Chapter 16

Black Acceptance

Zack carried his mother over a mountain, into a valley filled with mist, and to the top of a hill overlooking the ocean. He stopped at a tree. A long time before, his mom had explained it was cedar, the entrance to the afterlife. Zack had never believed his mother when she talked about 'spirits' or anything like that, but that exact tree was where his father had rested.

The last time he saw the tree was Zack's earliest memory. It was shorter back then, but Zack was too. He could still clearly remember his mother's black hands spreading his father's ashes around the tree. Not a single tear fell from her eyes.

Zach took a deep breath. He didn't have a fancy urn to keep his mother in. She rested in a flower pot. Zack knelt and spread his mother's ashes into the ground as best as he could remember. His mom fell into the earth around the tree and his parents were finally together again.

His body felt empty. Whatever he was carrying went into the dirt where it belonged. He had been holding on for so long, he forgot what it was like to let go.

The sun set under the shimmering sky. The sea reflected the light, making it shine. Zack sat on the hill watching the colors. He breathed and let himself fall away, eventually falling asleep under the tree, traveling the universe in dreams.

Faint starlight lit the way back through the trail down the California coast. The way was long and damp. Waves crashed against the rocks.

Light came again, as it always did. There was a town down the trail that consisted of a gas station, a diner, and little else.

Three old truckers sat at the far end of the bar. A few others huddled in booths nearby. A waitress stood on the other side of the bar with her hand on her hip. All had their eyes glued to a television.

"Good morning," the waitress called without turning her head. "You can sit anywhere."

People moved around, doing whatever it was they did. Most of them worried about what would keep them in their current position through the week, some drank to forget their immediate insignificant worries. Simple desires held them prisoner.

One of the truckers said something about "the book of Revelation." Others murmured in agreement. Such a conceited way to look at the end of the world. The world had ended countless times and would end again. Such was the cycle of life and death. They, like so many others before, never considered the end of their existence. People needed to cling to something familiar, it made them feel better. They couldn't let things be as they were.

The picture on the screen focused on Zedd. He fought off many colors, though he wasn't really fighting. He aimed for a specific result, but used only a fraction of his power.

Someone very important to him, had been taken. A scared little boy who had lost his family and had searched the universe to find them. A good man who had lost his way. Red, pink, yellow, and blue struck at silver, but Zedd's bottomless pit of need would never be satiated.

There was a pull toward the battle. Their desire was for their old friend, but he was done with worthless fighting. He had seen the cycle, and how it would continue infinitely. Everyone was destined for the exact same fate. Another would take his place, and another again. All the meaning they poured into one war, one battle, one movement, meant nothing.

The universe convulsed in derision. It was dying, calling for Zack Taylor as one who could set it on the proper path. It needed him and Jason Scott, and Trini Kwan, and Zhane There was no way to escape it.

Screw this guy who thought power was something to be chased, Zack wasn't going to let it hurt anyone, especially not his friends. Zack put a $20 on the table and walked out of the diner without finishing his meal. His steps took him across the street, into a forest.

He took a deep breath, watching the fog run through black trees as they reached up to a cloudy sky. The morning was heavy and still. A dull roar echoed through the world.

Zack put his hand into his pocket. He felt the familiar shape of his coin. Time and space spread through him, starting in his fingers, moving through his body, and across his eyes.

Zack took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. His breath crept out of his mouth and swirled into the rest of the fog. He took eight steps forward. The world fell away and he was left with only the chill and darkness. His body fell between every bit of matter in the universe. He became the void.

Prismatic Refection

Jason only saw Zedd in the red paint and chrome bumper of his truck. The paint imitated the helmet in a thin line over stretched meat, mocking him.

Jason winced and squeezed his fist until his knuckles went white. He ripped the bumper right off his truck and threw it to the ground. The bolts held onto the frame, making it a mangled mess.

"Tell me how you really feel."

Jason turned his head to find Zack standing next to him, like nothing had happened. "Zack? Where have you been?"

Zack tilted his head like he didn't understand the question. "I've been right here the whole time."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Zack smiled and looked away. "Look man, it's not me you need anyway."

"What?"

"What was that?" Jason's dad threw the screen door open. It swung shut behind him with a 'clunk'. He was holding an open beer, but he wasn't mad, he was confused.

