Since I've been a fan of Power Rangers for a long time, I decided to write a fic for them. In this case, for the first series I ever watched: Ninja Storm. This is moreso a series of oneshots that are too short to publish separately than anything else, but they're all set between the team-up with the Dino Thunder Rangers and the beginning of Operation Overdrive.

A note before you start, there are references to other power ranger teams in here. Especially Dino Thunder and Time Force - a decade after first watching it and I still love Time Force.

At first, there was nothing all that odd about it at all. Shane started to pick up work in his free time teaching kids at the skate park how to board and got a part-time job at a take away as Tori picked up work as a surf shop on the harbour front, both proclaiming it was for video games and all the junk food their parents wouldn't buy then. Then Dustin and the Bradley brothers started working longer shifts at Storm Chargers, which was hardly a problem since Kelly could use all the extra help she could get.

No, Cam didn't start getting suspicious until a few weeks in, when he noticed Shane wasn't bragging about any new video game scores and, despite no change in her exercise regime, Tori didn't put on any weight from all the extra junk food she was talking about buying. Likewise, Cam never heard Dustin or the brothers discussing bike upgrades.

So, they were clearly lying. About what, Cam wasn't sure.

Then he caught them in the Sensei lounge at the Wind Academy, each time staring or talking into a laptop before slamming it closed when Cam entered the room and refusing to open it until he left. It didn't take a genius to work out there were using Skype, and it didn't take a computer genius to uncover that all of their mysterious calls were to Hunter and Blake, but it was indeed beyond Cam why they chose to Skype the brothers when the Thunder Academy was within walking distance. He could only assume they didn't want to be overheard, but that just brought him right back to 'the big secret'.

It was only when Cam overheard a conversation between Shane and some of his students about mortgages that Cam put his foot down and cornered the three of them in one of the training rooms.

"What are you up to?" he demanded.

The three former rangers' eyes darted around the room, searching for a way out. But there were no windows and only one door, which Cam was strategically standing in front of. Dustin hissed something to them about teleporting, but Cam was more amused to see them try that than worried this was all going to backfire on him.

"Nothing" Tori responded with, which was the most generic guilty answer she could've given. Cam was honestly disappointed.

"We're not up to anything" Shane added, which really only added fuel to the fire.

Note to Cam: Teach these idiots how to lie properly. Or don't – at least this way they were open books.

"You've got extra jobs, but you're not spending anything" Cam pointed out "You're conspiring with the Thunder Rangers over Skype and asking the students about mortgages. What are you up to?"

"Nothing" was the instant respond from Tori, before a look of comprehension flittered across her face, like it had just dawned on her what stupid response that was.

Dustin kept on pulling on Shane's sleeve and repeating their team leader's name with increasing frequency, like he expected Shane to just sort this all out. Shane himself kept looking between Dustin and Cam, then Tori and Cam, then towards the exit again and back to Cam.

Well clearly this was getting somewhere.

"If this is a threat to the academies or the world, I need to know" Cam told them sternly.

All three instantly sighed with relief, like they thought they'd spotted a way out of this situation.

"It's not" Shane immediately told him "It's a private matter – no threats involved."

"Fine then" Cam told them, folding his arms and levelling them with his best unimpressed glare "If it's a private matter, then I want to know. And before you tell me it's none of my business, remember who handles the wages around here."

All three simultaneously winced. Now both Tori and Dustin were staring at Shane expectantly, and the former red ranger himself had pressed his lips together into something on the way to being a scowl. The three appeared to argue back and forth without saying a word before Shane sighed exasperatedly.

"It's for…living situations" he told Cam eventually.

"You all live with your parents" Cam frowned "Nice try."

"Well, not really" Tori admitted, peeking Cam's interest.

The truth finally came out of Dustin, who babbled it out like he was hoping if he spoke fast enough Cam wouldn't be able to understand him.

"Well, you see, my mom wants to downgrade to a one-bedroom and Shane's parents keep nagging to him about standing on his own two feet and so we kinda said 'hey, we're both moving out, how 'bout we do it together' and then Tori said that if we were moving out she wanted to come too and Hunter kept on complaining about the curfew over at Thunder Academy and Blake wanted to live closer to Storm Chargers anyway and—"

"Where is this going?" Cam cut him off, not impressed at the roundabout answer.

The three looked at each other again before nominating Shane as their speaker again.

"We're saving up money to buy a flat together."

If Cam were a computer, the only thing his screen would read was 'Cannot Compute'.

