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The first color Jason gets is pink. And, honestly? He can’t remember exactly when it happens. He just knows that Kim is like his sister and she always wears pink because he can see it, and he wears red for her. It’s how the world works.
She’s the only person he knows who sees like he does. Just one color. But she’s like his sister, so he doesn’t talk about the color. But they are still soulmates, so he talks with her over their special bond, often.
It’s silly stuff, but it makes him happy, even if he’ll one day lose the memory of it with new ones of them and four others, all fated together and tied by the Power that will never truly leave them.
Kim is his first soulmate, and she holds his pink heart for his entire life.
He meets most of the others soon after, still in elementary school.
Trini is first. They all meet, but she meets Kim’s eyes. And then Kim brings her over to Jason.
“I can see sunshine!” She cries over the bond. And then, out loud, she says “This is Jason. He’s my soulmate. Is he yours?”
Jason locks eyes, and… he also sees sunshine. And the yellow on the color wall.
“I’m Trini,” the girl says, and she’s wearing the new color, yellow. Jason smiles.
“Nice to meet you,” he says. “I’m Jason.”
Kim squees and tackle hugs Trini.
It’s so obviously meant to be, but Jason still wonders about the colors.
And why he only sees a few.
Next is Zack. Zack and him are playing because Kim and Trini are busy with a two person game, and it isn’t until then that Jason realizes that they’ve never locked eyes before.
He doesn’t get a new color, exactly, but it’s like they all… pop. Everything is easier to see, dark or light and either way really cool.
Zack takes a step back.
“Whoah,” he says. “Your shirt!”
Jason smiles.
“It’s red!” He says. “And the world got more… dark…”
By some stroke of fate, Trini and Kim are already coming their way. Jason waves.
“Guys,” he says silently, “He did something to the colors! And he sees red now!”
By the end of recess, Zack sees more than red. He sees all the colors of the sunset and is a perfect member to their group.
Billy’s the last for a very long time, and of course it’s Trini, first.
Nonetheless, the sky is beautiful on a sunny day.
(Yellow and blue were colors that fit .)
“Do you think it’s because there are so many of us?” Kim asks, when they’re all ten and starting to really think about love.
“And, judging by our shared experiences of an inability to view our own color—”
“There must be someone we’re missing.”
Jason smiles. Billy and Trini often do that in their headspace conversations. It makes it easier to understand their smartest soulmate’s overuse of big words, at least. Billy had two setting of big words and not wanting to talk, but they all love him.
By this point, he can barely remember not knowing his soulmates.
“I’m sure we’ll find them,” Jason says. “But I’m fine with all of you.”
“I think we’re plenty ,” Zack jokes, but there’s still an amount of truth to that. So many people live their entire lives in black and white - no, greyscale , but they all have so many colors as it is.
Well, except their own, so the missing link probably has a color like Zack.
“Well I love you all,” Kim says, and everyone echoes it.
“Same.”
“I do, too.”
“Affirmative.”
“Yeah.”
They don’t talk much more about their missing link again simply because it doesn’t matter.
Somehow, what should have been the most nerve wracking of the relationship somehow end up happening the most naturally. Jason doesn’t even realize that he likes Trini until junior year, though Billy takes even more time to act on his relationship with the Yellow…
But Zack is still Jason’s first kiss.
They play it off as a joke, as practice, but it’s not. How could it be when they’re soulmates ?
(And it’s hard to miss how close Kim and Trini are.)
Jason thinks it’s easier because he grew up with their rainbow.
The colors don’t make sense until they’re all fifteen and asked to save the world. They try to say no, but you don’t choose the Power. It’s funny, really, because Jason knows that they all only seen grey on their uniforms, even Zack, who doesn’t get the pop of colors that the rest have.
(Somewhere along the way, they’d figured out that Zack’s color was black.)
Jason takes charge without hesitation, and his soulmates become his team.
But this draws in the question of who the mysterious Sixth is that ties to their souls, once again.
“Maybe there’s another Ranger out there?” Kim suggests. “Zordon hasn’t exactly told us much.”
“It’s certainly a possibility,” Billy agrees.
“Or maybe they’re a civilian,” Zack points out.
“I hope not,” Trini says. “I’d hate to lie to my soulmate.”
Eventually, of course, they do meet their Sixth, in two senses of the word, though they don’t know the legacy nature of it.
Jason didn’t even know Tommy was his soulmate, at first.
You see, The universe is neither cruel nor helpful enough to make Tommy’s color green, and red and black are already taken, in their group. No, when Jason first sees Tommy, his whole world lights up.
Which sounds romantic, but it’s really just disconcerting. It gives Tommy an advantage in the beginning of their match, as Jason gets used to true white for the first time.
But, because it took until they had all lit their vision to finally see the full spectrum of color, what happens next remains a surprise.
The Green Ranger can’t see color, and Jason loses white for a week without even a thought.
And Tommy won’t meet any of their eyes for a month.