Jason looked back to Zack, but he was gone. Maybe he was seeing things.

Jason's dad pointed at the destroyed hunk of metal on the ground. "You gotta get a new bumper. That one's warped."

Jason realized his dad could have seen him tear metal with his bare hands. He heard it at the very least, but Jason didn't care. He turned around and folded his arms over his chest. "What the fuck is the point?"

"Get a new bumper, Jason. It's not like it's hard."

"I don't give a shit about the bumper! Nothing I do matters!"

Jason's dad took another sip of his beer. "Aren't you supposed to be volunteering?"

Jason wanted to hit something. He wanted to destroy his truck in an explosion of metal all over again. He almost didn't care if his dad saw or not. "What the fuck does it matter? Zedd's going to destroy it again. That or something worse is gonna happen."

Jason's dad turned and stared out over the bay, holding his beer like he did, no real expression on his face. "Back when I was younger, only a little older than you, I was on this crew. The boat was owned by this old hardass. The man was fishing before nets were invented. He gave me the helm one day, and I did... okay." He took a leisurely sip of his beer. "There's a few months of this, him letting me on the helm. Until one day, we were way out, took a risk and got caught in a storm..."

Jason only half-listened. He couldn't focus, couldn't sit still. He had to do something. Now his dad wanted to tell him a story.

"Thirty-foot waves crashing onto the deck. Mendez scrambled to get the harvest secured. Liu was getting the crew together. And I'm standing there, this inbreaker, green as grass, nothing to do but sit on my fucking hands and try not to fall overboard."

Adults liked telling these stories, little fables they thought would make everything all better.

"Hey!" Jason's dad grabbed Jason's shoulder and held his eyes. "Old hardass grabs me by the PFD." Jason's dasd gripped his shoulder. "Drags me into the wheelhouse, and plants me at the helm. Says 'You're driving.'

I look at the deck officer, he's shitting his pants. Hardass's gone before I can even say anything."

Jason took a long breath. "So what?"

Jason's dad shook his head. "I made mistakes, a lot of 'em. But that old hardass saw what I could do. Mendez was a bear. The guy was seven foot three. Those ropes were nothing to him. Liu, you could hear her clear through a bomb going off. We all had something, and that old hardass knew I could steer us through the storm while he did his stuff. And I did. Instead of an empty pair of hands, I drove us home, and freed up a better pair of hands to do what they needed to do."

Jason looked away.

Jason's dad looked back out over the water, calm as glass. "I've had my crew for eight years. Every time I go out there, I could lose someone. I could die myself. But I sail on. I trust my crew to do what they need to do. 'Cuz it does matter. Everything you do matters. And the best leaders know who goes where."

Kim stuffed clothes into her backpack. She should have left with whatever, but she was already home so she was going to do it right. She couldn't stay.

A chill blew through her room. Someone was there, right behind her. Jason, she had done the same to him, their first kiss. She wouldn't look at him, he'd try to convince her to stay.

"I'm leaving, Jason. Zack had the exact right idea."

"I'm full of good ideas, Kim." Zack threw himself onto her bed, laying on his side. A smirk played on his mouth.

Kim threw her arms around him. "I'm sorry about your mom. I've been thinking about her a lot."

"It's okay, Kim. I'm okay." His eyes offered catharsis, and his shoulders were relaxed. He wasn't lying, there was no pain, only peace. He looked down, into her backpack, then back at her. "Where are you gonna go?"

"Anywhere that isn't here."

"And you think that's far enough to get away?"

"I don't give a shit about Zedd-"

"I'm not talking about Zedd. You're not leaving for the same reason I did." He leaned in close, eyes seeing right through her. "Look, you don't have to tell me what it is, but you can't run from it. That's not the Kim I know."

Amanda didn't have anything to do with anything. Kim put her phone charger into the front pocket of her backpack. "I'm not running away." Her voice wavered, she didn't believe herself either.

Zack wasn't there when she looked back up at him.

Jason had been wrong that night, Kim deserved everything she got. She really was a bad person.

Billy was only aware of the wall of his basement before he heard boots coming down the stairs.

"Hey bro."

"Zack? What are you doing here?"

Zack was carrying a cardboard box that he placed onto Billy's dad's workbench. "I wanted to see you." He spun a chair on the floor and sat in it backwards. His forearms rested on the back. "I never got to thank you."

