside the building, Carter rolled off of Zach Anderson with a groan. He turned his head, saw a giant, gaping hole where his feet had just been. Wow. That was close. Dana would've killed me if I'd have fallen through there.

The realization hit him that he could've died. A whole year as a ranger and he'd survived falling through a gateway to the Shadow World only to die falling through a hole in a warehouse. Her face flashed in his mind, and he realized that if he'd fallen through that hole he hadn't said goodbye...hadn't ever told her.… his thought trailed off as his eyes caught a body lying on the other side of the gaping hole.

Back to action.

He smacked Zach twice on the chest, and Zach got on his elbow and looked over to see the person Carter was pointing at. Then he nodded, and stood up. Carter got to his feet, and almost fell again. Zach looked at him questioningly and Carter pointed to his left foot. He had had enough injuries during his year in Lightspeed that diagnosing a sprained ankle was no problem. Zach put an arm around his waist and the two of them limped around the hole to the body. As they approached the body, it moved. The unconscious man was awake. Zach helped him to his feet as Carter waited. Zach tugged off his mask. "Can you walk?" he yelled over the roar of the flame.

"Yeah, I'm OK," the man responded, coughing.

"Good, I need your help," Zach said. "I gotta get my buddy downstairs."

"Yeah, okay," the employee responded, and put one of Carter's arms around his shoulders.

A minute passed. No one came out of the building. The Lightspeed team had sort of forgotten their assigned duties and were all huddled together, watching the main entrance for any sign of their leader and friend.

Two minutes. Ladder 4 and Engine 7's hoses were trained through the windows and upper floors, and Ryan Mitchell was starting to notice more smoke instead of flame. The fire was almost out.

Five minutes. Nobody had exited the building yet, and now, the fire was nearly out.

"You don't think-" Chad said, and Joel hit him in the arm to squash the thought. Ryan put an arm around his sister and squeezed. He could feel her shivering even though it was 90 degrees. He felt Kelsey grab his sister's hand and squeeze it.

Eight minutes. Then, signs of life.

Two figures burst through the doors, a firefighter and a man in stained jeans and a blue polo, with a firefighter between them. They met two paramedics and lifted the firefighter they'd carried out onto the stretcher. The first firefighter removed his helmet, and Dana was already running when she realized it wasn't Carter under the helmet. Which means… She caught up to the stretcher. Carter's gray eyes stared up at her, his face dark with soot and ash and sweat. He coughed. "Hey," he managed, as Dana jogged alongside them.

"Hey yourself," she replied, putting on a brave front. "What'd he do?" she asked the paramedic.

"Don't know for sure, but his buddy tells us a sprained ankle."

"Definitely sprained," Carter corrected him, and went into a coughing fit.

Dana shook her head. "What'd you do that for?" she asked him.

"Sympathy points," Carter replied. "Does it get you to go out with me?"

Dana blinked. "Excuse me?" she asked.

"Well, I was kinda laying there," Carter said, "and I was thinking that if I died…it'd be a damn shame we never got to go out." He closed his eyes. "And then Zach Anderson had to go be a hero and haul me outta there and so…" he looked at her. "So would you? Go out with me?"

Dana choked out a laugh. "Carter…you have horrible timing."

"I'll work on it," he promised. "So….." he prompted as they lifted him into the ambulance. He coughed again. "Whaddya say?"

Dana looked at him, and then realized that not only was he waiting on an answer, but the paramedics and the Lightspeed team had heard the exchange, and all were staring at her. She blushed. "I…..I….no. No, I can't." And with that, she closed the ambulance doors and hit the bumper. She turned, to see the Lightspeed team staring still, slackjawed. Kelsey opened her mouth to say something, but Dana brushed past them and took off running.

PS: I'm not a firefighter. Or a paramedic.