It honestly didn't sink in until they were all packing. Until then, Cam could pretend that the whole conversation was just a dream. It finally hit him when he came back from class one morning and found the three of them in the Sensei lounge again, Tori and Shane ganging up on Dustin that they didn't need two stereos and Hunter's had better audio quality anyway. It only got worse when Hunter and Blake arrived, obviously deciding the secret was out so there was no point in using Skype calls to conspire anymore, and the five proceeded to bicker about whether it was cheaper to rent one of the garages at the apartment complex or a storage locker to keep their bikes in.

The idea of these five having ownership over any square foot of land disturbed Cam on a personal level. Being a sensei was one thing, but being responsible for themselves was a whole other ballgame that Cam was all but certain they were going to strike out on.

"I sense a great disaster on the horizon" his father muttered ominously that same morning, which didn't make Cam feel any better about the whole situation.

In an act of desperation, he called Dr Oliver in Reefside, wanting to know if they'd all been transported to a parallel dimension or alternate timeline as a result of Ranger activity. Dr Oliver not only refuted the idea, but added more wood to the 'do not let them move in together' pile.

"Where did they say they were moving to?"

"Apparently they found an apartment in Ocean Bluffs" Cam told him over the phone "It's a suburb of Blue Bay Harbour. I can see the appeal – it's more or less central to all their workplaces and the academies."

"…Ah."

Cam didn't like that tone. "What is it?"

"That's…probably not a good idea."

That really wasn't helping Cam's feeling of dread. "Why?"

"I received a message from Wes the other day" Dr Oliver explained "Apparently Time Force has sent a parolee to Ocean Bluffs in Blue Bay Harbour, March 2004, to help get his life back on track away from the influence of other mutants. He asked me to keep an eye on him, since I'm a bit closer to him than Silver Hills is. I was going to ask you to do the same, but I'm afraid it slipped my mind. The rampaging Zords in my city were quite distracting."

So, a former villainous mutant was living within a few blocks radius of the most accident-prone ranger team in history.

Cam uttered a series of words that his father would've washed his mouth out with soap for saying.

Apparently, between the five of them, they'd managed to save up for a nice third-storey apartment not too far from the town centre and thankfully on the other side of the suburb to the parolee. Of course, Cam hadn't told them that yet – they'd only go and seek the guy out if they knew of his existence.

Not to mention, they had bigger problems.

Parental inspection.

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Tori's mom asked her daughter for the millionth time.

"There are only three bedrooms" her dad reported with a frown, shooting daggers of fatherly protection at the boys.

"Not with those kids!" had been the only comment from Shane's mom whilst his dad was just glad Shane was seizing responsibility by the heels for once.

Cam had received a single message from Porter Clarke, which basically read that he was glad he was no longer the only son now to be subjected to lifestyle grilling at every family meal and Porter was undoubtedly going to come off better in that department anyhow.

He'd received another from Thunder Academy, which simply read 'They're your responsibly now'. He responded with an equally blunt reply: 'No they're not'.

Dustin's mom hadn't said much between her sniffles about her baby boy growing up and becoming a man, which disturbed Cam just as much as the whole move had.

It turned out Tori's dad was right – between the five of them there are only three bedrooms and one bathroom. This strikes them as they're moving their suitcases and sleeping bags (the furniture's still being figured out) into the desolate flat. Someone, probably Blake, began talking about a bathroom rota and got immediately shut down until a later date.

Dustin made a coy joke about Blake and Tori sharing a bedroom, which got the Bradley brothers up in arms until Tori took the single bedroom to herself. Hunter and Blake obviously took one of the double bedrooms – the one closest to the bathroom – leaving Shane and Dustin to share the other.

This arrangement works for approximately 72 hours, before Shane gives up and moves his stuff to a corner of the living room, declaring Dustin's snoring unbearable. Hunter and Blake do not sympathise.

Despite all their planning, it appeared that their moving into the new flat did not go as quietly as they thought. It appeared Dr Oliver had spread the word and within a week, 'home warming' presents began being delivered to their front door. By the end of the month, they were almost certain they'd received presents from every previous ranger team, including those not on earth. Dustin confirmed it.

A group calling themselves the 'Wild Force Rangers' sent them half their kitchen, including a toaster, a blender and (to everyone's relief) a microwave, all solar powered, along with enough toilet rolls to fill several cupboards, a note claiming that there were the greatest invention since cereal (the note had a footer reading: PS: That was all Cole's idea. Please don't think we're all crazy).

