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Chapter Text

She honestly and truly couldn’t believe what had just happened. Seriously. The 2006 Olympics, at this point, were over – all that was left was the closing ceremonies and Julie Stewart, little sister, two-time Olympian, and now Gold Medal winner, had successfully gone out and accomplished the one task that she had moved from her home in California to Vancouver to accomplish.

She won!

Julie couldn’t help but laugh to herself as she walked through Olympic Village on her own. Occasionally, other competitors would wave at her and she would wave back. A few of them even congratulated her on her win, them with their own shiny medals around their neck.

She hadn’t been able to take hers off ever since she won it a couple of days ago. It had rested, solidly, on her collarbone right above one of the two pieces of jewelry that she consistently wore, the pink pendant that her friend Katherine had gotten her for her eighteenth birthday.

The other piece was her old communicator, now defunct as they hadn’t had the need to use the channels to communicate. The faded Pink Dino Gem that had once given her amazing Powers and bonded her to, not just her partners in crime fighting, but also her brother.

Julie Stewart, you see, had once been a Power Ranger. She and her friends, even though they hadn’t been her friends at the very beginning – in fact, she had disliked almost all of them – had stolen some shiny, magic rocks from a creepy, murder cave that happened to belong to their high school science teacher who also happened to be the best Power Ranger of probably all time.

She felt her skin tighten as she thought about the dinosaur DNA that still rushed through her, the urge to teleport somewhere an itch under her skin. It turns out that, even though they didn’t have the present connection to the Morphing Grid anymore, they still kept their extra abilities, such as their constant warmth and, in Julie’s case, her teleportation.

Thinking about the past, even when her future was so bright thanks to, once again, her gold medal, always made her introspective. It had been two years, after all, since they had pulled together their Powers to defeat Mesogog, a mutant that was determined to bring the Earth back to the age of the dinosaurs, and sacrificed their Zords to save not just Reefside, California, but the world itself.

Lost in her thoughts, Julie’s foot caught on something and she tripped. She didn’t even have a chance to try and catch herself as she face planted directly into the dirt. She looked up, praying that nobody else had seen her.

But there, standing in front of her, was a man that she didn’t recognize.

He was tall, but almost everyone towered over her even when she wasn’t laying on the ground, and around his mid-to-late thirties. He looked handsome, if older guys were what you were in to, with his rugged looks and dark hair.

“Sorry, didn’t mean for you to actually fall,” the man said, holding his hand out for her to take. Cautiously, Julie reached up and placed her own hand in the man’s, allowing him to help her up.

“You did that?” she asked, a little taken aback. The man shrugged with a sly smile on his face.

“I had to get your attention somehow,” he replied.

Julie was officially confused. The man didn’t look like any of the members of Team USA that she had lived and been with for the past few weeks, why would he need to get her attention?

He laughed. “I’m sorry, Miss Stewart, I never introduced myself. My name is Andrew Hartford and, Julie, I would like to talk to you about a project I call Operation Overdrive.” He smiled, shaking her hand up and down that he still held in his own “You see, I think you, with your colorful past would be a good addition to the project.”

Five months later

Julie pulled her nondescript, black hat down further over her face as she casually walked through the movie set. She could hear the action going on around her, but paid it no mind.

She had to look like she fit in, after all.

Mr. Hartford and Julie had worked for months to get to where they are and she had gone through so many different files of potential Rangers. She had argued with the man relentless about asking new people to put on the helmet. She had wanted to ask her old teammates, the ones that she had worked with and, most importantly trusted, before.

But Mr. Hartford wasn’t about it.

The little blue chair with a badly written ‘Stunts’ sign taped to the back was easy to spot, sitting not even a foot off the ground next to the tall ‘Producer’ and ‘Director’ chairs. She winced, but knew that this person as aptly suited to what they needed to do.

As she walked by, Julie dropped a little gold box that Andrew had created in the chair. She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and walked on.

One down, three more to go.

Julie couldn’t help but smile as she soaked in the Italian sun, even with the loud sounds of the ongoing race around her. Her hat was back, still pulled low over her eyes with her hair casually tossed in a braid over her shoulder. She was wearing a thick jumpsuit to easily blend in with the other members of the different pit crews.

This one had been one of her picks that, once she had explained to Mr. Hartford, he had gone along with willingly. She didn’t talk to him for a week when he suggested a florist at first, completely dismissing her case for this one.

She stood and watched as the bright yellow car with a bold number two blazoned on the side crossed the finish line forever ahead of the others and knew she had chosen right.

Julie dropped a little gold box, similar to the one that Mr. Hartford had given her for Dax, into the Champion Cup. Their pick would find it soon, she had no doubts.

Two down, two to go.

The once Pink Ranger didn’t realize how much she would absolutely love the hustle and bustle of Brazil.

This task didn’t even come close to the difficulty of the others. She didn’t have to infiltrate a movie set or walk around a busy race course, no she just had to place the familiar, little gold box on the inside of a safe, push a few buttons, and then sit back and watch in the control room as she waited for their guest of honor to arrive.

Julie had put up a fight against this one, but Mr. Hartford had been insistent. To her, based on what she had read about him and knew about him, he didn’t seem like he would fit the Power at all. The Black Rangers were a legacy, after all, filled with all sorts of amazing people.

Including her mentor.

The cameras fizzled out for a second, becoming staticky, but Julie watched as the sleek form of their third recruit slowly lowered himself from the ceiling and broke into the safe.

One left, and boy was she excited about this one.

The rain and constant fog of London brought her back to Vancouver, even if there wasn’t three feet of snow on the ground at all times, but this one? Was the most important yet.

Julie was, of course, going to find the newest member of the Pinks.

She and Mr. Hartford had barely even debated over this one, she was the one. Incredibly smart, great with technology, along with all of her other skills made her an impressive member of the team – that is, if she accepted.

Julie pulled her hat low over her eyes, once more, as she walked through the lab completely unbothered by the destruction that the robot in the middle of the room was causing. She had trained an actual velociraptor, after all, and nothing was as badly behaved as a newly hatched dinosaur.

Which isn’t a sentence that she would have ever been involved with four years ago.

She saw the object of their intent calmly walking into the room, chewing gum and quickly walked by the table where two men in lab coats were hiding and set the little golden box, the last one, on top of the girl’s bag.

Now they waited.

Julie had always thought that it would be weird staying in a mansion and she had definitely been correct, but this was where Mr. Hartford planned to base all of his operations out of so – she had to stay.

That didn’t mean that she was comfortable pretending to be something she wasn’t, which she was currently doing as she pretended to look at all of the exhibits around his ‘Adventure Room’ with the others that they had invited.

It had been his idea for her to do this, to gain their trust by seeming innocent and unaware of the goings on. She hadn’t one hundred percent believed that it was a good choice, but the morpher that rested in her pocket told a different story.

She was once again a Power Ranger.

Julie sat on the side of the pool table, her legs crossed, as she watched all of the hopeful Rangers walk around to see what they were examining. Veronica ‘Ronny’ Robinson, champion racecar driver, was gazing intently into the giant aquarium that took up half the room while Will Aston, a professional spy, if you could believe it, tapped on the weird mummy that Mr. Hartford somehow had.

It was an odd mix of people, but they were all carefully chosen.

“Anyone have a clue why we’re here?” Rose Ortiz, literally the smartest person that Julie had probably ever met and her own brother was a certifiable genius, said as she waltzed into the center of the room.

“Nope,” Ronny replied, laughing a little nervously. “Got an invitation, so I showed up.”

“This Hartford guy must be some wacky gazillionaire,” Will suggested, leaning up against the pool table. “He had me break into his own bank in Brazil.” He wasn’t far off, but Mr. Hartfood liked stuff more than money.

Even though money definitely helped.

Julie was about to open her mouth, to ask a question to gauge the room, when the unthinkable happened and Mack Hartford, Mr. Hartford’s son, walked into the room.

This wasn’t good.

Julie had only met Mack twice, right when she and Mr. Hartford started to work together. He was a sweet kid, but was just that – a kid. He was her age when she had first became a Power Ranger but the two of them had been so completely different that she didn’t even imagine that they could ever any kind of common ground.

“Hey, guys. What’s going on here?” he asked, holding onto one of his adventure novels. “Oh, hey Miss Stewart.”

“I told you that you could call me Julie, Mack,” Julie replied, speaking up for the first time with a soft smile on her face. She may not have thought that they would get along, but she wouldn’t be mean about it.

She had grown up from high school, after all.

“Join the party,” Ronny said, looking between the two of them suspiciously before turning and smiling brightly at Mack. The others were looking between the two of them suspiciously and Julie inwardly groaned. “We got a message from that Hartford guy, just like you.”

“Message?” Mack asked, confused.  “What message?”

Julie heard footsteps and felt herself start to panic as Mr. Hartford and Spencer, the sweetest man on the planet and also Mr. Hartford’s butler, walked into the room.

“Welcome, everyone,” Mr. Hartford started, before he noticed his son. He clapped his hands together and looked excited.

“What’s going on, dad?” Mack asked.

Julie winced as Mr. Hartford turned, shocked, to see Mack standing in the room with them all. He quickly walked over and grabbed Mack by the arm – Julie couldn’t hear what he was saying as he led the younger boy to the door.

He went to shut the door as she overheard Mack say, “But dad – who are these people?!”

But the door was locked and shut before the boy got his answer.

Julie inhaled deeply as she readjusted herself on the pool table as the others gathered around the man that had gotten them all here in the first place, looking at him skeptically.

“I’m Andrew Hartford,” he introduced. “I’m glad you all decided to accept my invitation. Before we get started, can I interest anyone in some lemonade?” He turned to his butler. “Spencer?”

“Oh, thank you, sir, but I’m quiet fine,” he replied, regally. Julie snorted and the older man turned to her and winked as he walked out to get the drinks for their guests.

“I’m sure you all have many questions, and I promise you I will answer every one,” Mr. Hartford said, once Spencer was out of the room. “But first… I need your help.”

“We need your help,” Julie said. At that, she pushed herself off of the table and went to go stand beside the man. She crossed her arms as she stared down the group of gathered teenagers, all deserving to be here in their own right.

“Because without you,” Mr. Hartford continued. “Without your talents, without your intelligence, our world… our universe… is going to be destroyed.”

She could see that the others were skeptical, and she would be too if she was asked to come to a man’s mansion due to a very weird invitation, if she didn’t already have the knowledge and mindset of someone who had once saved the world herself.

The others were silent as Mr. Hartford ushered them into the room with a small television and started playing a video of creatures that were called Lava Lizards led by their master, a monster named Moltor, appearing in the middle of a city somewhere in the world. Across from him arrived Flurious, Moltar’s equally monstrous brother and his army of monsters that he called Chillers.

The TV turned off, right as the battle started, but Julie knew what had happened. The city had been left in ruins from the combined battle of the two awakened brothers.

“That was three days ago,” Mr. Hartford explained. “Evil has arrived on Earth.”

“And all this, um, supposedly because you found some crown?” Ronny asked, confused. She had a smile on her face like she was trying to understand and be sympathetic, but Julie knew that it must sound crazy to the other girl.

“Not just a crown,” Mr. Hartford said as he moved around his desk. Julie took in a deep breath and prayed to Dino Jesus that he wouldn’t put his foot in his mouth. “The Corona Aurora, which, according to legend, has power, not just over this planet… but the universe.”

Okay, this was going better than she thought as the others were listening intently. Mr. Hartford did have a good way of storytelling, after all.

“Millenia ago, in a galaxy on the other side of the universe, there were two brothers – Moltor-“

“Moltor and Flurious,” Julie and Rose said, at the same time. She looked at the other girl in shock, surprised that she had known that. But, instead of letting Mr. Hartford continue, Rose pushed on. “Who tried to steal the Corona Aurora. But the crown was so powerful, it cursed them – changed their appearance and sent them off to distant planets. Imprisoning them in their own elements.”

She stopped, realizing that all of others were staring at her now in confusion but Julie was beaming brightly.

Yeah, she picked right.

“What?” Rose asked, when the other’s didn’t stop staring at her. “I took a year of “Ancient Universal Legends” at Harvard. Anyway, it’s just a myth.”

“There’s more,” Hartford said, interrupting. He turned to Julie who cleared her throat. They had rehearsed this, after all.

“In order to stop anyone from getting the Power again, the guarding of the Corona Aurora took the five jewels from the crown – red, blue, black, pink, and yellow – and scattered them on a distant, uninhabited planet,” she explained. “That planet, those many millennia ago, was an Earth that was all just one continent, Pangaea.  Before the dinosaurs roamed the planet.”

Dax, the stuntman, spoke for the first time. “Now this - this would make a great movie. I know this guy who knows the sister of a cousin of Spielberg’s limo driver’s aunt. I bet I could play you,” he finished, looking Hartford in the eyes.

However, she could see Hartford getting frustrated that no one was really understanding and Julie realized that she might have to officially step in soon, otherwise the man was going to blow a gasket. He turned and yelled into the vents for Spencer before turning to them, nervous sweat dripping down his face.

“I accidentally freed Moltor and Flurious from their imprisonment,” he explained, rushed. “And now, thanks to me, they and who knows how many other power-crazed beasts are here – or soon will be – looking for the crown.”

“And there’s a lot of weird out there,” Julie added. “Have you ever seen an Aquitian? Nice guys, but man I can’t get over their weird, forehead skin.”

While Spencer walked up then with a tray of lemonade, Mr. Hartford walked over to a painting and moved it out of the way to reveal a safe that he started inputting a code into right as Ronny said, “Gee, it’s getting late, and I’m sure there’s an engine overhaul waiting for me. I’m gonna go.”

That couldn’t happen.

Mr. Hartford called for her to wait, but the girl moved past the other three, but Julie teleported from her spot to stand in front of her. She heard the exclamations from the others, but she stood firm in front of Ronny, a good few inches shorter than the other girl.

“Ronny, please,” she pleaded. “Just hear us out. I promise it’s not as weird as it sounds.” She thought a moment. “Okay, yeah. It’s definitely as weird as it sounds but it’s true.”

“How did you-“

Julie pointed towards Mr. Hartford who had pulled the crown itself out of the safe. She watched as Ronny’s jaw dropped.

“Everything I told you is true,” Mr. Hartford said. “I need your help. We need to protect this from falling into the wrong hands.”

“You’re rich,” Rose said, turning away from looking at Julie, analyzing her. “Buy an army.”

Hartford scoffed. “An army can’t stop them, but you can.”

Julie teleported again to stand by the man, drawing all of their attention.

“We chose the four of you based on your physical and mental qualities that we thought were deemed needed to face this,” she explained.

“And I have the technology and the money to fight this evil,” Hartford finished.

“And I have the connections,” Julie added, crossing her arms.

“I can turn you into Power Rangers,” Hartford finished.

She watched Will’s face as it slacked for a second, but Dax quickly sputtered, “Power Rangers? Yes!”

Julie smiled at him, the Blue in him came out strong and she knew that he would get along great with Ethan James, her Blue Ranger from her first team.

“Personally, I don’t work well with teammates,” Will said, speaking up. “No offense, guys. Good luck with your, um… well, just good luck.”

He turned to walk away, and the others followed, Dax setting down his glass of lemonade on Spencer’s tray.