"Thank me? For what?"

"For saving my life."

"I- Well I-" Billy had no idea what Zack was talking about. Maybe when they fought Goldar or something. "When did I save your life?"

"You pulled that lever and protected the Zeo Crystal."

"That- tha- it was bad-" his eyes hit the ground and he started shaking his head. "I mean... What I did..."

"No. It was good. The whole world is still here, because you pulled that lever. I don't know if I would have made the right decision."

"...I still think it was bad."

Zack cocked his head. "Do you know what a mantra is?"

"Yea- I mean I've heard the word. It's like when you say something to yourself, right?"

"Yeah. Here's what I want you to do when start thinking about this, say 'Hm'-" Zack stopped and held a weird face for a few seconds. Finally, he put his hand on Billy's shoulder.

Billy looked at him, confused, halfway between wanting Zack to not touch him and it making him feel... good? It was like his friend was there and also not there, looking at him and, at the same time, looking away.

"I want you to say 'I do the things other people can't do.'"

Billy shook his head. "I... can't..." There was no way he ever could. "I can't... do..."

"You don't have to believe it. But when doing anything becomes impossible, I want you to say it."

"I mean- I- I'll try."

"Do. Or do not. There is no 'try.'" Zack said in a Yoda voice.

Billy laughed and shook his head. Yoda was always funny."

"You mind if I leave this here?" Zack opened his cardboard box. Billy leaned forward and saw it was full of spare parts. "I broke this thing. Promised I would put it back together."

"What is it supposed to be?"

Zack was already halfway up the stairs. "I never figured that out. Probably why I broke it."

"Why are you leaving it here?" Billy asked, but Zack was already gone. Billy pulled some of the parts out and set them on the bench.

There were wheels, and tubes, and what looked like an air pump. Almost everything was plastic. There were a few screws that had fallen to the bottom of the box. The tubes could be connected.

Trini thought her music could keep the world out. Her room in the ship became her very own personal bomb shelter.

A knock rang through the door. Trini didn't care who it was. "Go away."

The door opened anyway. Trini picked up something nearby and threw it at whoever it was. Whatever she threw shattered on the floor. So Trini turned the volume up as high as it could go.

"I like this band," Zack said through the blare.

Trini looked up at him smirking. "I don't want to talk."

"Me neither," Zack said, sitting on the bed.

They sat there, the music blasting, not saying anything to each other. Zack kept that stupid smile on his face while he studied her room.

Finally, Trini turned the volume down and asked, "Do you want to play a game?" She held up a game controller.

"As long as it's not about saving the world."

Trini laughed. "Mario Kart."

"Perfect."

Trini found something cathartic about shooting turtle shells at one of her best friends. She gloated with all she was worth when she beat him. "How does it feel to be such a loser?"

And he did his best to give it right back when he beat her. "Your controller isn't broken, is it? Oh no, you're bad at this."

But she beat him more often than not. "Oh! Did I win another gold trophy?" She asked looking up at him with her head in his lap.

Zack shoved her off of him laughing. She didn't stop. "Do I look good in gold, Zack? I think it suits me."

Trini didn't want to talk. Trini wouldn't talk. And Zack made it so easy.

"Can we trade Kim for Tommy?"

Zack shook his head and creased his mouth. "It doesn't work that way."

"Maybe it should." Trini whipped her hair over her shoulder. "Isn't found family all about choosing who you want in your life and who you don't."

"No." Zack smiled like he wanted to not choose who his family was.

"It should. She was a bitch to me."

"She wasn't mad at you. She was mad at me because I was half-assing it. She's actually a pretty good leader, I don't like to be micromanaged."

Trini flipped over so she wasn't facing him.

"She didn't know that. She wanted to be more cautious. And that plan you suggested, she didn't know that would work either. It was a stupid move if you think about it."

Trini grit her teeth and put a hand over her eyes.

"Then you talked the next day."

Trini wanted him to say something, but he let that hang there. "She talked. I ignored her."

"She talked. What does that say?"

She did talk, like a sister, like someone who loved her unconditionally. Someone she could be mad at until she wasn't anymore. Time and food were supposed to make it, not okay, but fine. And maybe, after more time, it would be good. But that wasn't what happened.

"I left." Trini chewed on her lip. "Some bitch was making fun of her, and I didn't stand up for my friend." Everything inside of her crumbled. "I ran."