A parcel with a return address of 'Terra Venture, Andromeda System' was filled with some very strange-looking sweets with a post-it note reading 'They're out of this world!' under a smilie face. Tori and Blake debated about whether the pun was intentional or not for a great deal of time as Shane and Dustin demolished the sweets in order to confirm they were indeed 'out of this world'.

A letter from a group of people called the 'Lightspeed Rescue Rangers' sent them a table and two bed frames, which were the first pieces of furniture that made it through the front door of the flat. It was a mystery to all of them why, between the six rangers on the former team from Mariner Bay, they'd only be able to cough up enough for a table with no accompanying chairs and whether they'd simply miscounted or honestly expected five people to share two single beds.

Thankfully that problem was rectified by the Dino Thunder Rangers, who sent them five deck chairs and a sofa which, thankfully for Shane's back, had a pull-out bed attached. Shane was tempted to drive all the way to Reefside to hug his new favourite juniors out of gratitude.

Several other presents also made their way to the doorstep. One was a set of dumbbells with no attached note. Several pieces of what could only be assumed to alien technology without instructions manuals (or, at least, ones in English) just seemed to appear during the night. Cam sent them a cactus, saying he'd pay their electricity bill for a month if they could keep it alive until Halloween. Dr Oliver sent them a very ornate mahogany mantelpiece statue of a roaring T-Rex, which Blake argued could be worth a pretty penny on eBay, but in the end no one had the heart (or nerve) to sell it.

The best gift though, in everyone's opinion, was the one that apparently all of Tommy's old team had chipped in to pay for. Made by Billy Cranston himself was a sleek blue convertible that had the capacity to change into a glider or a low-pressure submersible at the push of a button (in case of 'unfavourable circumstances in your future' apparently). Shane had actually cried whilst Hunter and Dustin fawned over the vehicle, excitedly proclaiming all the road trips they were going to take it on. Tori kept on staring between the note and the car, muttering about how this was too much and why did they even need a car anyway if the gym, academies and all their work places were strategically within walking distance? Beside her, Blake kept on repeating his thoughts on how there was no way this car was legal to drive on the road and how were they supposed to insure a convertible/submarine/glider anyhow?

The final gift made its presence known vocally, as Hunter tripped over it carrying the frame of a bed up the stairs into the flat. It was a small box with an accompanying letter that was made out to 'Red Ninja Storm Ranger; Clarke, Shane' with a provision under 'Blue Bay Harbour, California' of 'Tuesday, May 4th 2004 AD'.

Dustin correctly guessed who it was from, but couldn't for the life of him work out why Time Force was sending Shane a present.

The letter was from five different people with equally bad grammar, the letter looking like it had been translated using a thesaurus. It bared a congratulations for standing on their own two feet in the world and how it was never easy, no matter what time you were from. It claimed a Time Force ranger living in the same decade as them had sent word of their 'new adventure' and how it was customary to send gifts to assist a person through this often difficult time (or at least, that was how they chose to interpret 'escort a body through this period of recurrently laborious trials'). An apology was also added about their lack of correct 21st century English written grammar with a recommendation they trying writing in 1000 AD English for a change. It was signed 'Jen, Lucas, Katie, Trip and Alex'.

An amendment on the bottom in thankfully much easier to read English added: "Sorry about them – apparently they have Time Force technology that translates spoken words into the correct language and dialect for them, but it doesn't work with written stuff. They say congrats and they hope you like their present. Trip made it himself. If you ever need a hand from a fellow ranger or a get out of jail free card, my number's on the back. -Wes [Eric says hi too, he just won't admit it]".

Enclosed within the envelope with the letter was roughly $3000 in various bills from one dollar to a hundred dollars that took them a good hour to count. They were mostly dated between 1973 and 2004, with four others being dated between 2008 and 2029 which must have been thrown in by mistake. They also located three Canadian bills and one extremely weird one that Tori guessed was an Australian dollar. It honestly looked like someone had been digging through archives looking for all of them.

They became slightly wary of opening the box when Dustin nudged it and it shrieked like a dying baby.

Inside the box was a small mechanical owl that could fly and apparently had the capacity to talk but mostly just screamed, apparently a prototype of the Circuit droid. This one was called Digit and was half the size but had twice the lung capacity.

Shane tried calling the number Wes had gave them, but rather than Wes, they got patched through to some guy called Eric, who very colourfully told them what they should do with their complaints and that they could keep the owl, complaining neighbours or otherwise.