“Spencer, do something,” Hartford whispered to the man. He gave his panic eyes at Julie and she shrugged, just as confused.

“I will show them out, sir,” Spencer replied, starting to walk forwards. If this was a children’s show, Julie would have face palmed.

Hartford started to sputter. “No, no! Stop them!”

“Sir, even you cannot make people do what they do not want to do.”

Julie almost thought to go teleport in front of them, it stopped Ronny before so surely it would stop the others, but before she could a brilliant bolt of lightning shot off in the room and stopped them dead in their tracks.

A glowing, vaguely humanoid figure appeared in the center of the room and Julie could feel the Power rolling off of him in waves and knew instantly who it was, even though she had never had the opportunity to meet him before.

“He spoke the truth,” the figure said, ominously. “The fate of your planet, your universe, rests in your hands. I am too weak to go after it myself. Without your help, there will be no more.”

The four of them stood, stunned in silence, by the words of the guardian of the Corona Aurora.

Mr. Hartford, stunned by the appearance of the one who had given him the task, quickly found himself with four, very eager participants. He led them to the cave underneath his mansion which brought Julie back to her days as a Ranger the first time around.

What was it with men and caves?

The four were quickly given their Operation Overdrive uniforms – black, leather jackets with piping in their chosen color. It was weird to see someone else in Pink, but Julie knew that her new Powers were special.

Trent was never going to let her live it down though.

The four of them stood between two sensors as it sent signals to the uniforms themselves, Julie standing by with Hartford in her own jacket. She honestly had no clue how it worked – she had never been technology based, she was more of the spiritual side that was connected to the Morphing Grid itself.

“Thank you for accepting my offer,” Hartford said, grinning. “As we speak, your bodies’ physical and mental capabilities are being enhanced by a DNA re-sequencer – a Hartford Industries design. As your body adapts, you’ll soon be able to do things and know things that only moments ago were thought impossible.”

“Are we going to turn into a weird fly or something?” Dax asked, confused.

“Not a chance,” Hartford replied, laughing. “This is totally harmless. But you are now stronger and smarter than when you first arrived.”

“How?” Rose asked. “How did you even get that info?”

“Because of me,” Julie replied. “I wasn’t lying when I said I had connections. It helps when you have a morpher to base things on, in the first place.” She pulled her old Stego Morpher out of her pocket and showed them, as their jaws drop. “Dinosaurs are pretty neat, ya know?”

The sensors stopped and Hartford spread his arms out, drawing their attention to the giant, rotating sphere in the middle of the room that was supposed to represent Earth.

Hartford’s Command Center was a lot different than Dr. O’s. While the legendary Ranger had had the technology, he was more rustic with it. Hayley Ziktor, their tech genius, had been the one to really do all of the heavy lifting while just provided the insight.

Oh gosh, she was their Dr. O. The guys were going to get a kick of this.

“Welcome to your new base,” Hartford said. “One thing you should know about me is that I would never ask you to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself.”

“I didn’t see you getting your genes scrambled,” Ronny said. “Or you, Julie.”

“Trust me,” she replied. “My genes have already been scrambled well enough.”

“And I’m about to join you right now,” Hartford said, grinning. “I will be the sixth team member, the Red Power Ranger.”

As he walked over to the sensors, Julie wished she had fought harder for literally anyone else to take on the mantle of the Red. She knew where Hartford was coming from, obsessed with the Power and being a leader, but he didn’t suit Red at all. They had argued for days over this, but eventually he threatened to go with all of his own pics and, to Julie, that meant losing out on Ronny and Dax and she knew that they were needed for this.

The two older man nodded at each other as Spencer went to go push the button, right as the doors opened and Mack wandered in.

“Dad?” he asked, smiling.

“Mack,” Hartford replied, shocked. “You need to go home.”

“I am home,” the boy replied, looking around in awe. “Technically, several hundred feet below my home… What is this place?”

Julie looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. This was not going as planned.

“I will explain it all to you later,” Hartford promised.

They had decided to save Hartford’s reconfiguration for after his talk with his son after Mack started to get antsy, so the two Hartford family members went to the older man's office to have a much needed conversation while Julie let the others out onto the grounds to slowly grow used to their Powers.

“So, you were a Power Ranger,” Rose asked, leaning over to her as Will stalked forward and Dax climbed on the fountain. “Why-“

“Why would I do it again?” she asked. At the newly-minted Pink Ranger’s nod, Julie smiled. “Is it weird to say I missed it? I mean, the constant danger is awful and I had to go through so much therapy because things got really bad for a while, but the connection to the Morphing Grid is literally the best feeling in the world. Can you feel it?”

Rose paused for a moment, searching, before her eyes widened. “Is that…?”

“What you’re feeling is the same thing that every person who has ever served as a Ranger has experienced,” Julie explained, grinning. “You, as the Pink Ranger, are closer to the Morphing Grid than any of the others.”

“Me? Why?”

Julie shrugged. “It’s a Pink thing.”

“And you were the Pink Ranger?” Ronny asked, walking over. “Then why now are you-?”

“Not?” Julie asked. The new Yellow Ranger nodded and she couldn’t wait to tell Kira all about her. “I honestly tried, but the way that Mr. Hartford had to add the Overdrive morphers to the Grid split me specifically off from the Pink Power. I will forever be the Pink Dino Ranger, but Pink Overdrive belongs to someone else.”

“You guys feel re-sequenced yet?” Dax asked from his perch on one of many of Hartford’s gaudy statues. “I just feel kind of itchy. Maybe I got re-sequenced with a flea or something.”

“Maybe you’ve seen too many movies,” Ronny said, laughing.

“Wait!”

Julie turned towards Will who had walked a little farther away. His hand was near his ear and his eyes were squinting shut.

“Did you guys hear that? It’s so loud. And my eyesight – it’s telescopular.”

He started walking forward and Julie and the other’s followed, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.

“It’s coming from over there,” Will said, leading them.

“’Telescopular’? That’s not a word,” Rose replied, looking around in confusion.

“Maybe not,” the Black Ranger said, holding his hand out to stop her as he stressed his eyes to look forward. “But that’s what it is. Like, right now, I see something moving in those bushes.”

Julie noticed, then, as the bright red Lava Lizards of Moltor’s monster army appeared, crawling out of the underbrush to stand in front of them menacingly.

They were hideous, even worse than Mesogog’s Tyranno Drones had been. They were large, scaly creatures with blades on their heads and scimitar swords that looked super deadly.

Then, they all rushed forward and Julie jumped into action.

She pushed her feet together and jumped, clearing away from the others to draw some of the monsters away which, thankfully, worked. Julie ducked the sword swing of one while elbowing it in the gut and using both of her hands as leverage on the ground to kick up like a horse with her back legs and straight into the chest of another.

She hopped up, quickly, and teleported onto the back of one – her weight dropping it like a stone before she teleported again and swept her leg underneath another one, but it wasn’t enough as two ganged up on her at once and grabbed her tightly by the arms, throwing her into a pile where the other Rangers had landed.

“Ouch,” she said, rubbing her side.

"I thought you had done this before?" Dax asked, out of breath from her sudden weight as she landed on him.

Julie groaned. “Maybe I’m a little out of practice.”

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not gonna sit here and be lizard food,” Ronny said as she pushed herself up. Julie quickly followed, proud of the other girl.

She stood still, for a moment, before speeding by – she was entirely just a yellow blur as she moved through the monsters and knocked them aside like they were nothing.

“Ronny!” Dax shouted, joyously, once the monsters were disposed of. “How’d you do that?! You were a blur!”

“I don’t know,” the other girl said, a bright smile on her face. “But I’m guessing my genes just re-sequenced!” Then, her face dropped. “Look out, Dax!”

Julie quickly jumped out of the way as one of the Lava Lizards struck at out at Dax, from behind but the Blue Ranger jumped almost thirty feet into the air to avoid the strike.

He landed, and quickly used his newfound springiness to jump forward, kicking out at the monster that had tried to surprise him and sending him flying.

“Nice! My legs are like springs!” he said, bouncing eagerly.

“So much for a flea,” Julie said, laughing. “More like a grasshopper.”

The fight started anew then, more Lava Lizards running out of the woodworks. Between teleporting, Julie happened to see Rose turn invisible and she couldn’t help but laugh as she grabbed onto one of the Lava Lizards and teleported him thirty feet in the air before dropping him, teleporting back down to the ground where she waited with a kick and sent him flying away.

This wasn’t so bad, after all.

She dodged a blow from one as she heard Spencer yell out, “Rangers!” Julie quickly grabbed onto the two nearest to her and slammed them together, knocking them unsteady so she could run and join up with the man and the others.

“We need to leave right away!” the butler said, urgently. “You three-“ he pointed to Will, Dax, and Ronny, “you’ll need to ride by yourselves. Rose, Julie, you come with me.”

The three quickly split off as Rose and Julie nodded at each other.

“I’m going to the garage,” Mack, and when had he gotten there seriously, Julie knew he lived here but he had never been this underfoot before, said, making like he was going to go after the three Rangers. Julie reached out with Spencer and the both of them grabbed onto the back of the younger boy's jacket, keeping him in place.

“Not today, bucko,” Julie said.

“You’re coming with us, too,” Spencer directed, holding tightly to his jacket collar. His expression wasn’t one that was happy, but he didn’t put up much resistance as the older man started to drag him.

Julie stood in the jeep, her legs strapped down, as she surveyed the area as they drove through a muddy and heavily wooded area. The three Rangers were riding ahead on a mix of ATVs and motocross bikes, the forward guard, as Spencer drove a heavily fortified Jeep.

Mr. Hartford sat in the front seat, not looking back towards where his son was strapped into the back with Rose.

“See anything, Julie?” Hartford called up to her.

She scanned the area, again, looking out for any Lava Lizards or anything else that could have possibly followed them. “Not yet,” she replied.

“I don’t really like the ‘yet,’” Spencer said in turn. Julie laughed.

“You get used to it,” she added with a grin. He looked at her, worriedly, through the rearview mirror and she could only continue to laugh.

“You guys were awesome,” she heard Mack say to Rose over the noise. “You were really giving it to them.”

The Pink Ranger laughed awkwardly. “I’m not sure who was giving what to whom, but thanks.” There was silence, for a moment, before, “Mr. Hartford, apologies again for doubting your story.”

“No worries, Rose,” the man replied.

Julie heard Spencer curse under his breath and turned forward, seeing what had just appeared right as the man said, “There may be, sir. I think we’re in trouble.”

The ATV and bikes skidded to a stop, followed by the Jeep directly behind them. Julie started to unstrap her legs, ready to attack as a hoard of Chillers stood about fifty feet away from them.

Dax and the others quickly took off their helmets, running to stand next to the Jeep. “The Lizards are behind us, so who are these guys?” the Blue Ranger asked, worriedly.

“I don’t think they’re the welcoming committee,” Will said, backing up against the truck as the monsters started forward.

“Looks like Flurious has officially joined the party,” Julie said, placing her hands on the top rails. She used them as leverage to hop out of the truck, coming to a landing right next to the other Rangers.

The Chillers were almost an antithesis to the Lava Lizards. Instead of bright red and scaly, they were white and smooth. She didn’t really know what kind of creature they were based off of, they were just monstrous. Their assortment of weapons that they carried was peculiar, some had hammers and others had small sickles to attack with.

“We’re going to the Big Time,” Hartford said. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he picked a metal suitcase off of the ground and opened it, knowing what was inside as she went ahead and pulled her own Overdrive Tracker out of her pocket. “These are your Overdrive Trackers,” he explained. “These are what will morph you into Power Rangers.”

“’Overdrive Accelerate’ is the activation code,” Julie said, revealing to the others that she already had hers as the Chillers started to get closer and closer.

“Let’s do it,” Hartford said.

Julie and the others quickly started running forward to meet the Chillers, the newer Rangers gathering around her and it was then that she realized that she was the sixth Ranger and the mentor of the team at the same time.

Is this what Dr. O felt like the night that the Biozords first awoke?

“I don’t know about you guys, but we can’t wait for Hartford,” Will said as they skidded to a stop.

Julie nodded. “You’re right. Ready?”

“Ready!” the others called.

Julie flipped open the tracker, that was more like a phone, and pressed the main button before holding it out in front of her. “Overdrive Accelerate!” they all shouted as they ran the wheel that was at the bottom down their arms.

She would probably never tell the others, but Julie had waited to morph until they were a full team. She had the capabilities to months ago, but this was a moment that she didn’t want to miss - a bonding opportunity that she would never have gotten otherwise.

The transformation process from Overdrive couldn’t be more different than Dino Thunder if it even tried. While Dino Thunder had been rustic with the sounds of their dinosaurs roaring in the background, the flashes of lava and volcanoes, Overdrive was more mechanical. She watched as a holographic screen appeared that displayed her suit, her helmet, and her main weapon, before it all flew at her.

“Why do you look different?” Ronny asked, confused.

Julie looked down at herself and at the Rangers before smiling under your helmet. “I’m the sixth Ranger,” she said. “It’s a given.”

Their suits were simple, but sturdy. Down the center of their suits was a solid strip of white with the Operation Overdrive symbol in the middle of their chest. Their helmets, their gloves, and the rest of their suits were their chosen color with silver accents on their shoulders.

Hers? Julie’s suit was more reminiscent of Dr. O’s from his very first team, which she had a hand in deciding. Instead of having a color blocked suit, hers was completely white with pink striping to separate the center from the outside. Her helmet looked the same as theirs, even if her visor was in more of an arrow shape, but instead of having the silver accents on her shoulders, she had a shoulder armor plate.

Honestly, it looked pretty cool.

“Let’s do it!” Rose said.

The five of them quickly jumped into the very different, but still the same, fight that they had against the Lava Lizards. Foot soldiers never really made much of a difference, no matter how many or what kinds of them there were.

Julie got a running start and slid, knocking into one Chiller and sending it falling before she quickly jumped up, using another one’s knee as a launchpad as she backflipped and kicked it in the chin.

“It’s Mack!” she heard Rose say. Julie quickly elbowed one out of the way and looked to see that, yes, Mack had morphed into the Red Ranger as Hartford was being carried away by a group of Lava Lizards.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go at all.

“Drive Lance!” the Red Ranger shouted, jumping as he summoned his weapon. Right on time too, as the Chillers fired some kind of energy blast at the spot where he had just been standing.

Oh, it was on.

She heard the others start calling for their main weapons. Will with his Drive Slammer, a giant hammer that he threw like a boomerang. Dax with his Drive Vortex, a device that was similar to a high-powered fan that he used as a jetpack before making his own, mini tornado. Ronny and her Drive Claws, two scoop like weapons that she used as battering rams, taking no prisoners as she used them to fling rocks at the monsters. Rose with her Drive Geyser, a weapon that literally just fired out pure energy.

“Drive Reaper!” Julie yelled, summoning her own weapon.

It would never be her Stego Axe, but her Drive Reaper was impressive. It was a long scythe, almost like when she had poured her energy into her Axe, but it didn’t have double blades. She gripped it with two hands and spun, keeping the mismatched group of monsters now that the Lava Lizards had finally caught up to them at bay for her to switch positions, standing her weapon in the middle of the circle that she had created and using it as a balancing pole as she swung around it, kicking each monster in the chest.

“Redline time!” she heard Mack yell as he held his lance parallel to the ground and sped through a group of monsters, destroying them instantly.