"Yeah." Zack looked over at her. "Maybe run back?"

Trini grumbled. She didn't know if she could do that. Family was hard. They couldn't accept who you were, or what you did, or there was some bullshit they couldn't live with.

Still, Kim made an effort, tried to at least. Trini probably owed her the same.

But she had already rejected her before. What she had done, couldn't be undone. "Can I run back?" Trini asked.

He didn't say anything.

"Zack?"

Still nothing. She couldn't even hear his breathing anymore.

"Zack?" She crawled over to where she left him on the floor and he was gone. The game on the tv still showed her character, cheering for herself, with a gold trophy above her head. And Zack's character held tight to a silver.

The asshole teleported away right when she needed him. Trini needed an answer.

Lunch lady Jason put a biscuit on a tray and served it to the next person.

"Thanks, Jason." He looked up at the familiar voice. It was Ernie, the paramedic who had treated that girl, the one he couldn't save from Zedd.

"Hey..." Jason got his attention before Ernie could walk away. "I remember you had a burn victim that one of the Power Rangers brought in a few weeks ago..." He pulled himself out in front of the counter.

Ernie turned to him with a downcast gaze. "Yeah... I told you about her, huh," he said.

"She got burned, right? How is she?"

"It wasn't good, she went in with second and third degree burns over 25% of her body."

Bile filled Jason's mouth.

"But the girl is a fighter," Ernie said. "I can't imagine what would have happened if the red ranger hadn't have been there."

Jason's head spun. "What?"

"He shielded her. People who saw said he blocked most of the fire.

"How is tha..." Jason couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"The thing is, amazingly, the other 65% of her skin was untouched. With situations like the one she was in, it's always the opposite. In fact, there's usually nothing we can do. The burn center had a lot of good skin to graft from." Jason could hardly breathe. "Grace is gonna be okay. Girl's got her very own superhero."

Jason nearly fell to his knees.

"Thanks again, Jason." Ernie gestured to his tray of food and went to sit at a table.

Jason made his way back behind the counter, on feet that couldn't hold him, breathing with a heavy heart. He dipped his scoop in the mashed potatoes and served the next person.

Kim knocked on Amanda's door. Her car wasn't in the driveway, it was probably still totaled from Rita's attack.

'That's what you get.' Kim winced at her own words, ashamed of the way she had felt that day.

Amanda opened the door and immediately crossed her arms. "What do you want, loser?"

Kim pursed her lips with resolve. "I wanted to say..." And with that, it was gone. She really wanted to keep her eyes on Amanda, but she couldn't. She was such a coward. "I'm sorry."

Amanda gasped in mock horror. "What ever for, Kim?"

"For..." Kim finally looked up at Amanda. "For sending Ty that picture." There it was, she had admitted it to the person she had hurt. She should have felt relieved, but saying it only made it more real.

"Do you have any idea what that felt like? What I'm still dealing with?" Amanda seethed. "I don't forgive you."

"I know. And if I were you, I wouldn't either."

"Is that supposed to make it better?"

"No. It's never going to get better. It will never be okay... because of what I did-"

"That's right! What YOU did!" Ananda shouted. "You're a terrible person, Kim."

"I know."

"I should call the police."

The police had already talked to everyone when the school had gotten involved. There were issues involving Amanda's age, Kim's age Ty's age. Birth certificates needed to be verified. Ultimately, because everyone involved was legally an adult, the situation was deemed 'not criminal'. Kim had gotten off very lucky. That fact dug at her all the more.

"Anything else?" Amanda asked.

"No."

"Then leave!" Amanda slammed the door in Kim's face.

Kim couldn't hold her tears back any longer. She had expected a weight to lift off her shoulders, but she felt nothing like that. She felt worse than ever. Her eyes squeezed with regret.

She wasn't done. Amanda wasn't the first person Kim had betrayed. Zack was right. She couldn't deny the pattern. She jumped from friend-group to friend group, ripping everything up as she went on her way to the top of the social ladder. So many lies, secrets, betrayals. And it started when Aisha took the blame for Kim's mistake. They hadn't spoken after that.

The thing about old friends is that you remember the most random things, their favorite movie, the way they like their hair braided. Sometimes you have a phone number stuck in your head. And it will always be there, a permanent memento of your wrecked relationship with that person.