After a day, Cam was summoned with an urgent warning about a threat of invading forces.

"Oh thank god you're here!" Tori proclaimed with a joyful sigh when she saw Cam's face beyond the threshold "It won't stop screaming!"

Cam surveyed the scene for one of Lothor's allies or an equally worse threat, only to be drawn to the plastic owl wailing like a banshee and the boys covering their ears with whatever pillows they could find.

"Make it shut up!" Shane yelled over the clamour.

"Please" Blake added on.

Cam sighed, rolled his eyes a bit, and broke out the laptop.

Despite the thousand-year technology gap, Cam got Digit to stop shrieking and knocking over the dinner plates in about four days. No one was entirely sure if that was an improvement though, as Digit learnt its first words and liked yelling them for everyone to hear at least fifty times a day (Hunter almost had a heart attack the day he woke up to a suspiciously Cam-sounding voice screaming "Damn! Damn you birdbrain!" right in his ear) and was now programmed to respond to anything Cam commanded it to do. It proudly took to tattling on them it its master and screaming when they lied.

When it came to cooking, Hunter claimed had inherited his skills from his mother, even if Blake argued that wasn't possible since they weren't biologically related. The third time he burnt the noodles he was thrown out of the kitchen permanently.

Shane was slightly better, but did end up over-cooking things due to 'distractions'.

Dustin claimed he was great at cooking, and he was, so long as it could fit in the microwave.

Therefore it was mostly Blake and Tori that did the cooking. Every time they went into the kitchen, Dustin would wolfwhistle and Hunter would go on a spiel about his brother's honour before warning Blake about sex before marriage.

The vast majority of meals ended up being takeout using Shane's employee discount.

"Are you eating balanced meals?" Tori's mom quizzed her from over the phone.

"Yes, mom" Tori responded as she dug through the piles of laundry – both dirty and clean – decorating the living room to find her handbag in order to retrieve her surf shop entry key. Their meals were balanced – they had to be balanced for you to shovel them into your mouth as you ran between work, home and the academies.

"Three square meals a day?"

"Yes" Tori automatically answered. Take away came in pizza boxes and cartons, which were square.

"Liar!" Digit proclaimed from his perch on the edge of the sofa "Liar liar pants on fire!"

"What was that?"

"Nothing, mom" Tori nudged Digit off the sofa, resuming her search.

"Have you got plenty of grains?"

Tori unearthed a half-empty beer bottle with a look of disgust "Yes, grains everywhere."

"Liar liar pants on fire!"

Tori dropped a duvet over Digit to get him to shut up.

"What about veggies? Have you got plenty of leafy greens?"

Tori trudged on a small baggie and proceed to shove it into a pain of Dustin's jeans with a roll of her eyes. "Yes mom, plenty of leafy green things. Dustin makes sure of it."

"What about that nice young man you were seeing?"

"Blake and I are fine, mom" a little blush shot across Tori's face for a second and she was glad she was home alone for once "We're just taking things slow. He's got some upcoming races and he needs to focus on them just now."

"Don't let him get away, honey. You don't meet a man like that everyday."

Tori groaned. "Mom, seriously?"

"Alright then. I'll talk to you later, darling. Your dad's making me lunch."

"Aw, I'm starting to miss Dad's cooking, you know" Tori remarked.

She hung up the phone and unearthed her handbag with a yell of triumph. Only to find her entry key wasn't in it.

Meanwhile, Digit manged to crawl his way out from under the duvet. "Liar liar pants on fire!"

"Who asked you?"

They actually didn't try using the convertible until summer. Not because they didn't want to, but because they made the mistake of showing it to Cam first, who removed all the spark plugs out of fear that they would wreak havoc on the world with this particular tool. They had to ask Dr Oliver to contact Billy to produce some more (they didn't dare fit it with regular spark plugs, because who knows what would've happened if they'd put something normal into an invention that came from the mind of the universe's smartest power ranger) and they didn't arrive until competition season.

The first Sunday that at least one of them didn't have a competition on, they took the convertible down to the staff car park at the surf shop.

They spent a good hour reading through Billy's instruction manual whilst Hunter complained about wanting to do doughnuts, testing out how the structural changes work and if they can actually sit in the car when it shifts between forms and if they can enter glider mode when still on the ground and how a manual stick-shift works. When the discussion turned to submarine mode, Dustin decided to test it out by driving the convertible down the boat ramp into the sea.