At once, the monsters disappeared. Julie quickly recovered from almost face planting as the one she was about to attack suddenly wasn’t there anymore.

“We have to save my dad!” Mack yelled.

Julie nodded and joined the others in running after the kid. As they crested the hill, Julie held in her gasp at the demonic monster that had a hold of Mr. Hartford’s arm before someone sent a blast at it and knocked it out of the way.

“Mr. Hartford!” Dax called as he quickly ran up behind the man, helping him sit up from where he had been thrown. Julie stood, dropped into a fighting stance, as she stared down at the monster that could only be Moltor.

“Back off,” Mack said, holding tightly to his blaster.

She watched as a group of Lava Lizards ran up to their master, holding the golden crown of the Corona Aurora in their hands and giving it to him.

“Finally!” Moltor declared, with an evil laugh. “The crown is mine!”

“I’m sorry sir,” Spencer said, waddling up to them and clutching his side. “They overpowered me!”

“The choice is yours, Rangers,” Moltor said, staring them down. “Go after me and the crown, or-“ a brilliant beam of light emitted from his forehead, striking the ground a hundred yards away. When the smoke and light cleared, Julie saw that he had turned a mountain that overlooked San Andreas into an actual volcano. “-or save the city below! You want to be heroes?” he asked. “Be heroes!”

He turned on the spot, causing him and his Lava Lizards to disappear into a flash.

“Huh, I never thought volcanoes would be a thing I would have to deal with again,” Julie said, looking at it thoughtfully.

“Dad, what do we do?” Mack asked Hartford.

Julie turned to man, seeing him look back and forth between the Rangers and city, trying to decide.

She knew the answer.

“We save the city,” she said, speaking over him.

Chapter Text

“The choice is yours, Rangers,” Moltor said, staring them down. “Go after me and the crown, or-“ a brilliant beam of light emitted from his forehead, striking the ground a hundred yards away. When the smoke and light cleared, Julie saw that he had turned a mountain that overlooked San Andreas into an actual volcano. “-or save the city below! You want to be heroes?” he asked. “Be heroes!”

He turned on the spot, causing him and his Lava Lizards to disappear into a flash.

“Huh, I never thought volcanoes would be a thing I would have to deal with again,” Julie said, looking at it thoughtfully.

“Dad, what do we do?” Mack asked Hartford.

Julie turned to man, seeing him look back and forth between the Rangers and city, trying to decide.

She knew the answer.

“We save the city,” she said, speaking over him.

“We can’t let them get away,” Will argued, once they demorphed to figure out what to do. “We have to go after the crown.”

“No,” Hartford interrupted, stopping him. “There are people that need to be saved first.”

“We can always get the crown back,” Julie said.

“But the crown!” Ronny yelled, objecting.

Julie felt like ripping her hair out. This shouldn’t even be an argument! They were Power Rangers! They were supposed to save people!

“It wasn’t the real crown,” Hartford said. Julie turned to him, stunned. “Now, you need to split up. Rose, Ronny, and Dax, find a way to stop the volcano at the source.”

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t the real crown?” Julie asked, but her question went unanswered as the three rushed off, leaving her with Will.

“Mack, Julie and I will go down town to see-“

“Wait,” Hartford said, holding up a hand to stop them. Again, Julie felt like ripping her hair out. “Mack has done enough.”

“No, Dad,” he said. “I started this. I’m gonna finish it.”

Hartford gave a weird look at his son, but Julie honestly didn’t have the time to decipher it as she tapped both Will and Mack on the shoulders and nodded her head towards the city. The Black and Red Rangers nodded, following her.

The trio quickly morphed again as a wall of lava quickly made its way through the city. It didn’t take long to spot a specific group of civilians who were in the process of running away.

“I’ll start teleporting them,” Julie said. “You guys-“

But the two guys ran off before she could even finish. She let out an audible groan as she disappeared, appearing in front of two of them, an elderly couple who were moving slowly than the rest.

“Hey, hold tight,” she said. The two didn’t even question her as they each grabbed onto an arm, holding onto her tightly as she blinked and teleported to the top of the hill, far enough away from the oncoming lava. “Here! Keep running though, you don’t want it to catch up.”

“Thank you, White Ranger!” the woman said as her husband grabbed her hand the two started to quickly shuffle away.

Julie nodded after them and teleported back, only to see that the lava had cornered a bunch of civilians that were being guarded by Will and Mack.

“They’re cornered!” Will said, turning to her. “Julie, can you teleport them?”

“Not this many at once!” she replied. “I don’t have the strength.”

“Now what?” Mack asked. He thought a moment. “Oh! I know. Do you have your Slammer handy?” The Red Ranger asked as he clapped Will on the shoulder.

“Of course,” Will said, summoning his large hammer.

“Good. Now slam something!”

Will lifted the hammer high above his head and slammed it into the ground, directly in the middle of the two approaching lava streams. The force of the blow opened up a fissure in the ground that was big enough for the lava to start to tumble down, like a waterfall, until it had all disappeared.

Julie let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding as the civilians all started to jump and cheer, happy that they were saved.

“Good work!” she said, clapping the Black Ranger on the shoulder as he and Mack high-fived.

They had saved the city!

The White Ranger felt a sense of relief once they made it back to the Command Center underneath the Hartford mansion. It had been awhile, after all, since she had been an active Ranger and getting back into the groove of things was definitely harder than she thought it would be, especially with the now limitless energy of the Morphing Grid rushing through her again after she thought it was lost.

She definitely needed to chat with Dr. Oliver, and sooner rather than later. He was one of the only ones to hold multiple Powers, one even after almost ten years of not.

“We did what Moltor asked us to do!” Dax said, celebrating. “Be heroes!”

“But the bad guys got away,” Will said, confused.

“There will be another day,” Hartford explained, holding his hands out placatingly.

Julie nodded. “It seems tough, especially since this wasn’t a decisive victory. But this is a war, not a battle. It’s coming, I promise.” The Black Ranger looked at her and nodded, accepting her answer.

“But today,” Hartford started, a smile on his face. “Today… you guys were great.”

“We were great?” Rose asked. “Mack was the one who was great.” She and the other newer Rangers turned to Hartford’s son, Dax clapping him on the shoulder. “He led us to victory and saved everyone’s skin, including yours.”

She did have a point. The fight would have been a lot harder without Mack, and without his clear thinking she didn’t know if she and Will could have figured out a way to stop the lava.

But looking at Andrew Hartford, she knew he wasn’t happy in the least bit.

“Yes,” the man said, softly. “Great job, Mack. You wanted to be a Ranger, and you were one. Now it’s time to put away that fantasy.”

Julie felt her jaw drop, the man’s words going in a direction that she didn’t even expect. She watched as he walked up and took the Overdrive Tracker out of Mack’s hand while everyone watched around him, stunned.

“But Dad!”

“I’ll be upstairs in my office,” Hartford said, not even looking back as he walked out of the lab, leaving the Rangers and Mack standing, shocked.

“Yeah, no,” Julie finally said, pushing herself off the railing she was leaning against. “It’s time to have this fight again.” She turned to Mack and the others, who were looking at her confused, but she just pushed past them all before teleporting.

“You can’t do that,” she said, appearing next to Hartford who barely even flinched when she appeared out of nowhere. “Seriously. Mack morphed, he was a great Red Ranger. I know you wanted it for yourself, but-“

“But nothing, Julie,” Hartford said. “Mack will not be a Ranger, I refuse.”

“The Grid has already accepted him!” she complained, throwing her arms in the air in frustration as she hurriedly tried to keep up with his quick pace despite her small stature. “We didn’t even know if you could have successfully bonded to the Grid because of your age – it was a total crapshoot. But Mack-“

“Will. Not. Be. A. Ranger,” Hartford stressed. “Do I need to repeat myself? Don’t forget who gave you back your access to the Grid that you so love.”

Julie’s jaw dropped, angry at the fact that he would throw this in her face like this. “You wouldn’t have come even close to being able to do this without me, Andrew. And besides, you asked me to join. You have never budged on the Red Tracker, even when I presented many other more qualified candidates than you.”

“This isn’t your little reunion team,” Hartford answered, his tone changing and Julie felt herself start to bristle. “This was never going to be Dino Thunder 2.0 and you know it, you just can’t let the past go.”

“And you can’t let your feelings go!” she fired back. “You may have the money and the influence, but you are not Red Ranger material. I-“

“Leave my sight before I take your Tracker too,” Hartford replied, shutting her down. She stood, stock still in the hallway, her mouth slack in mid argument as Hartford opened the door to his office and went inside, shutting the door behind him. Julie heard the locking mechanism engage and couldn’t help but let out a loud scream.

“Ugh! You… insufferable, irritating man!”

When he didn’t open his door to berate her, she turned around and heading back down to the Command Center. She would have to get Mack his Tracker back another way.

Julie stood on her own back down in the Command Center as the others experimented, pushing buttons to figure out what everything did. Mack had left as soon as she got back, empty handed, to have a word with his dad. The others had looked at her sympathetically, but she had waved it off.

It wouldn’t be the first time she had gotten in an argument with a teammate, and Hartford would have to pry the Tracker out of her cold, dead hands.

She pulled out her phone to send Dr. O a text, asking if he needed to take a little break from teaching soon to meet up. She really needed his advice on how to deal with the influx of new Rangers as a returning one and how to deal with a mentor that was as obstinate as Hartford was.

Julie should also tell him that she stole his color, but that’s not as important as the other two.

“Incredible,” she heard Will say. She looked up from her message, ending it with a smiley face that she didn’t know if the man would understand to see Will touching panels on the spinning globe that were correlating with a large, 3D render of the planet on the big screen that Rose was staring at, entranced. “I thought only the defense department had this type of global tracking capability.”

“This one’s way better,” Rose replied, grinning.  “It’s got a network of 27 satellites, wide-area augmentation system, parallel multichannel design, and a differential GPS accurate to one inch or less.” While she was explaining, all of the others had gathered around her, staring at her intently. “What?” she asked, once she realized Ronny and Dax were both giving her weird looks. “Oh, I guess I’m the only one who memorized the data manual.”

“Do you see this,” Julie asked, pointing to one of the 27 satellite nodes. “This specifically is the Astromark Megaship, the transportation of the Astro Rangers. They-“

“Hold up,” Dax said. “There are Power Rangers In Space?” He started laughing. “Now that is a cool movie idea!”

Julie snorted. “Where do you think the Power came from?” she asked. “We’re not the only galaxy with Rangers. Do you not remember the news reports of the Terra Venture ship going to the planet Miranoi to set up a base there? And the Astro Rangers themselves, well, most of them at least, are from Earth.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Ronny asked. “I mean, I know you said you were a Ranger before but-“

The White Ranger shrugged. “It’s a community. I still talk to my team regularly even though we’re literally all over the country. My therapist is a Yellow Ranger who lives in Africa, a Red Ranger is one of the US ambassadors to the UN, my brother has his destroyed Zord in a storage unit in Stone Canyon – we’re literally everywhere.”

“Just how many people have been Rangers?” Rose asked, her eyes glowing. “I mean, they’ve been around constantly every year since-“

“1993,” Julie interrupted, once she faltered. Rose nodded and continued.

“Yeah, since 1993, but those were in Angel Grove. You said you were active from 2003-2004 the first time, in Reefside. I remember seeing a fight between some when I went on vacation with my parents to Blue Bay Harbor a few years ago. Where did they all come from?”

“Can we pause on the history lesson?” Ronny asked. “I mean, I’m into it, but I want to see these vehicles they said were waiting for us.”

Julie rose her eyebrows at the girl, shocked that she would interrupt literally their history and again wondered how in Dino Jesus’ name did Dr. Oliver put up with them for so long if they were like this. Nobody noticed, however, as Ronny managed to figure out the button that would show them the live feed from the garage where their Zords were.

“I think you found it,” Dax said, his eyes glowing.

“I’m gonna need to sit down,” the Yellow Ranger said, overwhelmed.

Julie could just roll her eyes.

“Guys! Dad’s gone!”

All five Rangers turned as one as Mack ran into the Command Center, hurriedly followed by Spencer who looked worried. Mack, himself, looked panicked.

“His office is trashed,” he continued. “It’s got to be those Lava freaks who took him.”

“At least he has his locator watch with him,” Spencer said, placatingly. “That is… if he hasn’t broken it already.”

“Not helpful, Spence,” Julie said, walking by and patting him on the shoulder. “Look, Rose-“

“I’ll program a search pattern starting with the West Coast grid,” the Pink Ranger finished, knowing where she was going. “I can widen it if necessary.”

“Great,” Julie added. “Specifically look out for quarries, deserted fields, and beaches outside of cities. Inside cities, look at abandoned warehouses. That’s generally where things go down.”

“Don’t worry Mack,” she heard Dax say as he walked over to the boy while she stood next to Rose, looking over the data. “We’re going to get your dad back.”

“I just wish he hadn’t taken Red’s Tracker,” Mack mumbled.

Julie turned to him, opening her mouth to say something at the same time as Spencer who spoke first. “Ah yes, the Tracker. What a pity it’s in your father’s office, locking in a foolproof safe, impossible to crack. Impossible.”

At that, Julie felt her eye start to twitch as she and Spencer both turned to the one person in the room who could crack an uncrackable safe.

Will Aston.

While the others stayed to watch out for Hartford’s tracker location, Julie teleported Will to the man’s office to watch him crack the safe. She really thought Mack should be the one in here, but the door was locked behind Mr. Hartford and Mack didn’t know the pass code.

But pass codes meant nothing when you could teleport.

Will set his briefcase full of, apparently, hacking tools down on the desk as soon as they got there and immediately moved aside the painting that hid the safe. He got up real close to it, listening, while Julie just propped herself up on the man’s desk and waited.

“Whatcha think?” she asked, crossing her arms after he stood and inspected for what seemed like entirely too long.

“A Citadel 500 with digital-imprint signature code,” Will said. “Impenetrable.”

“So….?”

He turned to her and smirked. “We’ll just have to see about that.”

The Black Ranger quickly moved over to the desk where his supplies rested, pulling out a black scanning device that looked like a tv remote. Julie watched as it scanned an old glass of watered down lemonade that Hartford had left from earlier that morning.

“What are-“

“Shh, Princess. Let the master work,” he said.

She scoffed. “Don’t call me Princess, Spy Kid.”

He turned to her and glared, and she smiled and waved her fingers at him before he went back to work. He placed the remote-device upside down on some kind of pad, while another little device started to beep with red, flashing lights.

The two of them watched, Will calmly and Julie impatiently, as it did whatever it was supposed to do. Finally, Julie saw a black fingerprint appear on a little piece of plastic.

“Yes!” Will said. He placed his own thumb on top of the plastic. “Mr. Hartford’s thumbprint.”

“So that means we’re in?” Julie asked.

Will smirked at her. “We’re in.”

He quickly unlocked the safe, pulling it open while Julie leaned over his shoulder. There actually wasn’t anything in it other than the Red Tracker, which didn’t surprise her at all since Hartford had been nothing but secretive since he brought her on to Operation Overdrive.

“Grab it and let’s go,” she said, putting a hand on Will’s shoulder as he grabbed the device. “Maybe they’ve found him by now.”

“Do we really have to teleport?” Will asked. “I mean, I have legs-“

“Nope. Teleporting, now.”