When she got back home, instead of going inside she dialed Aisha's number. Sitting in her car in the driveway, she pulled herself back, though there was still a whimper in her voice.

The phone rang three times. "Hello?"

"Hi. Can I speak to Aisha?"

"This is Aisha..."

"Hey, Aisha. It's Kim. Kimberly Hart." There was a really long pause. Aisha didn't say anything. "Look, I uhh... I wanted to say I'm sorry for not standing up for you when we were kids. I... I was scared. Scared I was going to lose all my friends and..." Kim sniffed. "I was right. I lost my best friend."

There was another long pause while Kim came to grips with the reality of it. Aiesha was the last real friend she had until Jason took a walk with her up the trails.

"I wanted you to know I'm not avoiding it anymore. I'm a bad person."

Aisha didn't answer, she didn't want to talk to her. But she also hadn't hung up. Aisha always believed the best about people. That was why she had taken the blame before, why Kim didn't deserve friends like Trini.

"Do you-" Kim sniffed. "Maybe we could get coffee sometime and catch up?" Kim asked with all the hope she could muster. Her lips pressed together waiting for the answer.

"...I don't know, Kim. This is all..." Aisha trailed off. Totally understandable given that Kim had called her out of the blue, practically sobbing.

"I know. I know it's sudden. You don't have to say 'yes'." She couldn't help herself, tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Maybe I'll get back to you." It sounded like a question.

"Yeah, sure. I'll let you go." Kim needed to get off the call.

"Bye, Kim."

"Bye, Aisha."

Kim hung up the phone and collapsed, bawling into her steering wheel.

Jason made sure he was fully morphed before he teleported to the hospital. He walked through the automatic front doors and up to the desk. There were two receptionists. One covered her mouth as he approached. Everyone in the waiting room stared at him.

"I'm looking for Grace..." He realized he never got her last name. "She... uh... had some burns."

The receptionist, the one not totally dying of shock, typed on her keyboard. "Grace Sterling, room 231. Second floor, down the hall."

"Thanks." They looked like they wanted to say something, but Jason had someone to check on. He climbed the stairs and walked down the hall. People stopped and gawked at him as he went.

Jason focused on the room numbers, 237, 239, 231. His hand found the handle and he opened the door.

Her skin was discolored and patchy. She had absolutely no hair and looked like a ghost. And her eyes were as bright as the sun.

"It's him! It's him! Look mommy!"

"Grace, settle down." Grace's mom settled her back into the bed to calm her down. "You haven't healed yet."

Jason thought he should leave, he was doing much more harm than good.

"But it's him, mommy. He came to say 'hi' to me."

"I know sweetheart. I know."

Jason sheepishly moved to the side of Grace's bed. "Is it okay?" He asked her mom.

She couldn't speak, so she nodded her head as much as she could.

"Hey Grace," Jason said.

"You're the Red Ranger!" Grace cheered.

"Yeah, I am. How are you feeling?"

"Good." Jason doubted that. "Did you know my favorite color is red?"

"It is, huh?" She was exactly like Pearl. "Well I found this teddy bear with a red bow tie that could use someone to snuggle with." He pulled the bear from behind his back and Grace snatched it right up.

"What do you say, Grace?" Grace's mom started.

"Thank you." She squeezed the bear with all her strength.

"You're welcome, Grace."

"Are you going to beat up the big bad guy?" Jason almost laughed from discomfort and pure joy. He was glad she couldn't see his tears. This girl was a firecracker.

"G- Grace..." Grace's mom started. "That's not..." She trailed off, looking for words.

"I don't know if I can," Jason said. In fact, he was pretty sure they were screwed.

"You can do it!" Grace cheered. "You gotta do it with your friends!"

"Friends, huh." Jason exhaled for the first time in a long time. "Do you have friends?"

Grace nodded quickly. "My best friend is Jamie and she likes to sing! And my friend Terona came to say 'hi' yesterday, and Daniel, and Nikolai! We like to play together at school."

Billy cocked the toy gun and pulled the trigger. A dart flew out of the barrel. It worked, he had fixed it. The gun was a little weak though. If only it had a bigger air pump it could shoot a dart with even more force...

That gave him an idea.