With the roof still down.

An hour of holding blow-dryers against the leather seats and cursing Dustin's existence later, now with Tori at the wheel, they managed to make submarine mode work whilst driving into the harbour with the roof up. It was all very cool, but there wasn't much to see in the harbour, so they decided to head out towards the open ocean to search for pretty fish.

It was at the point of leaving the harbour that Shane found the footnote that warned them the submarine only had enough air to support two people for approximately two hours.

There's five of them and they've been under nearly half an hour.

It was a mad scramble to get back to the shore and honestly, all that yelling and jumping around probably didn't do much to conserve their oxygen supply. When they did eventually get back, they were so relieved that they couldn't bring themselves to care about the fishermen staring at them as they drove up the wrong boat ramp, one of muttering about 'damn power rangers and their toys'.

Over lunch, they vowed never to use submarine mode unless in case of an emergency. A Lothor-level emergency.

The problem with Cam was that he was completely unapologetic, even if he was in the wrong. It wasn't that he thought he was always right (just 99% of the time apparently) but that Cam just didn't like apologising. He'd rather fight it out with barbed insults, even if it was a hopeless battle.

His unapologetic stubbornness was a favourite aspect of him to many of the former rangers, but in this case, his habit lead to the first occasion of them being bailed out of jail.

At the annual Wind Academy Independence Day Party, Dustin had made a comment about how Cam wasn't drinking and that clearly Cam couldn't hold his liquor. Cam had argued that he could and Dustin had sealed it with those infamous words:

"Prove it."

And that was what lead to them all sitting at the bar of some seedy joint called 'The Drunken Ass', watching Cam down several beers without pausing for breath. The dizzying speed was somewhat worrying, but that didn't stop Hunter from passing him more drinks.

Just as the group was considering going home (it was past midnight after all) and they were all working out how they were going to get Cam back to the academy or where he'd crash at their place, Cam made some gesture with his arm to explain something to Blake (apparently Cam was a rather composed drunk, the only different between Drunk Cam and Regular Cam being the latter's frequent use of hand gestures) and knocked over another patron's beer.

The patron didn't look too upset. He just asked Cam to buy him another one to replace the one Cam had knocked over and all would be forgiven. So of course Cam argued no and that it was the other patron's fault for leaving his beer within his arm's reach anyway. The other rangers tried to persuade Cam to give in and even offered to pay themselves, but now the other patron was riled up and called up six of the biggest guys in the building, all his friends apparently, to back him up in battle, whilst Hunter and Shane stood to defend their extremely stubborn friend.

No one was entirely sure who threw the first punch. Several reports claimed Blake, surprisingly enough, but regardless, the bar descended into all-out war. Of course, they were ninjas, and power rangers, so they kicked everyone's butts, and before any of them knew what was happening, they were standing in the centre of a pool of broken and unconscious bodies.

"Is this a 'we did good' or a 'we should feel bad'?" Tori pondered, realising they were the only conscious people in the room.

"I have no idea" Shane admitted, checking several of the bodies for any life-threatening injuries.

"That was awesome!" Hunter declared, punching the air with his bruised knuckles in delight.

"It was skilfully handled" Cam corrected him "Not necessarily warranted."

"We're going to be locked up for ages" Blake muttered, keeping his head ducked down. Ordinarily he'd be lecturing them about diplomacy and use of ninja skills outside of battle, but he'd been just as bad as they had. He would later blame alcohol completely.

"We just won a bar fight!" Dustin made an excited squealing noise, staring at his bleeding knuckles with a manic look in his eyes "Papa's gonna be so proud!"

"Nice show! You guys ninjas or something?" Everyone jumped as the bartender appeared from behind the bar, spared from the carnage completely apparently.

"Or something" Tori told him.

"You're telling me" the bartender remarked with the same manic glint in his eye that Dustin had "I haven't seen anyone clean up like that in ages. Drinks on the house for all of you."

"You mean this happens a lot?" Shane pondered.

"Oh, at least twice a month" the bartender told them "Everyone's mad now, but tomorrow they'd all be bragging about how long they stood in this fight, so don't worry about anyone pressing charges. You'll be the talk of the place for months. I already called the police, but they'll take their sweet time getting here, so have a drink whilst we wait."

They ended up having several drinks, which really helped take the edge off their stinging hands.

The police arrived several minutes later with a small army of medics. The six were hauled off separately to their own holding cell at the police station and a nurse was sent in to deal with the injuries.