The two of them landed back in the Command Center. Julie was perfectly fine, but Will was holding onto his stomach like it made him sick and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

Big baby.

“Hey, Hotshot,” Will said, once he regained his equilibrium. “If you’re coming along, you might need this.”

All of the Rangers and Spencer turned to them, not noticing them arrive, with shocked looks on their faces. Julie stood with her hands on her hips, smiling, as Will threw the Tracker to Mack who caught it easily.

“My Tracker!” he said, looking at it in awe.

“You did it,” Ronny added, laughing, amazedly.

“Was there a doubt?” Will asked, smirking.

The six Rangers quickly loaded themselves into the SHARC, Ronny and Julie in the cockpit flying it. The Yellow Ranger had been a little miffed, at first, that Julie insisted on being up there, but the White Ranger was actually the only person who knew how to fly the thing.

“This baby rips,” Ronny said as they crested over a particularly large wave.

“We’re getting close,” Dax added, looking at a screen.

She heard the clicking of keys behind them and turned her head to see Rose at one of the keyboards. “Setting course for Rotuma Island,” the Pink Ranger said.

“Got it,” Will replied.

“Can’t we go any faster?” Mack asked.

Julie laughed. “Patience, grasshopper. We’ll get there.” She turned to Ronny, who had quickly grasped how to drive the machine. “Ronny?”

“You just said the magic word,” the Yellow Ranger said, with a smirk. Before Julie could even brace herself, the other girl floored it.

With Ronny behind the wheel, it took them no time at all to be at Rotuma Island which was the last location that Mr. Hartford’s tracking watch had been detected. The six of them piled out of the craft, Ronny petting it sweetly as they walked by it, onto an empty stretch of beach that led to rocky cliffs.

“Now what?” Ronny asked, looking frustrated with all of the nothing that was there.

“Guys, calm down. Let’s look around,” Julie said, placatingly. Ronny shot her a look and she just raised her eyebrows at the other girl.

“Allow me,” Will said, stepping forward.

The group of them were silent as he looked with his special eyes to find literally anything that could lead them to Hartford. Julie stood, her arms crossed, waiting.

“I found something,” the Black Ranger said. “There’s a cave entrance on the west side of the volcano.”

“Oh, love that,” Julie said. “Volcanoes. How original.”

“Great job Will,” Mack said, starting forward, but Will held out an arm to stop him.

“But wait,” he said, holding a hand to his ear. “I think I heard-“

Julie looked up at a bunch of synchronous roars to see groups of Lava Lizards popping up in all of the underbrush and starting towards them.

“Lava Lizards!” Will finished.

“No, really? I had no idea,” the White Ranger mumbled under her breath.

The group of monsters quickly jumped at them, splitting them off to take them on easier and Julie got right to work, leading the largest group away from the newer Rangers who still weren’t used to fighting monsters like this.

Then again, she was also out of practice.

Still, Julie grabbed onto one and pulled it down, kneeing it in the face before turning and roundhouse kicking another. She teleported onto the shoulders of one, digging her knee into its shoulder and causing it to go down before three more reached out and grabbed her all at once before throwing her.

She looked up and spit the mud out of her mouth that had gotten into it from landing on the ground. It was officially on.

“Dax, head for the cave!” she heard Mack yell. She didn’t hear what Dax replied, but saw him jumping off out of the corner of her eye as she jumped back up to her feet and ran for the monster.

Before she could make contact with it, she teleported behind it and punched it in the back of the head. While it was disoriented, she grabbed onto its shoulders and kicked out with both feet behind her, nailing another in its chest.

She let out a loud yell as the one she was holding started to fall backwards, teleporting away behind another one that had lifted its sword directly over where she had used to be. She kicked its sword aside and shoulder-rammed it in the stomach.

Julie looked around, briefly, before grinning as she realized that the other Rangers had started to get into the groove. They looked like they were actually winning their fights now, instead of struggling just to stay in them.

“Keep it up guys!” Julie yelled, elbowing a Lava Lizard in the face. “You’re doing great!”

She heard a small chorus of ‘thanks’ from the others as they focused in on their fights and she couldn’t help but let out a laugh at the exhaustion that she was feeling. The seventeen year old Julie would be amazed at the twenty year old Julie and how she reacted to things like this.

“Mack, what are you doing here?” she heard. Julie turned to see Dax and Mr. Hartford running as fast as they could towards them, Dax continuously looking over his shoulder as if they were being followed.

“Saving your butt,” Mack said, greeting his dad with a smile as he knocked two Lava Lizards away at once.

He knocked another one out of the way from attacking him as Hartford ran up, briefly embracing his son. Julie couldn’t hear what they were saying, focusing instead on the form that blocked out the sun as it landed on the ground near her.

Moltor.

“You’ll never escape this island,” the monster taunted, his Lava Lizards falling into ranks behind him.

Julie scoffed. “Like I’ve never heard that before.”

She grabbed onto her Tracker and started to run to the most open spot of land, quickly followed by the others – Mack breaking away from his dad to do so.

“Ready?” she heard Mack say, holding it aloft.

“Ready,” the others replied.

“Overdrive Accelerate!”

They officially wasted no time, jumping into the fight fully morphed. Mack immediately jumped into a sword fight with Moltor as the others branched off to take on the large number of Lava Lizards. Julie herself went to stand guard next to Hartford who was watching them fight, more specifically his son, instead of paying attention to what was going on.

“What do you think?” she asked him, yelling over the grunts of one of the Lava Lizards that had gotten close as she kicked it away. “A good idea?”

“I’m starting to see what you meant,” the man said, staring in awe as his son faced down Moltor. He wasn’t winning, but he definitely wasn’t losing.

The others were also doing extremely well, the added Power boost from morphing definitely helping them along. She watched the backwards grip that Will held his saber in and the way that Ronny used her superspeed to attack the monsters like how Trent attacked the Dino Rangers when he was evil.

The Power was taking to them well.

She sliced at one of the Lava Lizards herself as Hartford started to run towards where Mack had just sent Moltor flying.

Woah.

Julie followed after them, getting close as Hartford yelled, “Come on, we got to get out of here!” The other Rangers had also managed to get away from their fights, joining them.

“Okay,” Mack said, nodding at his dad.

“Let’s go!” Julie yelled, starting to run in the direction where they had left the SHARC with the others following close behind as Moltor laid, stunned, on the ground.

The hatch of the SHARC started to close and Julie peaked out of it, seeing Moltor standing a hundred yards away and yelling angrily at them as the giant machine started up, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. Finally, the hatch fully closed and they took off back into the sea.

“Thank goodness you’re alright, sir,” Spencer said, as soon as they got back to Command Center underneath the mansion. “I was really getting worried about you.”

The six Rangers hadn’t even bothered to demorph, just taking off their helmets as they ran inside. Julie stayed near the rear of the group, watching the others for any signs of physical or emotional fatigue that could be something not-so-good in the future. They had only been Rangers for a day, after all.

“Spencer, are you turning into a softy in your old age?” Hartford asked the butler, smiling.

“Never, sir,” Spencer replied as the others laughed. It was a complete lie – Spencer had, without a doubt, been the nicest person to her since she moved into the mansion.

Their laughter was cut short as an alarm started blaring and Julie instantly felt the worry creep underneath her skin as the monitor automatically switched to shaky video footage of a giant monster in a familiar looking spot.

Rotuma Island.

“Giant sea creatures attacking Rotuma Island,” Hartford said, staring at the screen concerned.

“Sounds like it’s time for the big stuff,” Ronny said, stepping forward.

“The really big stuff,” Julie added, grinning.

Hartford nodded. “You’re right. Guys, get your DriveMax Zords and go.”

Julie nodded as the others cheered, going to the wall to grab their cases that would help them pilot their Zords. She clicked open hers, quickly, to make sure it had everything in it even though she was the one who had packed them weeks ago before they had even started giving the invitations to the others.

So she liked to be prepared, sue her.

“Dad, they need my help,” Mack said, turning to his father.

Julie held the handle of her case, tightly, as the others turned to look at the man who had brought them there. She could see that they had already formed an attachment to Mack as the Red Ranger, which she could feel herself from the little color lines that weaved through the Morphing Grid.

She watched as the other Rangers nodded at the man, agreeing, before he sighed and nodded at Mack who ran over to them and grabbed his own case off of the wall.

“Mack,” Hartford yelled, stopping them before they could run out. “Be careful. Julie, what’s the phrase?”

She smiled. “It’s ‘May the Power protect you.’”

He nodded. “May the Power protect you.”

“Let’s go, Rangers!” Mack ordered, solidly.

Julie couldn’t hold in her grin as the six of them ran to the Zord bay, the others gasping as they caught sight of their Zords for the first time.

“Dump Driver!” Mack yelled as he locked himself into his large, red dump truck Zord.

“Speed Driver!” Will said, locking his wheel into place into his Zord that looked like a racecar.

“Yeah!” Dax cheered, engaging his Zord which looked like a hovercraft with a large fin on top. “Gyro Driver!”

“Yeah!” Ronny added, the most excited of all as she locked into her bulldozer Zord. “Dozer Driver!”

“Sub Driver!” Rose yelled, locking in to her submarine Zord.

“Cycle Driver!” Julie said happily as she clicked her armored motorcycle Zord’s handlebars into place.

“DriveMax Zords, move out!” they all said, in unison.

“I’m programming the coordinates of the island into your Zords,” Hartford said over the comms once they left the Zord bay itself. Julie zoomed along beside the other giant Zords, listening to the whirring of the Gyro Driver above her and sometimes catching sight of the Sub Driver as it swam by. “Hurry Rangers.”

“You don’t have to tell us twice,” Julie replied. “Ronny, hit it!”

She heard the Yellow Ranger cheer over their comms as she pushed her Zord to the max speed, the others following her example.

The monster was honestly nothing like Julie had ever seen before. It was already big, towering over the treetops. It had a bipedal body, but a super long neck like when Mesogog transformed during their last fight years ago, but, for some reason, this monster was a lot scarier.

It also didn’t help that it had actual guns strapped to its back.

“Oh, yeah!” Mack yelled over the comms as they all rode up individually. She watched from a distance as he spun his Zord around and two claws came out, reaching and grabbing the monster and pulling it closer to him.

And, to Julie’s utter belief, Mack used his Zord to throw the monster and it went flying.

Huh. That was new.

“That slowed him down. Let’s stop him for good,” Mack said.

“Right.” “Right.”

“Mack, you do the honors,” Julie said, her hand hovering over her Tracker.

“Done. DriveMax MegaZord, activate,” he replied.

She looked at her Tracker and saw the MegaZord button along with the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 keys light up and rode her Cycle Driver closer as everything started to come together. As the Dozer Driver and the Sub Driver became the arms, Julie ramped onto the back of the Speed Driver as it sped up along the slowly rising form of the Dump Driver. Her Zord became a crown and a collar around the Gyro Driver helmet and neck of the MegaZord itself.

She unclipped her handlebars from it’s position and put it back in the suitcase as her seat slowly started to sink until Julie was lowered into the main cockpit of the MegaZord with the other five Rangers. She reopened her case and locked her handlebars into place, quickly followed by her Tracker.

“DriveMax MegaZord, assembly complete,” she said once the lights were all lit up and everyone was inside. She heard Dax let out a loud ‘Whoop!’ and couldn’t help but grin underneath the helmet.

Yeah, it was pretty great.

“Drive Digger!” Mack commanded.

The DriveMax MegaZord held two weapons, a large shovel and an equally as large pickaxe. At the command, the MegaZord turned around and started digging into the ground with the shovel – throwing the dirt on the monster until it completely encased it in a dirt mound.

“Ready, guys?” Julie asked.

“Let’s go!” Ronny cheered.

“Drive Digger, Saber Mode!” they yelled as the MegaZord put the two weapons together, the spikes of the pickaxe aligning perfectly with the edges of the shovel to make a truly magnificent sword.

The DriveMax MegaZord itself started to rumble, Julie feeling the vibrations in her bones as she bounced on the edge of her seat, excited as the sword started to glow.

“Activate,” Mack commanded.

She watched from the cockpit as the MegaZord slowly spun the sword in a giant circle, reminiscent of their logo itself, before it went down in a slash – releasing a torrent of pure energy straight at the trapped monster.

Julie grinned as the sparks started and began laughing when the monster itself fully exploded.

They had done it.

Then, the MegaZord was hit.

“What’s going on?” Julie asked, confused.

“It’s back!” Rose yelled. “The monster it… it got up!”

Julie held tight as the giant robot rocked, almost sending the Rangers flying around the cockpit like pinballs as they all screamed.

“You still have a device on that shield!” Mr. Hartford’s voice said, ringing through the MegaZord.

Rose gasped. “Oh, that things gonna blow!”

Julie’s eyes widened and she looked, panicked, to where Rose was pointing and immediately started to press buttons.

“We’ve gotta get away from it!” Dax yelled.

“Let’s toss it,” Mack suggested.

They all agreed, and at a good time too, as Mack kicked out with one of the legs. Julie pushed forward on her gearshift in unison with the others, locking the foot around the monster before they worked together to lift and throw it, sending it flying through the air. When it crashed into the ground, it exploded on impact.

Okay. Now they did it.

Julie could feel the excitement of the air as the Overdrive team gathered in the Command Center with Spencer as Mack received his DNA resequencing.

Mr. Hartford, Mr. I Can Do It Myself, Julie, We Don’t Need To Pick A Red Ranger, let go of the reigns and decided that his son, who was honestly a great Red Ranger if Julie could say so herself, seeing as how she’s worked with at least four people that have held the color in the past, would fill the position instead.

“Your DNA resequencing is now completed, sir,” Spencer said once the buzzing of the machine stopped. He grabbed another uniform jacket with red piping, holding it open for the newly-minted Red Ranger as he stepped into it.

“I don’t feel any different,” Mack replied, patting his body nervously as if checking for extra appendages.

“Well, it takes a few minutes to kick in,” Ronny explained, her hands on her hips.

Rose smiled, holding his Tracker out for him. “It’s great to have you on the team.”

“Officially,” Julie added with a laugh.

Mack still just looked so amazed. “I can’t believe this is really happening.” He locked his Tracker into position on his shoulder and stopped, suddenly. “Huh. Hold on.”

The Red Ranger shivered for a second, before reaching out and grabbing onto the collar of Spencer’s blazer before lifting him into the air.

“I’m strong?” he asked, confused.

“You’re super strong,” Julie replied, laughing with the others.

“When I asked for a raise, this is hardly what I had in mind,” Spencer said, calmly, even though his feet were dangling over a foot above the ground.

There was a cough from the doorway and Julie turned to see Hartford standing there, a weird look on his face.

“I see you’ve given Mack his enhanced powers,” he said, nervously. At the butler’s nod, he continued. “You can put Spencer down now.”

Mack nodded and slowly lowered his arm, setting the older man gently on his feet.

“Thank you,” he said, cooly, as he walked over to stand behind Mr. Hartford. He whispered something to the man, but Julie couldn’t hear it and Will had moved directly in her line of vision to celebrate so she missed being able to read his lips completely.

Suspicious.

“Listen up, Rangers,” Hartford said, causing their celebrations to cease. “It’s time to get to work. Our enemies have the crown, now they’re going to be after the jewels. It’s going to be the mission of Operation Overdrive to find them first.”