The broken parts of his lance hit his workshop table in the ship. Billy had always hated the fact that his weapon might explode whenever he flipped the switch. That was bad engineering. Now that he had a working knowledge of the ship's systems, he could do it right. The concept would be the same, a double-ended staff that could separate into two.

Billy wanted his Mark 2 Power Lance to be able to hit something with a bolt of lightning from a medium range. A thermal lance couldn't do that either, but that wasn't the point. To be able to do that, it would need a way to strip electrons off of whatever he wanted to hit, that would induce the electric field. With the ship's technology it was possible. The device that could do it would take his target's electrons out of reality for a moment, then bring them back in the head of his weapon an instant later, or maybe even sooner than that.

The battery needed a higher output than the previous version, by a lot. His design called for an entire nuclear power plant. Fortunately, Billy had access to an unlimited power source. Jason's sword and Zack's axe had localized power sources, but energy from the morphing grid was technically infinite.

There was a device that could do that, but it had a draw-back. Since the head of the weapon would be enveloped in grid-energy, hitting anything that was also connected to the morphing grid could cause a feedback loop. It was the same concept Tommy had exploited to take their armor away. It would be fine as long as he didn't hit one of his teammates with it.

The ship's technology was based on an amorphous substance Billy still didn't fully understand. He could build a device from scratch, and it could be integrated with any other tech from the ship at will. It had all the benefits of modular design without sacrificing customization. Once set, the substance was much stronger than steel.

Billy designed the weapon in the ship's computer and sent the part information to the replicators. The replicators initiated the process and soon he had his new lance.

Next project. Once Billy had Kim's arrows scanned, he could insert a small explosive that would be equivalent to a stick of dynamite.

The project got him thinking about how else Kim could use her bow. Thermite? Setting trip-wires? Shootable nets? What about like an arrow that teleports whatever it hits back to the ship? No, that last one was crazy, but he had a lot of ideas.

Billy wondered what he could do with Trini's sais. She said she always knew where her stuff was, but he remembered seeing them on opposite sides of the pit, or at least what was left of them. One of the shafts was bent at a 37.3 degree angle, the other had broken off completely. Trini needed something stronger and heavier so she could multiply the force she could exert.

Back at the computer, Billy began a new design. He shortened the shaft and brought the tines closer together. The ideal distance was calculated at 32.43 centimeters. Trini stabbed and slashed with them a lot, but the factory-made shaft was blunt and rounded. He made it into a blade and made the whole thing much heavier. Finally, the same power source as Jason's sword would give the weapon an extra punch.

Billy colored the guard and pommel yellow, the same as her armor. He hoped Trini would like it and replicated two.

The door opened to the wail of heavy metal music.

Trini's room was messy. For a girl who said she didn't care about how she looked, she sure had a lot of clothes All over the place. There was also a stack of books in one of the corners, mostly math and science, none were fiction. The closet practically vomited its contents onto the floor. And since when did Trini have three different backpacks?

"Zack?" Trini turned the music volume down on the stereo on the dresser. "Oh, hey, Billy."

Billy still hadn't grown to like metal, despite Trini's insistence that he would. "Hey Trini." He wanted to go in so he could talk to her, but he couldn't. He might step on the wrong thing. And then she would be mad.

She got up and pulled him in to the room. The door closed behind him. Apparently, all of it was okay to step on.

"I made you new sais." He presented them to her.

"What?" She picked them out of his hand and started inspecting them. "They're heavy."

"Twenty kilograms. They're made of the ship's material, so they won't bend or break or anything. And, I uh... changed the design. You can still punch though. And they're powered. I know you hate that. I'm sorry, I could redesign them-"

"No!" She twirled one on her finger and let it slide into her palm. "No, they're perfect." She looked up at him and gave him a strange smile. "You're really good at this. Thanks."

"Y- Yeah."

She spun the sai in her left hand, then caught it and gripped it tight. "Can I ask you something?"

Kim didn't know where to go or what to do. She didn't want to run away, but she couldn't go home. She didn't want anything. The trails had too many memories, but the ship always made her feel better.

She jumped off the standard way and tucked herself into one of the hidden places, a door no one ever used. She hung there trying to be quiet.

Billy ran back and forth through the atrium, probably needing tools or tiny adjustments to whatever he was doing.