Shane ended up with a few Tylenol and an ice pack for his hands.

Hunter gained some bandages across his knuckles.

Tori had gotten away with a few bruises, a few cuts and a sore foot from when someone had trodden on it.

Cam got an ice pack for his face, a bandage across his back, wrapped knuckles and three stitches on his head, all the while complaining that whoever picked up a pool cue was clearly cheating, even if the fight had no pre-set rules.

Blake had been told he'd need a cast as he'd broken his hand in four places, probably when he punched that jerk straight in the jaw. He used his free hand to punch Hunter when he called him a wuss, which nearly broke his other hand.

Dustin was bouncing from foot to foot, both hands covered in some clear paste to stop infections, his shirt splattered with blood but he proudly proclaimed only a little of it was his. He'd gotten a split lip but was otherwise fine.

All agreed that fights were much less messy when morphed but so much more satisfying when not.

With the major injuries sorted, the group discussion turn to who to call to bail them out.

Hunter and Blake's parents were dead.

Tori's parents would die if they heard their daughter was in jail.

Shane's parents were out of the country and he refused to call his big brother, no matter how much they offered him.

Dustin's dad was also in jail and his mom probably couldn't afford to bail them out.

Cam's dad was an automatic no.

No one could stand to face the look of disappointment Dr Oliver would probably show them.

The Dino Thunder Rangers, while good friends, were out since they'd probably tell Dr Oliver all about it when they saw him the next day.

In the end, they called the only phone number they had left.

Wes Collins stared at the group in the cell with raised eyebrows.

"Do I want to know?" he asked.

"We won!" Dustin supplied and was automatically shoved to the back and told to shut up.

"Please let us out?" Tori begged quietly.

Wes just shook his head with either disbelief or amusement, ushering the group of teenagers out of the holding cell.

"When I said 'get out of jail free card', I didn't expect you to take it literally" he told them.

"It was for a necessary cause, sir" Cam told the older ranger.

"Yeah, we were defending Cam's honour" Hunter declared.

"And we totally won!" Dustin added, getting told to shut up again for his trouble.

Wes didn't comment but looked like he was fondly reminiscing about something.

Their car was still at the flat and the police station was across town, so Wes had to drive them in two groups back home in his own car, where he patched up Blake's hand with a split and instructed him to go to the hospital tomorrow for a real cast. He checked the few stitches they had before declaring them medially sound.

"I'm not giving you any painkillers" Wes told them "You'll have to make do with Tylenol. Idiots don't get painkillers."

"That's okay" Dustin reassured him "We've got better pain manag—"

Shane and Hunter both clasped their hands over his mouth to cut him off.

"We can manage, sir" Cam told Wes before the older man could get suspicious "Thank you for all your help."

"Just be glad it wasn't Eric who picked up the phone" Wes warned them "He would've left you to rot in jail."

The five of them had gotten pretty good at negotiating the arrival of parents. Most of them tended to give them a heads-up if they were on the way over or planned their visits in advance, giving the teenagers time to clean the flat of incriminating items and hide the alien or future tech.

Then Porter appeared at their door without any warning when Shane could've sworn the guy was supposed to be in Tahiti, demanding an audience with his little brother, and the world nearly ended.

Shane kept the guy busy on the doorstep as long as he could, allowing the others time to shove beer bottles, laundry, questionable items and the parolee into various storage spaces, in case Porter had been sent to inspect the place on behalf on his parents. The parolee was not impressed at all, but there was nothing any of them could do about it. It was mid-morning, it wasn't Halloween, they couldn't blame fancy dress and there was no time to find the guy a proper disguise.

The meeting between Shane and his brother felt more like an interrogation than a chat that dragged on for a full hour, Porter quizzing him on how work's going and how he's able to afford such as nice place on a teacher's salary and how did he even get a teaching job anyway without a degree and was he remembering to separate the colours from the whites and how was that nice girl, Tori wasn't it? (They had to hold Blake back from beating Porter around the head with his cast at that remark). Finally, as Porter was running out of questions, Shane managed to drop enough hints to persuade his brother to go to lunch with him, vacating the flat to the relief of everyone.

Dustin ran to the wardrobe and flung it open, greeted with the sight of the parolee (he insisted his name was something unpronounceable to the human tongue, but they all call him Shawshank anyway) hanging upside down from the coat rail with his bird-like feet, arms folded and red eyes ablaze with distaste.