Julie grinned, locking arms with Rose and Dax who stood beside her.

Operation Overdrive was officially a go.

Chapter Text

Honestly? Julie was starting to wonder if Operation Overdrive even needed a Black Ranger. She could fill in the last team member role, easily, and then they wouldn’t have to deal with Will freaking Aston’s ego.

Which was making her want to slam his head into a wall.

“It’s a waste of manpower,” the aforementioned annoyance said, again. “Why would Andrew send six of us to grab a single book when I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself?”

Julie rolled her eyes. “Not everything is about you,” she replied. “Besides, it’s nice to get out of the mansion every once and awhile.”

“Yeah, think of it like a field trip,” Rose said, holding the book that Hartford had sent them after lovingly in her hands – reading it as she walked. It literally looked like it weighed more than she did, but the Pink Ranger had refused to let anyone else carry it.

“If there’s one thing I know about my dad – he’s got a reason for everything,” Mack added, a smirk on his face. Julie knew he was just happy to be officially be included.

Matching team jacket and all.

“Hey guys! Check this out!”

Julie sighed before turning to see Dax, once again, showing out as he walked along on his hands. She smiled and joined the others in clapping, realizing again that her new teammates were practically kids.

Extremely smart and talented kids, but still.

“That was awesome,” Ronny said, laughing once Dax had walked along the full length of the wooden table and did a flip once he got to the end.

Dax sauntered back over to them, his ego running high, as Will walked away. Julie stared after him in confusion before seeing him jump and morph in midair.

“What is he doing,” she hissed, grabbing onto Mack’s shoulder tightly. “Seriously? In front of all of these people?”

“He must’ve heard something,” Ronny replied. “We should-“

“Go yeah,” Dax added. The five Rangers that were left started running off in the direction that the errant Black Ranger had gone.

Mack was the first to spot him as he jumped up and saved a man from falling off of scaffolding surrounding a building, demorphing as he landed. Julie watched as the man ran off, recognizing the gait and the gleam in his eyes as the others went to confront Will.

“I’m going to go check on him,” she said, pointing in the direction the construction worker had gone. “You guys deal with Will.”

She saw Rose nod at her before she took off running after the man.

“Spencer!” she yelled.

The man stopped and sighed before turning towards her. She skidded to a stop directly in front of him as she watched him pull off the incredibly life-like mask that even changed his facial structure.

“Hello Julie,” the butler said, wary.

“What was that about?” she asked. “Why the… the disguise and the tricks?”

“It was Mr. Hartford’s idea,” Spencer answered, reluctantly. “To test your teamwork.”

“To test-“ Julie sputtered. “Why wasn’t I told?”

Spencer sighed again and shrugged. “That, I do not know. You’ll have to take that up with him.” He looked down at his watch, “Now, I must be getting back. He should be expecting a report soon.”

Julie let out a frustrated growl as he walked off. How dare that man?! She thought they were supposed to be a team, the two of them. She was the one who had helped him pick the Rangers, she had brought in her old communicator and morpher for him to examine and base their Tracker’s off of. She had even gotten him in touch with Hayley and Cam Watanabe, the Green Samurai Ranger and the Ninja Ranger’s tech genius, on getting everything up and running! And he had tried to trick her like she was just a common kid.

There were going to be words.

Julie stewed in her anger the entire trip back to the Hartford Mansion, trying to figure out what she could possibly say to the man to get him to take her seriously. She wasn’t a kid anymore! This definitely wasn’t her first rodeo and she genuinely thought that he knew that going in. He was treating her like he was treating the others, like a child.

“Oh good, you’re back,” Hartford said once they descended into the Command Center underneath the mansion. “While using the satellites to comb the ocean floor, I think I found something of interest.”

She heard Will, who had managed to wrestle the book away from Rose as they were going down to look like he was the one who had gotten it, scoff and then angrily say, “That’s the same book. You sent us to get a book you already have.”

The White Ranger looked and realized that, yes, Andrew Hartford was holding a copy of the book that the six of them had gone to retrieve from an honestly sketchy second-hand book shop. She knew, at this point, that it was all just a ploy to test them – but couldn’t he have at least hidden his original copy?

Men.

“I thought I misplaced it,” he said, nervously laughing and trying to brush off the comment. “Thanks, anyway. Good job.” He took the book that Will held out for him and placed it on top of the other, before setting in down.

Literally. The exact same book.

“What’d you find, Dad?” Mack asked as his father turned around and started to push buttons on the keyboard until a live feed of something underwater appeared. Julie honestly had no idea what it was, but Rose gasped.

“Atlantis?” she nearly whispered, staring at the screen in awe.

“I’m not entirely sure, but I think so,” Hartford answered. “Look at this!” He moved away from the computer and over to the giant globe in the middle of the room. When he placed his hand on it, the beam of light that was focused on the underwater ruins moved. “If the telemetry is correct, then these ruins are over 10,000 years old.”

“So what?” Ronny asked. “My socks are that old.”

“Oh, ew, Ronny,” Julie added, trying not to gag. “Seriously?”

“Atlantis was the domain of Neptune, God of the sea,” Rose explained, also looking disgusted at Ronny’s remark but quickly moving past it.

“­And a possible resting place for one of the jewels,” Hartford finished. “I’m getting a very faint jewel signature here.”

Dax cheered. “Looks like we’re going swimming!”

Julie turned to him and smiled, happy that he was constantly optimistic about whatever weirdness was thrown at them, as Will spoke up.

“I’ll go alone,” he said. “It’ll be much faster.”

Ronny scoffed. “Hey no way, hot shot. I’m coming, too.”

“Enough,” Hartford interrupted. “You’ll all go together. It’s dangerous out there, Will. You’ll need your team.”

“But-“

“Will, you don’t work alone anymore,” Hartford stressed. “If you find something down there, use your Tracker’s sensory program to source the jewels. I’ll fuel the SHARC and the flight plan is already programmed into the mainframe.” He sighed, and stressed this next part. “Stick to the flight plan. You don’t want Flurious or Moltor following you.”

“Come on Spy Kid,” Julie said, clapping the Black Ranger on the shoulder. “Let’s roll.”

As the others started to leave, Julie saw Spencer still in his construction worker disguise come down the stairs that led from the mansion itself and she pulled back. He made eye contact with her before quickly turning away and hurrying over to Hartford.

“How did they do?” Hartford asked.

Spencer stuttered for a moment, before turning to Julie who stood there with her arms crossed.

“How do you think, Andrew?” she said, the anger from earlier slowly boiling up again. She watched him sigh and felt the urge to scream. “How come you didn’t tell me, huh? I thought we were in this together!”

“Julie-“

“No!” she interrupted. “You asked me to be a part of the leadership for this team based on my abilities and past as a Ranger. Why are you trying to test my team and our teamwork? And why are you doing it without consulting me.”

“This isn’t your old team,” Hartford finally said, after taking a few seconds to think on how to respond. “These are not the Dino Rangers. I’m testing them because they’re all from different walks of life and are used to working on their own. I’m testing you on your ability to work with a new team and not treat them like the others.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Julie said, almost yelling. “How do you-“

“Julie, where’d you go?” Mack’s voice sounded from over the communication system. “We’re about to leave.”

“Yeah, Princess. Get it in gear,” Will added.

She felt her eye twitch as Dax added, “Yo, dude. You know she doesn’t like being called that.”

“I’m on my way,” Julie replied, speaking into her tracker. She disengaged the speech button and turned to Hartford. “But this? This isn’t finished. We’re supposed to be a team, Hartford. I’m not a child.”

Julie tossed her long hair over her shoulder as she turned to walk out of the room and into their Zord bay, only to hear Spencer say, “I’m fine, sir. Thank you for asking.” As the door closed shut behind her.

Julie fiddled with her phone as the SHARC autopiloted itself to the location of the supposed Atlantis, wondering if she needed to text Dr. Oliver and ask to meet up with him sooner rather than later. He had been a part of numerous teams while being a Ranger, he would definitely have the experience to help her.

“This is so sweet,” Ronny said from the cockpit. “I can’t wait to turn off that autopilot.”

“Why wait?” she heard Will ask, the familiar smirk in his voice. “Let’s see what this puppy can do.”

“That is not going to happen,” Julie called from her belted position in the crew cab with the others.

“Yeah, no way,” Ronny added. “Andrew said stick to the flight plan.”

The Black Ranger scoffed. “I’m not used to people tell me ‘no.’”

“You and every other man,” Julie mumbled. Rose overheard and held in a laugh.

“Well, get used to it,” Ronny added. “No.”

Julie sighed, hoping that that was the end of it and turned back to join in the conversation that Rose, Mack, and Dax were having about the usefulness of college (Justin still thought she should go, after all), when she was immediately thrown back into her seat from the force of the SHARC speeding up.

“Will!” she heard Ronny shout.

He let out a loud whoop. “We are now free to fly around the world!”

“Deviating from flight plan,” the automatic voice that ran the workings of the SHARC said.

Julie let out a growl of frustration, wondering if she’d be able to stand up to teleport if she unstrapped herself just so she could grab Will and tie him up in the back.

“Oh, this is such a bad idea,” she heard Ronny yell.

“Will, I swear to Dino Jesus if you mess this up-“ Julie started, but was cut off from the boy’s exuberant yell.

Yeah. She really needed to talk to Dr. O.

The SHARC itself started to rock side to side and Julie held on tightly, trying to keep her wits about her just in case something happened and it started to go down. She was thinking on the emergency plans that she and Hartford had endlessly hammered out, trying to figure out how long it would take for her to teleport everyone out individually.

“Where’d this storm come from?” Will asked, holding tightly to his seat.

“Hang on back there!” Ronny called to them.

“Do we have a choice?” Dax yelled back.

Julie held on as tight as she could, doing her best to check on the others even though she could barely hold her head up from the G-force. She vaguely heard Ronny say something before the ship completely evened out and they came to a short stop on the ground.

“Never. Again,” Julie said, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.

The six of them piled out of the SHARC, trying to regain their balance from their disastrous trip. Julie herself, even though she was a lot shorter than him, helped Dax hold himself up because he couldn’t stop stumbling.

“Just a little… dizzy,” the Blue Ranger said as he leaned almost all of his bodyweight on her. She straightened up, allowing him to slowly stand on his own again.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Feeling better?”

“A lot, yeah,” he replied, eventually standing on his own. She waited a couple of seconds as he continued to wobble, ready to catch him if he started falling, but Dax managed to straighten himself out.

Julie sighed in relief before looking to the others. Rose and Ronny were helping each other across the sands while Mack seemed perfectly fine, if a little confused. Will, on the other hand, was holding onto his Tracker.

“Spencer, send the Zords,” he said into it.

Dax ambled up to him and clapped him, roughly, on the shoulder. Julie thought a punch would have been better, but what did she know? “Next time you want to take a detour, you might want to tell the rest of us,” he said.

Julie sat in the seat of her Zord, patiently waiting to see what was going to get stirred up as Will and Ronny joined Rose in her submarine Zord to check out the ruins.

Dax and Mack weren’t too happy about being left out of the water, but neither had wanted to argue with Ronny or Will, so it was an easy choice in the end.

“Be careful guys,” Mack said, engaging his live feed from the cockpit of his own Zord. Julie did the same. “Those ruins are over 10,000 years old.”

“You don’t want to upset Neptune, the God of the sea,” Dax added.

“Or anyone else, for that matter,” Ronny said, blocking the live feed of the inside of the Zord with her helmet as she got close to Will.

He pushed her down and out of the way before scoffing, “Puh-lease. I don’t believe in myths.”

“Then don’t upset me,” Julie added. “Because, I swear, I will end you. Will, let Rose handle it. She knows her Zord better than you.”

“But I-“

“No,” she said, firmly.

She heard him sigh as Mack spoke up again, bringing them back to the cause at hand.

“Remember guys, you’re looking for the Great Temple. The jewel should be inside,” he said.

Julie turned her live feed to that of the outside of the ship as she watched the claws attached to the Zord lift a giant rock and move it out of the way, revealing an opening that looked like it could belong to a ‘Great Temple.’

“Will, take Ronny with you,” Julie said over the comms. “No buts – it’s just in case. We don’t know what’s in there.”

“Right,” Ronny answered for the two of them.

Julie watched with bated breath as the two Rangers got ready and exited the ship, swimming into the unknown.

“Conner would have hated this,” she said, holding in a laugh. “He couldn’t swim at all. We had to go to Mesogog’s island once and he freaked out thinking he’d have to swim there.”

“Conner was your Red, right?” Dax asked. “And Mesogog was-“

“Our Moltor and Flurious, kind of,” she finished. “He wanted to turn the world back to the environment it was in prehistoric times and turn everyone into dinosaurs. It was so weird.”

“I hope everything’s going okay,” Rose said. “They’ve been awfully quiet.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised we haven’t heard Ronny yell at him,” Julie added.

“Oh no. I think they’re in trouble,” Mack said as the ground started to shake. Julie quickly turned her feed back to that of Rose who was staring in horror at the sight in front of her and the White Ranger flipped her own camera back around to see the underwater statue start to raise.

“This isn’t good!” Julie said.

“The whole place is starting to rise up!” Dax noted.

“Get me out of here!” Rose said, her voice sounding scared.

Julie sat Dax from his live feed push a few buttons and she looked up out of her own cockpit for the first time to see his hovercraft Zord release ropes that, apparently, latched onto Rose’s Zord and slowly pulled her out of the water as the giant statue started to crest, creating a pathway to an island.

“Mack-“

“I’m going in,” the Red Ranger said, interrupting Julie. She sighed.

“Right behind you,” she said as she revved her Zord and drove after his giant Zord as it carefully navigated the twisting path as it rose higher and higher.

Mack drove through the same opening that Will and Ronny must have swam through, judging by the symbols from the outside that matched what she remembered of the underwater footage. She kept a safe distance behind the Dump Driver, which was good as Mack suddenly spun around to use the arms on the back to bust through a wall.

Julie’s Zord skidded to a stop as she watched the arms of Mack’s Zord tear apart two mechanical arms that were holding the other Rangers hostage. The rock walls around her started to shake.

“We have to get out of here. Now!” she called to the Red Ranger.

“I’ve got them,” he replied. She watched as the arms threw the two Rangers into the bed of his Zord and nodded before turning around and driving out.

She dodged around the falling rocks that they had stirred up and emerged in front of the Dump Driver. Julie immediately hopped off of her Zord as the bed of the dump trunk started to lift and a bunch of rocks and dirt, and the two Rangers, fell out.

“I’ve lived in some dumps, but this is ridiculous,” Ronny said as she pushed her way out.

Julie ran up to the two of them and started to move the rocks away so they could get out of the pile.

“Will, Ronny – you guys alright?” Mack asked, standing on top of one of his giant wheels.

Will scoffed. “Yeah. I had it under control.”

“Seriously?” Julie asked, scoffing herself.

“If that’s control, I’d hate to see trouble,” Dax said, tossing one of the rocks that had trapped the two of them into the air.

Will helped Ronny climb out and she fell to the ground, Julie barely managing to miss catching her as Will smoothly made his own way out. She helped the Yellow Ranger up, helping her dust off the debris.

