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“You know what would be great?”
“BILLY!” Four voices shouted in unison.The Blue Ranger ducked beneath a cloud of - snakes, were those snakes? - that flew at him, and rolled towards the team. Nobody could see his face behind his mask, but they all knew he was grinning.
“We should go camping.”
“Really?” Trini turned and looked up at him. She peeked around a corner, to make sure they weren’t followed by the giant lizard-thing that had shown up in Angel Grove that afternoon, apparently sent by Rita from the moon to test their strength so soon after the battle for the Zeo Crystal. Trini had no idea how this had become her life, but at least she wasn’t in it alone. She had a bunch of amazing friends watching her back. Like a guy who wanted to talk camping while in the middle of a fight. Amazing, but with a bad sense of timing. “This is the time?”
The slightest shrug was perceptible beneath Billy’s armor, the blue crystals glinting in the sun. “No, I think when we’re done here maybe? This weekend!” He leaned forward and looked between all of them. “Unless you guys have plans this weekend?”
Jason looked down. His voice was strained, but everyone could still hear the compassion in it. “Maybe we could talk about this when we’re done, Billy.”
Billy nodded. “Okay, yeah.” And just like that he rolled back out into the fight, conversation over until they were finished, one way or the other.
Luckily, the fight went well. Not luck, really. Their teamwork was as good as ever, and when the snake-lizard guy inexplicably grew to the size of a building, the Rangers immediately responded, working as one unit in their zords to fight him back. They didn’t even need to form the “megazord” - Kim still wasn’t entirely sold on the name, no matter how many times Billy and Zack said it - to stop him. Eventually all that was left was a pile of lizards and snakes, which was kind of gross. Kim dropped in some road barriers to keep them contained, and Jason made an anonymous call to animal control, and then that was that.
The moment they were done, before they had even disengaged their zords and turned for the cave, Billy brought it up again. “So camping, guys. What do you think?”
“Uh, I have to babysit.” Everyone knew that wasn’t true. Trini’s parents didn’t trust her with her little brothers. Or herself. Or showing up for school, or coming home from school. It made after-school training sessions a pain in the butt to get to, but everyone had adapted and were really good at covering her when needed. After a moment of heavy-but-friendly silence across the comm link, Trini sighed. “I just don’t know if I’m ready for another sharing session, guys.”
In the cockpit of her zord, Kim said nothing. But she could practically feel Jason’s eyes on her, and when she looked to her left she saw him looking right back. She nodded, and he smiled. “I don’t know,” she said, after a second. “We could celebrate the end of detention?”
Trini’s jaw dropped but, of course, nobody saw it because everyone else was staring at Kim. Kim had been the last person she’d have expected to opt in for another round of friend therapy. Then again, things really were different now. Maybe Kim was ready to share whatever it was that was still weighing on her. Trini took a deep breath. Maybe she was ready for another sharing session after all.
“I’m in!” Zack pushed forward on his zord controls and his mastodon bounded forward, towards the cave. “Let’s do it!”
The other rangers laughed and took off after him, one by one, Trini bringing up the rear, an unexpected smile on her face.
They rode for a few miles in companionable silence, until Jason asked: “Okay, so who’s bringing what?”
“We have to bring stuff?” Trini’s question was genuine. She’d just assumed they could, like, make food in their zords or something. But now that she thought about it, bringing their zords camping probably wasn’t the most subtle idea ever.
Jason chuckled. “Yeah. Have you never been camping before?”
She shook her head, following Billy into the part of Ranger headquarters they’d dubbed the Parking Lot. “I’ve watched Dora the Explorer. Does that count?”
Billy, very seriously, said: “No.”
Kim, much less seriously, asked: “Like, on purpose?”
“What did you watch when you were a kid?”
Kim shrugged and landed her pterodactyl zord. “Dora the Explorer, I guess.”
Billy’s disembarked from his zord, his mask disappearing, and his face split in a wide grin. “Me, too! But no, that’s not what camping is like at all. We need…” He held out his hands and started counting off inventory items. “Packs, sleeping bags, tents, food, water, flashlights, lanterns, tools, s’mores stuff, which isn’t really food but I guess you do eat it, maybe fishing poles and -”
“Yes, fishing!” Zack held his hand up for a high five but, despite their affectionate smiles - and Trini’s affectionate eye roll - there were no takers. Zack dropped his hand. “Okay, but I’m awesome at fishing.”
“Fishing isn’t a competition, dude.”
“Then explain all those fishing competitions that are on the local station at two in the morning, Trini.”
Trini opened her mouth to retort, but didn’t have anything good so she just shrugged and demorphed.
Jason nudged Billy as they both demorphed. “Why don’t you write us a list, we’ll split it up and take care of it by Friday afternoon.” He looked around at the other Rangers. “Sound good?”
Everyone agreed, which was good because Billy was already writing up a list on a pad of paper that had mysteriously appeared from nowhere. Zack made a mental note to ask him if he had magic pockets in his suit or something.
The five teenagers walked back into the main part of the cave. “Alright,” Jason announced. “Sounds like we have a plan. Everyone take a part of the list, we pack up, and on Friday we-”
Alpha slid in from the shadowy bart of the back of the room. “Are we going camping?”
Billy looked down at his list, brow furrowed, and crossed something off. “Okay. I guess we have the flashlights figured out.”
Everybody laughed.