"We're totally gonna tell Time Force what a good boy you've been" Dustin immediately tried to placate him.

"Next time you hide me, it had better not be with your dirty socks, Mr Brooks" Shawshank told him with a growl in his voice, the threat obvious and real. He didn't seem quite so angry anymore so Dustin's promise must've had some effect.

"Just be happy we didn't hide you with Digit" Blake told him smartly.

"Where is Digit?" Hunter pointed out, to the alarm of everyone.

Immediately a frantic search began until they found Digit upside down in the cereal cupboard, morosely repeating "Stranger danger. Damn. Dustin's an airhead" to the figures on the Rice Crispees packet.

Dustin promised to find whoever taught Digit that phrase and bury them six-feet under. Literally.

Blake broke his cast within three weeks. Surprisingly, this didn't lead to them having to visit the hospital, because they were already there at the time.

The reason they were there, surprisingly, wasn't because they were testing out Billy's car or because one of them had fallen in battle, but because Hunter had been feeling under the weather ever since Porter had shown up. Discounting the idea Porter or some other threat had somehow poisoned him, they tried to keep Hunter from running a fever and throwing up all over the place with little success. When it became apparent the Tylenol and…other pain management wasn't working, they decided to google his symptoms, expecting them to come under 'Man Flu' or something equally stupid.

Instead, they found themselves rushing between buildings towards the nearest hospital in the convertible, in glider mode with Shane at the wheel, all of them yelling and screaming their heads off, mostly at Hunter, who kept alternating between moaning in pain and joking about how, after facing off against Lothor and a whole load of other baddies, he was going to die of a ruptured appendix and how anticlimactic that sounded.

To Blake's (well everyone's, but mostly Blake's) relief, he survived. Granted, when the hospital bill came back, there were a few mumbles that they wished he hadn't. Dustin made the mistake of joking about this in front of Hunter, which resulted in Blake punching him in the face, forgetting for a split second that he was wearing a cast.

In all fairness, Blake needed to find a better way for solving problems than punching the problem in the face. No doubt Hunter was to blame for this habit.

At least the fracture department was only a few doors down from the recovery ward.

It was common knowledge that Blake and Tori were in love. Though they may tease, the others knew never to bring this up, as it was usually more detrimental to the budding relationship than useful. If Tori and Blake scheduled lunches that they didn't invite anyone else to, you weren't allowed to call them dates. Even if Digit insisted on yelling "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" whenever the two were in the same room together (everyone blamed Dustin for this. Dustin blamed Dustin for this).

The pair had gone on an 'official' date exactly once, and neither of them had actually planned it. Shane had booked the table at the nicest restaurant in town and Dustin and Hunter had forcibly dragged the lucky pair there individually, sat them down at the table and proceeded to stand outside the doors of the restaurant to ensure they didn't leave.

Dinner was actually going pretty well. They could see Blake and Tori laughing and having a good time through the front window. The pair of matchmakers congratulated themselves on a job well done and tried to update Shane on the progress, but they hadn't been able to get through to him.

That didn't mean Shane didn't turn up.

"STOP THIEF!"

"Darn Rangers! When will the universe be free of you?!"

"Come back here with my bike you damn freak!"

Already dreading what they were going to see, Hunter and Dustin turned towards the formerly empty road.

An alien, one of the Lothor's minions variety, was pedalling down the street on a push bike at a good fifty miles an hour, his legs spinning too fast for them to follow with alien stamina. He kept looking over his shoulder at his two pursuers who were managing to keep up with his crazy speed.

Shane was reducing the resistance of the air in front of him to allow him to keep up with the alien, occasionally trying to reach out and grab the pushbike but missing every time. Shawshank was screaming for the alien to return his pushbike, his powerful emu-like legs putting him just ahead of Shane and his arms flapping like he was trying to take off into the air.

And they were heading right towards the restaurant.

The night was indeed ruined by an alien-driven pushbike, a parolee mutant and a power ranger crashing through the window of the restaurant and quickly totalling the place. However, they did manage to prevent the alien from escaping with the money he'd stolen from the bank, Shawshank got his bike back and no one was able to identify he or any of the former rangers as being a part of the carnage. Cam reported that he felt the situation was a moderate win.

Blake came away feeling like it had been a total win. If an alien committing a bank robbery and using Shawshank's bike as a getaway vehicle was all it took to get Tori to kiss him in front of a crowd of onlookers, then there should really be more alien bank robberies nowadays.