“Oh Dax,” Will said, smugly. “I’ve been doing stuff like this for a long time.” He shouldered past the Blue Ranger, but before Julie could yell at him, he continued. “Okay, things don’t always go as expected. You have to be ready to improvise.”

“Improvise?” Ronny asked. “Is that what you call it?”

“We wouldn’t have needed to improvise if you would have just listened!” Julie exclaimed. “I know you’re used to working on your own, but this is going too far.”

Will turned, like he was going to say something back to her, but Mack stepped forward and held out his arm to stop him. “So, what about the jewel?”

“Well,” Rose said, speaking up for the first time. “I think we can assume the temple is booby-trapped. We should go together.”

Julie nodded at her, very sound, idea.

“Me first!” Will yelled, as he started to run towards the ruins. He shoved Julie out of the way and she almost reached out to trip him as Ronny quickly followed.

Children. All of them.

Julie joined the others in running after the Black and Yellow Rangers, looking around skeptically for anything that could possibly trigger some kind of reaction in the ancient temple. The temple itself was amazing. She had never been all about history, but this was something anyone could flip out over. The walls were pure stone with a lot of different engravings that she knew people would pay big money to study to connect to the ancient civilization that may or may not be Atlantis.

Hopefully it would still be standing when they were done.

“Wait up guys!” Mack called as he climbed to the top of a stone stairwell, closely followed by both Dax and Rose. Julie, trailing behind, eventually caught up to see that the two Rangers who ran in first were far ahead of them.

“This way!” Will yelled. “Over here!”

The White Ranger groaned as she picked up her pace, trying not to slip on the algae-soaked stairs as she followed after the others through a twisting, stone hallway as the ceiling got lower and lower.

“I’m going on the record to state that I don’t like this,” Julie said as she ducked, running through the small cave.

“Noted,” Mack said, from the front.

The four Rangers stopped once they got to near the end of the tunnel, unable to see Ronny or Will. Julie shook her head, frustrated at the fact that they would run off.

“Where do you think they went?” Mack asked, looking around confused.

“Maybe through there?” Rose suggested, pointing.

Julie followed her finger to see a small hole tucked away that looked like a pointed doorway, but for someone super small. The four of them looked at each other and shrugged before pushing through, carefully trying to make their way in the dim light.

She couldn’t help but gasp as they exited the door, looking around at what the small cave had led too.

It was a giant cavern, at least twenty times bigger than the Abyss of Evil in Blue Bay Harbor. The entire area was glowing a faint red because of the mass of lava that pooled at the bottom. Outside of the little doorway was a small platform that allowed a very, very long stretch of earth to form a bridge to another little platform on the other side of the cavern with ornate markings that she could see even from the other side and a glowing circle in the middle of it all.

That had to be where the jewel was.

“Ronny!” Mack yelled.

Julie jumped, looking to the bridge where both Ronny and Will had tried to cross to see the Yellow Ranger holding up the other as he dangled, the bridge having fallen out from underneath him.

“The jewel is on the other side!” the girl yelled, holding tightly to the other Ranger.

“We got it,” the Red Ranger answered, nodding at Rose as the two took off to the other side. Julie sighed before booking it after them, watching Dax stop to ask Ronny if she was okay.

Then, Julie felt the bridge start to collapse from underneath her.

“The bridge!” Dax yelled as he hurriedly caught up to the three of them. “It’s crumbling!”

She started to pick up pace, trying to keep her balance as the bridge shook and crumbled underneath them. She vaguely noticed as Will and Ronny caught up, jumping to catch up with them and almost walking on air.

“The whole bridge is giving away!” Rose cried out. “Julie, can you do something?”

“Not with this many people at once!” the White Ranger answered. “Especially not while moving!”

“Then we gotta run for it!” Mack added, picking up his pace. Julie groaned as she picked up speed, nearly throwing herself onto the end platform once they reached it.

Will and Ronny actually did have to throw themselves to make it, skidding onto the surprisingly solid platform, but they made it. She bent over and rested her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

Maybe she should have taken Mr. Hartford up on his run around the mansion grounds more often.

“That was a bit too close,” Ronny said as she slowly pushed herself up, looking behind her to see just how close to death they all were.

Julie kept one eye on the two of them as they slowly made their way away from the edge and one eye on the others as they approached the glowing light.

She honestly didn’t know how to describe it – it looked otherworldly. If she had any kind of guess, it would be like one of the Dino Eggs that had hatched into their auxiliary Zords, but she could feel the power emanating off of it.

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s definitely something,” Dax said, after taking a minute to look at it.

Julie snorted. “Thanks for the observation.”

“It’s from Neptune!” Rose said. “Dax, scan it.”

The Blue Ranger pulled his Tracker out and held it up to the thing. Julie watched as the blue, scanning light emerged as he started scanning.

“86,” he said, closing his Tracker. “That’s a high reading.”

“Grab it,” Mack instructed. Julie looked to him in concern.

“Are we sure that’s a good-“

But before Dax could actually touch it, the thing itself flew out of its little spot and flew past them, before coming to a stop over the lava pit and glowing brightly before it multiplied into about a hundred copies of the thing.

“-idea…” Julie trailed off, staring in shock at what just happened.

“This won’t be too hard,” Will said, brushing off her concern. “All I have to do is figure out which one is the real-“

“This is just like my book – ‘The Baron’s Betrayal!’” Mack exclaimed, walking closer to the edge. Julie tried to reach out to grab onto his suit as he got a little too close to the edge. “I bet it’s a chain reaction.”

Before she could say anything, even though Will certainly tried, Mack reared back and punched one of the copies and sent it flying into another – indeed setting off a chain reaction as they all started to bounce into one another and explode.

Dax jumped in front of her and Rose, trying to keep them sheltered in case something happened. When the bright lights dimmed to the normal red glow of the cavern, the Blue Ranger moved away from them.

“Okay, now that was cool,” Dax said, laughing.

“Incredibly dangerous,” Julie added. “But yeah, cool.”

She heard Will scoff. “I don’t believe it! Mack, I was figuring out what to do.”

“Sorry Will,” Mack replied, clapping the other Ranger on the shoulder. “But you’re not the only person on this team.”

“Maybe I should be!” Will yelled out. He turned around roughly and Julie didn’t realize anything was wrong until Ronny let out a scream as she tipped forward, heading straight for the lava!

“Ronny, no!” she yelled, leaning over the edge as Will leapt off after her. She watched as he managed to grab a hold of the falling girl before pulling out his Tracker and releasing the zip line, locking it to the cave stone above their head.

Julie couldn’t look away, staring worriedly as the two continued to fall before the slack in the line caught up to them and left them dangling above the pit of lava. The two of them created a pendulum motion and managed to rock themselves enough so that Ronny, even though she had almost died, could grab onto the thing that had caused this whole mess in the first place.

The two of them landed on the other side, far away from them. She could see Ronny kneeling on the ground, trying to catch her breath.

“You guys are cramping my style,” Will yelled across to them. “I’ll open the cocoon… alone.” He grabbed the thing from Ronny and started to run off.

“Mack-“ Julie started, but the Red Ranger was already ahead of her.

“You two find another way across and meet us outside,” he said to Rose and Dax. “Julie, can you-“

“Teleport? You got it,” she replied quickly. The White Ranger linked their arms together and before they knew it were across, joining Ronny who was staring after Will in confusion.

The three of them demorphed as they walked back through the caves, tracing the only way that Will could have gone before they heard his frustrated grunts and the methodical noise of something hard beaten against something else.

She and Mack exchanged a look before Julie realized that this was a moment for the Red Ranger and, even if she wanted to yell at Will, she needed to let Mack handle it. She nodded him ahead and he smiled back at her before exiting through the door.

“Why’d you-“

“It’s a Red thing,” Julie said, interrupting. “They’re the leaders for a reason.”

The Yellow Ranger looked at her, confused, but nodded all the same as the two of them leaned forward to eavesdrop on the conversation.

“You can’t save the universe all by yourself,” she heard Mack say, calmly, as he walked out to join Will.

“Watch me,” she heard Will answer in return, a few seconds before he started screaming.

The two women look at each other in concern before Julie ran out, leaving Ronny inside to only see Mack as he knelt by the edge of the cliff.

She quickly ran over, leaning down and grabbing as much of Will’s arm as she could and started to try and drag him up.

“If I had a nickel for every time something like this has happened I’d have two nickels,” she said, grunting as she tried to hold the Black Ranger’s weight as he dangled over the edge. “Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.”

“Give me the cocoon!” Mack grunted. “I can pull you up!”

“No, I can do it myself,” Will replied, still dangling. Julie felt her grip start to give out and for the first time she hated that their uniform jackets were a slippery leather.

Mack groaned and readjusted his grip. “Will! Let me help you!”

She watched as Will glanced for a long second at the lava pit below before he slowly started raising the cocoon. Julie grabbed it out of his hand before Mack could, dropping it on the ground as the two them pulled the Black Ranger up from the edge.

They finally got him to the point where he could help them, using his own upper body strength to aide the process. Once he was firmly up and far away from the edge, Julie collapsed. Sitting down and resting her head on her knees.

“We’re a team,” Mack said, trying to catch his breath. “Someday, I’ll need to lean on you.”

“We all will,” Julie added. “Being a Power Ranger isn’t a free for all. I know it feels like we have all the ability to do everything ourselves, but every Ranger compliments the others in different ways. One man teams in this line of work don’t happen – the Grid won’t allow it.”

“We’re only as strong as our weakest link,” Mack said, standing up. He held out his hand for Julie who gratefully took it, using it to pull herself to her feet.

The two looked at each other briefly before turning to walk away, leaving Will leaning against a rock and clutching the cocoon while still trying to catch his breath.

“We need you,” Mack said over his shoulder. He paused for a moment, but Will said nothing in return so Mack turned and left with Julie following.

The two of them emerged from the temple and Julie immediately knew that something was wrong because Rose and the others weren’t waiting for them.

“Where do you think they are?” she asked, looking around.

Mack was silent for a moment as he, too, tried to scan the area before he pointed off to where they had landed the SHARC. “Hey, is that-“

“Trouble,” Julie finished.

The two of them nodded at each other before shouting, “Overdrive Accelerate!”

Instead of waiting for the other Ranger once she finished morphing, Julie immediately teleported into the middle of a fight with what looked like Flurious and his Chillers who had taken the other three Rangers by surprise.

Instantly, she was surrounded by at least ten of the foot soldiers, all starting to swing at her with their different weapons. Julie ducked the blow of one before grabbing onto its shoulder and swinging it around, using it to block another blow. She let that one drop before she punched out with one hand and pulled out her blaster.

“Sword mode!” she yelled as part of the gun folded out into a small hand sword.

She fought back quickly, slicing the sword around and slowly moving through the monsters. She ducked one’s hammer swing and kicked out, knocking out its knees as it fell backwards before she had to jump up to avoid a lower strike from another one. Julie did the splits in midair, coming down on the heads of two of the monsters before using her falling momentum to quickly spin, slicing at another one.

“Will!” she heard Ronny shout.

Julie looked up from her fight to see Will, morphed and armed with the sword, standing on a nearby cliffside with the dust of a shattered Chiller blowing in the air around him.

“You came back!” Dax shouted.

“Now that’s teamwork,” Rose added.

Will didn’t say anything as he jumped down to join them in the fight, immediately moving through the monsters with his backwards hand grip on his sword.

“Flurious!” Mack yelled, grabbing the monster’s attention. “Is that all you got?”

“Give me the jewel!” the icy man yelled, holding out his hand and sending a beam of light at the giant statue.

Julie tried to hold her balance as the ground underneath them began to shake and the statue started to rise higher and higher.

“Rise and defeat the Power Rangers!”

The now-mobile statue stood taller than thirty stories, easily one of the biggest monsters that Julie had ever faced. She watched in shocked horror as it clapped its monstrous rock hands together, sending bits flying off and onto the ground around it.

“Any ideas?” Dax asked, holding onto a boulder to keep steady as the aftershocks continued to shake the ground.

“I have one,” Julie said, turning to Mack who nodded at her in return.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s Zord time.”

Julie pulled out her Tracker and flipped it to the Zord setting, pushing the button to summon her Cycle Driver.

She watched as the combined carrier form of the Gyro Driver and the Dump Driver rode up onto the beach closer to them. The Gyro Driver pulled away first and started flying, revealing the compacted form of the Speed Driver and the Cycle Driver that untangled themselves from each other. The Dozer Driver and the Sub Driver rolled out of the back of the lifted Dump Driver the same way.

Julie jumped into the cockpit of her Zord, the smallest of all of the DriveMax Zords, and locked her Tracker into place.

“Rev ‘em up!” they all shouted, once they were all fully locked in.

The White Ranger reached over to her Tracker and spun the Overdrive logo at the bottom, shouting “Fire!” in unison with the others as she pushed on the gas.

The wall of Zords started to move slowly forward, firing lasers towards the giant stone statue. Julie tried not to feel overly optimistic as their hits connected, knocking it unsteady.

“You guys take the lead,” Will said over the comms.

“Now’s not the time, Spy Kid,” Julie replied, rolling her eyes.

“It’s got to be a team effort, Will,” Ronny added.

“All for one, one for all,” Dax said, and Julie could hear the smirk in his voice.

Rose cheered. “Okay, let’s do it!”

“Let’s finish this, Rangers,” Mack commanded.

“You got it!”

“Dig this!” Ronny shouted as she drove her Dozer Driver closer to the giant statue, the large scoop on the front of her Zord digging underneath the statue’s foot and lifting, knocking it unsteady.

“Firing rockets,” Julie and Will said, in unison as they pulled up closer. The front of Will’s Speed Driver opened up and revealed the weaponry while the sides of Julie’s Cycle Driver opened up like wings and did the same, two missile launchers on each side.

She pushed the ignite button and watched through the windshield as their rockets made contact and knocked the giant onto it’s back.

“Nice work, guys,” Mack said as Julie couldn’t hold in her cheering.

“It’s your turn, Mack,” Will added.

“Let’s combine!” the Red Ranger commanded.

Julie cheered again as she pushed the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 buttons on her Tracker keypad. She immediately jumped her Zord onto the back of Will’s Zord as it started climbing the sloped form of the extended Dump Driver before coming to a stop and separating into the two parts to form the crown of the Zord and the collar.

She picked up her Tracker and the suitcase that held her handlebars and felt the hatch open up underneath her that brought her down one level to the main cockpit of the Zord. Julie quickly looked around at all of the others to make sure they were all there and were okay and ready for this as she locked her handlebars into place.

“DriveMax MegaZord assemply complete,” Mack said, once all of the lights in the cockpit came to life once everyone officially locked in. “Let’s end this.”

Julie nodded. “Operation Overdrive!”

The DriveMax MegaZord stood tall, nearly the same height as the stone statue but more terrifying with it’s two weapons. She couldn’t help but wiggle in her seat in excitement.

She had missed being in a Zord.

She watched from her perch in the top middle of the cockpit as Mack opened a panel and put his Tracker in place. “Engage,” he directed, calmly. She pushed forward on the lever that would start moving the Zord.

“What should we use?” Rose asked.

“I pick the pickaxe, personally,” Julie said with a smirk.

“Pickaxe it is,” Mack added as the DriveMax MegaZord swung the large pickaxe into the ground, sending a fissure straight towards the statue.

Will cheered. “That got him! Yeah!”