Jason came through. Kim's heart skipped a beat when she saw his red armor. He stopped at the center of the ship, looking toward Zordon's control center. But he didn't enter it. He only paced back and forth, unsure of something.

Trini, without any armor came through the door to the lower levels. She stopped when she saw Jason. They looked at each other, but didn't do anything.

"Kim?" Trini called, making Kim's heart stop again. She looked around the atrium. "Kim? I'm... sorry."

Kim dropped out of her hiding place. "Trini-"

"Kim! I'm so sorry!" Trini sobbed. "I shouldn't have abandoned you! I wanted to be-"

Kim hugged back with everything she had. "No, Trini. You were right. I'm a bad leader. I should have listened."

"It was stupid! It was a stupid risk. I got lucky." Trini squeezed tighter. "You wanted to play it safe, and I was reckless."

"I want to do better." Kim cried into Trini's shoulder.

Zordon called them into the command center. When they came in, he looked at each of them.

"The threat you face is nearly infinite. In order to beat it, you will need to come together and fight as one again."

"No. I don't think that's going to work." Jason stood on his platform, in front of Zordon. He had regained his confident smirk. "We're different people. We think, and fight, and do things our own way. And sometimes, that means we're going to argue." He looked back at Zordon.

Zordon frowned, he didn't agree, but he didn't have to.

"But that doesn't make us weak." Jason looked back at the rest of the team with a grin. "None of us could keep up with Kim, or throw a punch like Trini. Or hold us together like Billy. Or..." Jason laughed and shook his head. "Do whatever Zack does."

Kim shook her head, laughing with him. He was right. "Together, we are all strong, stronger than Zedd."

"We can beat him," Billy said.

"Yeah we can," Trini added.

Kim smiled, and Jason couldn't help but smile back.

"Next time, we beat him together, no matter what he throws at us."

"Until then, can we watch a movie?" Trini asked, looking to Billy.

"Yeah," Kim said. "That could be fun."

They all gathered in Trini's room and watched a bad spy movie on her laptop. Billy and Trini sat closest to the screen. Jason pulled Kim away for snacks.

"Let's go on a date," Jason said. "Dancing in San Francisco."

Kim read his face for a moment. "By the time we get there, it'll be tomorrow morning."

"We'll teleport." He did that confident leader look that always got her going.

She cocked her head to the side. "That's against the rules."

"How many times have we saved the world?" Once at least, maybe more. "We deserve a night of fun."

"You're serious. Mr. Perfect wants to break the rules?"

"You've got me all wrong. I'm a bad boy," he teased. "Stole a cow once."

Kim laughed. She felt like she hadn't done that in ages. It felt strange in the best way. She couldn't stop the giggle.

Jason closed the distance and slid his arm around her waist. She did not stop him, she only put her arms around his shoulders. They swayed back and forth a little, their hips moving to music that existed only in their heads. Jason kept his eyes on her.

"If I'm going dancing, I need to change." Her eyes charged in excitement. "And so do you."

"I'll meet you back here in an hour."

"Yes, you will." Kim walked back over to Trini and Billy. "Hey guys, we're going to-"

"Have a good time," Trini said before she could finish.

"Thanks, we will." She returned home to retrieve clothes and products, then came back to the ship to get ready. Jason probably expected her to wear a pink dress. No, that was not happening. A night like this called for black. She already had the perfect one and shoes to match. Her hair was already done, it just needed a few touches.

An hour and a half later she was ready and came down a set of stairs to meet him. "Jason, you look great." She said making an entrance. She touched his tie. "Red is a good color on you."

"Kim..." Jason tried. He let out that breath he was holding, failing to play it cool. Stunned into silence was what she had been going for. "You look amazing."

The moment was perfect. "Thank you." She kissed his cheek.

They didn't have fake IDs. But once they had teleported into their respective restrooms of the club, no one would card them. They weren't there to drink anyway.

Kim met Jason on the dance floor. She laughed when she saw the flailing that he called dancing, but joined him anyway.

They didn't talk. They danced for hours.

The clubs closed at 2 am, so they went back to the ship. It had rooms for each of them. Kim's feet were killing her from dancing in heels. Jason carried her through the threshold of the door with the red stripe.

He gently laid her on the bed. She sat up immediately, invigorated by the night. She tackled him, pinning his arms down and kissing him.

Kim wanted to feel all of him, and she savored every moment.