"They've formed a rock band."

Kira was pretty sure she didn't hear that correctly. "They've what?"

"It's all your fault" Tori told the younger girl on one of her trips up to Reefside, the pair sitting opposite each other at a small café for lunch "Ever since you taught Dustin how to use a guitar—"

"It was yellow ranger bonding" Kira insisted.

"I don't care – you don't have to live with him" Tori frowned "They've formed a rock band. Dustin's on guitar. Shane's on the drums. Hunter sings and plays bass. Even Cam mixes their music for them. They jam away in Dustin's room all day and night and I can't sleep."

Kira resisted the urge to laugh at Tori's irritated expression "What about Blake?"

"Oh, he agrees with me" Tori told her "It's all racket. The only one who's any good is Hunter."

"Ah, the dutiful boyfriend and brother" Kira remarked "That's a rare combination."

"Stop changing the subject" Tori objected.

"What are they even calling themselves?" Kira asked.

Tori rolled her eyes. "Their working titles is 'LLL'."

"Sounds convoluted" Kira was confused, expecting something like 'The Space Ninjas'.

"It stands for 'Long Live Lothor'" Tori told her with distaste, to Kira's amusement "The worst thing is, Lothor would probably approve of them."

"What do you want me to do about it?" Kira asked "I mean, the pony's bolted. There's no point in me closing the stable door now."

"Can you get Dr Oliver to do something?" Tori suggested "They all really respect him. If he told them to stop, that rangers aren't allowed to be in rock bands, maybe they would."

"Honey, Dr Oliver's in Mongolia on a dig" Kira told her to Tori's disappointment "And even if he was here, he'd probably say it was your job to stand up to them and make them see that you need your quiet – he won't do the job for you."

Tori groaned, coming to the realisation that Kira was probably right.

"But, hey, can you ask them if they want a female member?" Kira then asked "I've got the guitar already. And I actually can sing."

Tori was tempted to drop Kira off the best friends list right then and there.

The boys have bad ideas. To the surprise of many, it's actually Blake who comes up with them and voices then, before listing several reasons why they shouldn't be carried out.

Unfortunately, when you mix Blake's ideas, Cam's intelligence, Hunter's distain for rules, Dustin's enthusiasm and Shane egging them on, something bad was going to happen.

No one was entirely sure who stained the Sensei lounge at Thunder Academy green. Several fingers pointed in Cam and Blake's directions. They all got kicked off academy property anyway, even if the students suddenly had way more respect for Sensei Blake than they had before.

Sensei Watanabe refused to even let them in before they got blasted with a garden hose, but they couldn't really walk back to Ocean Bluffs like this, could they?

Surprisingly, none of them got fired. Everyone was a little astonished by this; but two weeks before Christmas and they got pretty close.

It went something like this: a human-looking alien walked into Storm Chargers; the alien started up a conversation with the three rangers who worked there; the alien referred to them by their full names without being told them, which tipped them off to the 'I'm going to KEEEEL you!' speech that he was about to make; the alien and the rangers got into a fight; two more rangers showed up after getting emergency distress calls; the five rangers kicked the alien's butt into the abyss but destroyed most of the Storm Chargers building in the process.

How they managed to get Cam to delete all security footage in time to tell the returning Kelly about the traumatic armed-robbery they just fought off none of them were sure of. However Kelly clearly was none the wiser as she sobbed about how she'd nearly lost her 'three favourite boys' with the promise she would update the shop's security. Cam agreed to look into shielding the building from allowing any aliens past the threshold, in case someone tried to attack the place whilst Kelly was still there.

If Hunter accidently called her 'mom' during the whole ordeal of checking their cuts and bruises, no one could blame him.

They'd stained the Thunder Academy Sensei lounge green twice, set their flat on fire four times, had three arrests, won two bar brawls, broke Blake's hand three times in eight different places, taught Digit fifty new words – not all of which were kid-friendly – foiled five alien plots, annoyed the parolee so much that Shawshank threatened to turn to crime again just so Time Force would get him away from them, gone to hospital five times, broke Dr Oliver's mantelpiece sculpture twice, made Wes Collins regret ever given them his number and formed a rock band.

All within a year of moving out together.

Sensei Watanabe couldn't tell if he was supposed to be impressed or worried about what Year 2 had to offer. Though he did wish they'd stop bringing that annoying owl into his academy. Owls and guinea pigs were sworn enemies, surely they knew that.