Not enough, apparently, as the statue shook off the blows and marched forward. Julie couldn’t help but let out a scream as it grabbed onto the sides of the MegaZord and picked it up like it was a toy and marched it backwards.

“What now?” Dax asked, panic pressing buttons to try and regain control.

“We need more power!” Rose answered. She pushed a few buttons on her console, which gave them enough maneuverability to regain control of the MegaZord arms and started punching, knocking the statue away.

“Let’s shovel this fool,” Mack said, turning his wheel and drawing the giant shovel out.

Julie turned a dial of her own, one that would increase the depth that the shovel dug as Mack started to pound it into the dirt.

“Have a nice trip,” the Red Ranger said as he pulled on the lever that would raise the shovel and, with it, the ground that it had dug.

“See you next fall,” Julie added, smirking as she watched the statue fall backwards.

It recovered itself before it crashed into the ground, but Julie knew they were on the up and up with it. It couldn’t take much more pounding.

“Aim for his power core,” Julie instructed, turning to Rose.

The Pink Ranger nodded in return. “Right. Activating DriveMax saber combination!”

The two weapons of the DriveMax MegaZord merged together in a brilliant light show, coming together in its one-handed sword form. The MegaZord itself started to rumble as it geared up for its final attack and the White Ranger could feel her teeth start to chatter as the motion as it started to swing the sword in a large, circle motion – forming a burst of energy in the air in front of them before swinging down and releasing it towards the giant enemy.

Their strike was true, hitting the monster in the center of its chest and the power core glowed a brilliant, bright blue color as it was destroyed. The monster fell to its knees, sparking dangerously, before it collapsed on its face and went up in a fiery explosion once and for all.

Julie couldn’t help but join the other Rangers in pure, unadulterated laughter as they walked back into the Command Center, all of them close and celebrating after their honestly spectacular win against the monster.

“We really worked as a team, huh?” Dax asked.

“How’d it go?” Hartford asked, as he and Spencer waited for them downstairs.

“Great!” Rose said, eagerly. “We found Atlantis and brought back a cocoon. Massive sensory readings.” She motioned to Will who was holding said cocoon after all the of the issues that it had brought them.

“Fantastic!” Hartford said, glancing back and forth between them and the cocoon in the Black Rangers arms. “We’ll keep Atlantis to ourselves for its own protection. Will, any problems along the way?”

Julie tried not to look at him as he stuttered, trying to come up with an answer, but he was saved as Mack spoke first.

“We had some problems, but we sorted them out as a team,” the Red Ranger said.

She smiled up at him, glad that he was their Red Ranger and knew when he needed to stand up and speak out on behalf of them. Julie elbowed Will in the side as Mack clapped him on the shoulder.

They were alright.

“Good,” Hartford said, smiling. “Glad to hear it. Now, let’s see what you found.”

“Mind doing the honors?” Will asked, looking at Rose before handing the cocoon over to her.

“That’s what I’m here for,” the Pink Ranger said, smiling. “One powerful jewel, coming up.”

Julie leaned over her shoulder and watched as she slowly moved her hand across it before apparently finding some sort of groove that she immediately grabbed onto and pried the cocoon apart. She slowly lifted the top half and the White Ranger felt her mood immediately sink at what was inside of it.

That’s not a jewel.

“That’s not a jewel,” Dax said, upset. “What a rip-off.”

“It’s an ancient scroll,” Rose said, pulled it out. Julie went to grab it, to look, but Hartford got it first.

“The next piece of the puzzle,” the man said, staring at it wonderously.

Julie couldn’t help but smile brightly as she walked into the familiar red doors of Cyberspace, the best café in Reefside hands down. It also helped that it was owned and operated by the Dino Ranger tech specialist, Hayley, who had even let her work there at one point for some extra money.

High school seemed so long ago, now, it was weird.

She looked around the familiar space, checking to see what all was new and everything that was the same. She heard Kira’s newest song playing over the radio and grinned, having heard from the ex-Yellow Ranger that her songs played almost on a constant loop at the café.

But, she was here looking for something, someone, specific. She waved at the people she vaguely recognized before seeing the man in question sitting at the bar and talking to Hayley.

Dr. Tommy Oliver.

Julie waltzed over to the bar and slid into a seat, smiling at Hayley who’s eyes widened in recognition.

“Julie! It’s been too long!” the red head said as she reached over the counter to hug the younger girl. Julie hugged her back, tightly.

“I know! I’ll try to come by more often. I’m staying up in San Angeles now, so it’s much shorter of a trip,” she said, smiling.

Dr. O turned to her and grinned, wrapping her up in a hug before she could even say anything to the man.

“Hey Dr. O,” she said. “Thanks for meeting with me.”

“It wasn’t a hardship,” he said. “Besides, you came here. Also, you can call me Tommy. I’m not your teacher anymore.”

Julie felt her nose curl up in disgust. “Ew, no. I definitely cannot do that.”

Her mentor rolled his eyes as Hayley slid his drink across the counter to him and Julie’s favorite smoothie to her before he stood up and started walking off to a more secluded corner. She followed him wary.

“So what’s up?” he asked, once he sat down and made himself comfortable. “You said it was kind of urgent.”

“A little,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “The main issue kind of resolved itself, but I wanted to talk about something else.” She looked side to side, making sure no one was listening in. “Have you heard anything about the Power Rangers in San Angeles?”

Dr. O looked at her quizzically. He opened his mouth to say something, before he immediately shut it as he glanced down at what she was wearing and noticed there wasn’t a shred of pink on her.

“Are you-“

“Active?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at his stunned look. When she nodded he let out a large breath of air, trying to realign his thought process. “About six months ago, our… sponsor, I guess you could say, decided to try and find a crown that most only thought to exist in legends and he ended up not only finding it, but also awakening two warring brothers who had been turned into monsters. He found me a month later at the Olympics and brought me on board.”

“So you’re a Ranger again,” Dr. O said, taking it all in. “And… I’m going to assume that you’re not Pink.”

Julie shook her head. “No. The Pink Overdrive Power didn’t link well with me, but Rose – our Pink Ranger – is a perfect fit. I had to bond with a new color.”

“You stole my color,” the man said, smirking. Julie couldn’t help but laugh.

“At this point, almost everyone is stealing your color,” she replied. “But yeah. I’m the White Ranger.”

“What’d you call me for?” he asked. “Everything I’ve seen makes it seem like you guys are doing okay. Nobody’s really heard much, I’ve tried asking around. Are you the only returnee?”

She nodded. “Just me, not for lack of trying though. Mr. Hartford, err, Andrew Hartford who is the sponsor, wanted an almost completely new team. Speaking of, I’m apologizing to you. If we were as awful as these guys can be? Man, you did not deserve that.”

Dr. O let out a laugh. “Apology accepted,” he said. “But you guys weren’t all bad.”

“That’s a relief,” Julie said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost throttled our Black Ranger because he just sticks his foot in his mouth all the time.”

“Yeah, Black Rangers tend to do that,” he replied. “I mean, you have met Zach.”

The two of them laughed, drawing attention to themselves but neither really cared – too excited about catching up with an old teammate.

“I think you have it well in hand,” Dr. O said. “Your team is new, but you’ve always been level-headed and I think working on a team as a sixth is a good fit for you. Even if you stole my color. Have you told the others yet?”

And that was one of the main things she wanted to talk to him about. Should she? Kira and Ethan and Trent and gosh Conner were going to be so upset that she was asked to put on the helmet again and they weren’t, so should she tell them?

She asked her mentor that, exactly, and he just smiled at her. “I think they’d like to know, at least so they can keep track of you and make sure you’re okay. Who knows? They might be brought back into the fold too. Anything can happen.”

Julie smiled as she sipped from her smoothie, yeah, anything could happen.

“Also,” she said, speaking up after they both fell into a moment of silence. “Kat mentioned something about sonogram pictures?”

The most legendary Power Ranger of them all immediately fumbled his drink, barely avoiding spilling it onto himself and the table as Julie laughed loudly.

Chapter Text

“Okay class!” Julie called, clasping her hands around her mouth so the sound would echo in the ice rink despite the loud whirring of the lights and the laughter of her charges. “Gather ‘round!”

She couldn’t hold back her grin as the five pre-teens that she coached twice a week skated over, grumbling under their breath. Alec, who was the only boy in her little cohort, was the only one who had managed to successfully land a double today and the girls were giving him grief over it.

“You all did really well today,” she said, grinning. “Alec, you especially. I know you come to the rink on Thursdays whenever you get out of school, so I want you practicing whenever you’re here, okay? Maybe next class you’ll be able to land more than one before falling over.”

The boy, shorter than the girls, blushed sheepishly as his younger sister, Adrienne, elbowed him in the side with a joking grin.

“Now, the rest of you, keep working on your fundamentals! Practicing jumping and rotating at home, even if it’s just in your yard. If you get the movements down, it’ll easily transplant to the ice, okay?”

“Yes Miss Julie!” the group chorused.

“Can we go skate?” Kennedy, the youngest one of the group, asked, her eyes big and wide.

Julie sighed and rolled her eyes. “That’s up to your parents, kidlets. I think I see them over by the door.”

The kids bade her goodbye before skating off as quick as possible to all ask their parents if they could stay longer and hang out and Julie wondered what it would had been like to have a little group like theirs when she was a kid and just starting to skate.  She had had a girl named Anita Chen, for a bit, but even then they weren’t friends.

Then she had gotten herself blacklisted from ever competing under the North America Ice Skating Federation, so Julie honestly thought she lucked out there.

The twenty year old skated to the edge of the ice and stepped out, sliding her guards that she had left on the wall onto the blades before walking over to where her duffle bag sat on the bleachers. She was in her workout clothes and needed to change back into her Overdrive uniform because Andrew Hartford, apparently, had news about the scroll they had found.

Sighing, Julie took off her skates and replaced them with her sneakers before heading out the back exit. She took a peak around, not finding anybody behind the building next to the dumpster, before she teleported away, back to the mansion.

It felt nice, getting away for a bit.

“So, I’ve ran every kind of test I can think of and I don’t think that the scroll with explode when we open it,” Rose said later that day once all of the Rangers (and Hartford) gathered in their Command Center underneath the mansion.

“That’s… not as reassuring as you think it is,” Julie said, looking at the scroll that Hartford held like it was a bomb waiting to explode.

“So, what do you think is inside the scroll?” Hartford asked her, fiddling with the ribbon that held it together.

Ronny laughed. “Only one way to find out! Pop that puppy open.”

“And hope it doesn’t pop us open in return,” Dax muttered to her. Julie snorted and elbowed the Blue Ranger in the side.

The doors to the Command Center opened and Will ran in, celebrating, followed by Spencer who had his usual resigned face on,right as Hartford started to unroll the scroll. “Man, you guys have got to check out the Hovertech Cycle. Spencer is hooking me up.”

“Yes,” the butler said, standing close to Will to make sure he didn’t get any ideas. “And you will be hooked up when it’s good and ready.”

“Anyone know what this is?” Hartford asked, interrupting the two.

Julie shook herself away from the conversation and turned to look at the scroll that now lay open on the table. The little plants that made it up were tightly bound together and, enscribed on it in black ink, was an oriental type design that she couldn’t make heads or tails of.

“Helicopter,” Ronny suggested.

“A helicopter?” Will asked, confused.

“I think this scroll is older than helicopters, Ron,” Julie said. She reached out to grab it, trying to get a closer look, but Hartford pulled it away from her and she resisted the urge to slap his hands like he was a small child.

They all started arguing over each other, trying to decipher it. Julie joined in, arguing that, no Mack it wasn’t a Gundam, again, those things didn’t exist when the scroll was made, before Rose whistled shrilly and got them to quieten down.

The group instantly stopped arguing and Rose leaned over the table, pulling the scroll towards herself and Hartford didn’t even stop her (rude) before she started examining it herself. Julie watched as she picked up the little planks and started moving them, placing them on top of other pieces of the scroll and forming a new, familiar shape.

“Look familiar?” the Pink Ranger asked, smugly.

“It’s a sword!” Ronny yelled.

“It’s Neptune’s sword,” Hartford said. Julie leaned in closer, but she had always been more about the esoteric knowledge and not the historical knowledge. Being around modern dinosaurs really beat that out of you. “That’s… about all I know about it. I’m going to have to do some more research. Unless…” he trailed off and the group all looked to Rose, who seemed flustered.

“What makes you think I know any – okay,” Julie grinned at her successor who was getting used to owning her knowledge and she loved to see it. “The Sword of Neptune belong to the God of the sea, and it’s actually made up of three scrolls, not just this one.”

“So, we have to find more?” Julie asked. “It was hard enough just getting this one.”

“It’s like a treasure hunt!” Mack said. “Come on, where can we start looking?”

Hartford crossed his arms and looked from the one scroll they had to Rose, back and forth a couple of times before finally answering. “That, I’ll have to get back to you on. Rose, stay and help me research. Julie, reach out to your network and see if they’ve heard anything about Neptune’s scrolls.”

The White Ranger nodded as they all started to split up, pulling out her phone as she started to climb the stairs.

She didn’t have any idea, but she knew who probably would.

Julie teleported to a modest, two-story house that was just outside of Blue Bay Harbor. The front yard was entirely nondescript, but she could see the large banners that hung from the rafters of the porch and the emblems of both the Wind Ninja Academy and the Thunder Ninja Academy.

The screen door to the house slammed open and a voice rang out, “Hey! Get off the lawn! We don’t want any.”

“I’m not here to talk to you anyway, jerk!” Julie called back with a grin, refusing to be cowed by the tall, blonde man that stood barefoot on the porch.

She could see Hunter Bradley glared at her under his long fringe and she just smiled back in return, until his glare melted away and he held open his arms which she immediately ran into.

Her relationship with Hunter was definitely a weird one. He had been a part of the Power Ranger team that was directly before hers, and they even had a team up when their big bad Lothor turned three of his team evil. During that, she had saved him and his brother’s life in the Abyss of Evil and she called in the favor that he owed her to pretend to date her to make Connor jealous.

It definitely didn’t work, but she ended up getting him together with his husband – also an ex-Power Ranger – Cameron Watanabe.

“Good to see you, Jules,” Hunter said, squeezing her tightly. “Why didn’t you let us know you’d be by?”

“I tried to get in touch with Cam, but he’s not answering his phone,” she replied, pulling away.

The ex-Crimson Ranger rolled his eyes. “Of course you’d go to him first.” She stuck her tongue out at him and he moved to grab it, but she managed to pull it back into her mouth just in time. “He’s been busy at the Academy. Kanoi has been having him take more of a leadership role since he’s getting on in years.”

“Sensei Kanoi? Retire?” Julie asked skeptically. “That man did his job when he was a guinea pig, I doubt age would stop him.”

Hunter laughed. “You’d be right about that, but Cam and Cyber Cam have been ganging up on him to step back and take it easy.”

“Now that I can definitely see,” she replied.

He led her into the house and she couldn’t help but grin at all of the pictures that hung on the walls next to the many different types of art. The house was very homey, a perfect representation of the couple that lived there.

“So what brings you by?” the ex-Ranger asked as he handed her a cup of coffee. “Our monthly movie night isn’t for another couple of weeks.”

“Work stuff,” Julie replied. “Colorful work stuff, if you can believe it.”

She held tightly onto her coffee mug with both hands as Hunter stared at her from across the table, his jaw dropped.

“You’re back?” he asked.

The White Ranger nodded. “You betcha. The new team out of San Angeles?”

“Under Andrew Hartford, right?” he asked. It was her turn to look confused. “The Thunder Academy had words with him after he tried to break into our training mountain once. Nice guy, but no sense of boundaries.”

Julie snorted. “You’d definitely be right about that. We head the team together – he recruited me right after the Olympics and we hand-picked the team.”

“And how’s that going?” he asked, taking a sip.

She shrugged. “As well as it can be, for now anyway. They’re all still very fresh and sometimes they get a little too hopped up on their own egos, but they’re kids and its not like we all didn’t do the same thing.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Julie turned, quickly, at the new voice and squealed as she stood up before running and throwing herself at the other occupant of the house who hugged her back just as tightly.

Her friendship with Cameron Watanabe wasn’t something that she ever expected, but it fell together naturally once the two Rangers got together.

“What, no greeting for me?” Hunter asked, pouting from the table.

Cam unraveled himself from their hug and walked over to his husband and kissed him solidly on the lips. “Hello dear, how was your day?”

“Great until this hooligan showed up,” Hunter replied, smiling. “She’s a Ranger again, can you believe it?”

“Seriously Jules?” the ex-Samurai Ranger asked, turning to her.

She just shrugged in response. “You can take the girl out of the Morphing Grid but you can’t take the Morphing Grid out of the girl. But, speaking of that, I need some info if you have it.”

Cameron stared at her with one raised eyebrow as he stole a sip of his husband’s coffee and sat down. Hunter whined before he stood up and made himself another one.

“How can I help?” he asked.

“So we found this scroll while trying to find a jewel for the Corona Aurora,” Julie started. “It’s apparently one third of a set of scrolls that are, I believe, supposed to lead to the Sword of Neptune? We’re trying to figure out where the other two could be and, well, you guys are my scroll experts.”

Hunter laughed. “The Corona Aurora? Seriously? Julie, that things not real. It’s just a myth.”

“Okay and?” she asked. “Weirder things have definitely happened.”

“I… honestly can’t say that I’ve heard much about them,” Cam said. “Hunter’s right, its mainly just been myths and rumors. I know Tori plays a game with her Water Ninjas similar to a scavenger hunt with the mystical Sword of Neptune, but its never been alluded to being a real thing.” He was silent for a moment. “Are you saying…”

“That it, and the Corona, are real?” she asked. She pulled out her phone and pulled up the picture that she had taken of the scroll before she had left, knowing that she would need it. “This is what we found. Rose, our Pink Ranger, assembled it into the sword shape. Before that it was just a bunch of random lines.”

Cam took the phone from her and studied it while Hunter leaned over his shoulder. She sat, silently, while they looked, but the two came up empty handed.

“Sorry Julie,” Cam said. “I’m afraid that we’re no help.”

“Besides, did you say Pink Ranger as in you aren’t Pink anymore?” Hunter asked, leaning onto the table.

Julie smiled as she rolled her eyes before jumping into the whole story.

She loved her friends.

After her, entirely unhelpful but still nice, trip to visit her two favorite Ninja Rangers, Julie headed back to the Command Center to see if anyone else had had any luck.

Sadly, she had come in to see Rose, Hartford, Will staring at the monitor.

“Any luck?” she asked, coming up to stand beside them.

“Not here,” Hartford replied. “Did you-“

The White Ranger sighed. “Unfortunately no. The Neptunian Scrolls had always been rumors at the Ninja Academies so they never really took them seriously. I have Cam reaching out to a few others, but as of right now we’re at a dead end.”

“Wait, I’m sorry,” Will said, stepping back and holding his hands up. “Did you say ninja academies? As in plural?”

Julie laughed. “Of course? The Wind and Thunder Ninja Academies are outside of Blue Bay Harbor. They’re good people and great Rangers.”

Before she could continue, a couple of grunts came from the fire poles that led straight from the mansion into the Command Center that Julie refused to take out of principle, as Mack and Ronny entered the room.

“Found the two missing scrolls?” the Red Ranger asked as the two walked over to the group.

“Not yet,” Hartford said with a sigh. “We’re working on it though.”

“Yeah, Julie, here, was just telling us about actual ninjas-“ Will started, before being interrupted by a giggling Rose.

“Anyone seen Dax?” she asked.

Julie looked at her, confused, before another grunt quickly rang out through the room as the man himself misjudged his landing while sliding down the pole and crashed to the ground.

Which was exactly why she never used them.

“You’re supposed to use the pole,” Ronny teased lightheartedly.

Dax used said pole to pull himself to his feet. “Sorry, uh, I was thinking about someone and I forgot to use the pole”

“Forgot?” Julie asked, her eyebrows raised. He didn’t dignify her with a response and instead walked over to the group, rubbing his backside that definitely hurt after the fall.

“Any luck researching more info on the Sword of Neptune?” Rose asked.

Dax started stuttering. “No, I, uh – was I supposed to do research?” he asked, confused.

Julie and Hartford exchanged looks.

“Are you alright Dax?” Mack asked. “It seems like your mind’s been a little… preoccupied lately.”

Will chuckled as Dax, instead, pulled out a burger from somewhere and started eating. “It’s love. I’ve seen it happen before. A woman’s got him under a spell.”

Julie snorted a laugh into her hand before she turned away, trying not to crack up in front of them.

“No way!” the Blue Ranger argued. “I’m not under any spell.”

“Yeah,” Ronny jeered, motioning to his burger that he had actually bitten into the shape of a heart. “We can see that.”

He immediately started shoving the burger into his face to get rid of the evidence while Spencer descended the stairs to the Command Center hurriedly, like a normal person.

Honestly, who still used fire poles anymore anyway?

“Sir, while returning from the mechanic’s lab, I received this email,” the man said, handing a sidekick to Hartford.

Julie tried to stand on her tiptoes and lean over the butler’s shoulders, but even with the added height she was still too short and she motioned for Mack to use his stupid height and do it for it.

“Is it about my Hovertech cycle?” Will asked, stepping forward to try and take the device.

Spencer sighed. “The words ‘Patience is a Virtue’ are lost on your generation,” he said.

“It seems the other two scrolls were in the International Museum of Antiquities,” Hartford explained after quickly skimming the email.

“Were?” Rose asked.

“About two years ago they were believed to be stolen by Lady Penelope Easterbook-Smythe,” Hartford answered, stressed.

“Who?” Julie couldn’t help but ask, confused.

“The Gray Manx?” Will chimed. “Her heists are legendary. I’ve tried for years to recover artifacts she ‘allegedly’ stole from museums. I’ve never been able to catch her with a thing.”

Julie looked at him, gobsmacked, at his explanation.

“If she’s such a famous thief that everybody apparently knows, why has no one, I don’t know, arrested her?” the White Ranger asked.

“They can’t exactly prove that she took anything,” Hartford explained. “It’s all just speculation. She’s really good at what she does.”

“Well, then where would someone like her keep these scrolls?” Rose asked.

“I imagine that, like most ladies, she would keep her most precious possessions close to her,” Spencer said. “I… actually believe that she lives close by.”

The six Rangers looked at each other excitedly as Mack commanded, “Let’s go!” and they started to run out.

Then, the phone signal started to beep.

“Master Dax?” Spencer said. “Your young lady, again.”

Julie turned to see that the screen had turned into a video call with the current object of Dax's affection that she was starting to get increasingly familiar with because she had been around so much in the past week. She was definitely pretty, with brown hair and a nice smile. Definitely the Blue Ranger’s type.

“Third time this week,” Will said, rubbing his hands together. “It’s getting serious.”

Julie laughed and shoved the Black Ranger who shoved her right back.

“Guys, we have to go,” Mack insisted, stepping between the two and holding them apart. “Dax, you can talk to her later.” He turned and started to lead the way out but Julie hung back and watched as Dax hesitated, briefly.

“Of course I can,” he said, psyching himself up as he turned around. “We’ve got work to do.”

“You know it, buddy,” Julie said, reaching up and slinging an arm around his shoulder. “Now let’s go plan a heist!”

But he pulled out from in under her arm. “Guys, I’ll uh… Just be a couple of minutes.”

Julie rolled her eyes as Dax turned to walk back to the video call.

Men were all the same.

“So, uh… Have we thought about just leaving him?” Julie asked after looking at her watch for the eighth time to see that thirty minutes had passed and Dax still hadn’t joined them at Lady Penelope’s house.

“Yeah, I’m about to give up too,” Rose replied from inside of the Overdrive Jeep.

Mack laughed and smacked the door of the Jeep. “Nah, he’ll be here. He said a couple of minutes.”

“It’s been ‘a couple of minutes’,” Julie replied, mocking his voice jokingly. “At least fifteen times.”

The Red Ranger was stopped from replying by the revving of an engine as their missing Ranger rode up on one of the ATVs.

“Surprise surprise,” Ronny said as she stepped out of the Jeep, a bright, joking grin on her face as they all watched Dax take off his helmet once the vehicle came to a complete stop. “We didn’t think you were going to make it.”

“I even thought you were going to do something dumb like bring her along,” Mack retorted, his hands on his hips.

Julie couldn’t help but snort a laugh as she turned to Rose and both of the girls rolled their eyes.

“Hey, come on guys,” Dax said with an anxious laugh. “I thought you knew me better than that.” Julie stared at him with a raised eyebrow before he sighed. “I dropped her off around the corner, but I told her to stay there!”

“Seriously Dax?” Julie asked, frustrated. “Why would you think-“

“Guys, focus,” Rose said, interrupting her spiel. “Will’s not out yet.”

The White Ranger sighed and leaned back up against the Jeep, not liking the whole ‘waiting’ aspect that came with having a bigger team. When it was just her, Connor, Ethan, and Kira they had had to do everything themselves so there was always something going on.

Having a bigger team was great in a fight, but between fights? She had gotten a lot better at Sudoku.

“You guys waiting for someone?”

She couldn’t help but jump as Will’s voice sounded directly next to her as he apparently magically appeared.

“How did you…” Ronny started, but the Black Ranger just waved one of the many little spy devices that the boy had brought from his job to the team.

“Ta-da!” he cheered, pulling open his jacket to reveal two ancient looking scrolls with different colored ribbons attached to his waist. “The Sword of Neptune volumes two and three.”

Julie cheered, excited that it didn’t take nearly as long as she thought it would.

“Freeze!” a voice shouted.

The Rangers turned at once to see two of Lady Penelope’s guards staring them down, looking as imposing as anyone possibly could.

This wasn’t going to be pretty.

“There’s six of us and two of them,” Dax said, looking back and forth between the two groups. “We’re Power Rangers! Let’s do something.”

He started to bounce, like he was about to attack, but Julie reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down as one of the guards started to walk between them and up to Will who still had the scrolls in his belt.

“Hand it over,” he said. “You took something that didn’t belong to you.”

She watched with baited breath as Will and Mack exchanged a look before the Red Ranger nodded and Will, reluctantly, handed the scrolls to the man.

“You obviously don’t know who we work for,” Mack said.

“Evidently, you don’t know who we work for,” the guard replied.

“They work for me.”

Julie’s head jerked, again, to the new voice wondering if that was ever going to stop as an older, heavyset woman wearing a lot of jewelry and a lot of blue eyeshadow walked up.

“Lady Penelope, I-“ one of the guards started, but she just waved her hand and shushed him.

“Enough,” the woman, Lady Penelope, said. “I’ll take the scrolls.” The guard quickly handed them to her and she didn’t even bother making  eye contact with them as she dismissed them, the two guards all but running away.

Leaving them with her, the woman who’s mansion that had literally broken in to.

This wasn’t going to be good.

Julie gripped tightly to her Tracker as the group stood in silence for a confused moment before Lady Penelope said, “Time to end your suffering.”

She and Rose exchanged panicked looks, the oldest of the Rangers dropping into a fighting stance. She had never fought an elderly person before, but it looked like she was about to. The others quickly followed her example.

“Box an old lady, would we?” she asked, still standing as prim and proper as ever with her handbag delicately draped over her wrist. “Then let’s do it.” She dropped into a fighting stance, with her fists out in front of her and Julie panicked, briefly, before the old woman started to laugh, doubling over with the force of it.

“Is she… okay?” Julie asked, quietly. She saw Ronny shrug out of the corner of her eyes as Lady Penelope grabbed a flap of skin on her neck and started to rip before a full, lifelike face mask was peeled off revealing Spencer!

“Spencer!” Mack yelled.

“How many of those do you have?” Julie asked, shocked and, kind of, horrified as she thought about the construction worker from a week or so ago.

Instead of answering her, Spencer replied, “Better get these back to the mansion.” He pulled the scrolls out of his handbag and handed them to Will who still didn’t really know what was going on.

“But… Spencer-“ Rose started, her voice filled with joy. She was smiling so large that she couldn’t even get the words out before the butler interrupted her.

“The disguise! Mr. Hartford thought you might need a little help,” Julie ran both of her hands down her face, stressed, but honestly couldn’t come up with a rebuttal. “Now, you get back with those scrolls. I’ll only slow you down.” He waved them goodbye and turned around before tottering off in the sensible heels that he was wearing for his Lady Penelope disguise, barely managing to stand upright as the group of Ranger laughed at his retreating form.

The group quickly loaded themselves up in their guard vehicles – Dax on his ATV, Will and Ronny on their motorcycles, and Mack, Rose and Julie in the Jeep itself. The White Ranger quickly buckled her legs into her spot as she held onto the top bar to keep a look a out.

“Guys! Watch out!” she shouted as she caught a glimpse of shiny metal from the top of a metal staircase. Mack managed to swerve the Jeep just in time as she gripped tighter, trying to stay standing, as a blast shot off and landed behind them – demolishing the shipping crates of the warehouse they had decided to drive through as a short cut.

Each vehicle skidded to a stop and the Ranges wasted no time in running out, ready to meet whatever enemy was facing them.

Julie, honestly, had no idea what the monster even was. She could tell that it had a chain dangling from, what she supposed, it’s head. It wouldn’t look out of place in a mechanic’s shop, even though it had bright blue lines decorating it.

“Give me the scrolls!” the monster yelled.

“Afraid not, Metal Head,” Mack called back. “Let’s lock him up! Ready?”

“Ready!” the others replied, pulling their Trackers out.

“Overdrive Accelerate!”

The newly morphed Rangers wasted no time before running towards the monster that started running at them in return. Mack reached him first, jumping up to do a double kick but the monster ducked and ran underneath him.

Will ran past and tried to get in a punch, but it just dodged. Julie attempted next, teleporting behind it and trying to swipe its legs out from in under it, but he jumped up just in time to avoid both her and Dax’s attack. Rose and Ronny tried to jump kick it as well, but it just moved out of the way.

“He’s a little slippery, huh?” Julie asked Mack who just shook his head and ran back into the fight.

The Rangers did what they could in the fight. Sometimes landing hits, sometimes not. Whenever one pair would start to tire, another would jump in and try to do as much damage as possible before they had to tap out as well.

It wasn’t until the monster actually started attacking them instead of defending did it start to go wrong. Dax was thrown head over heels, quickly followed by Will who landed in a group of barrels containing something that Julie didn’t even want to think about.

The monster fired a green laser at the other girls, sending both Rose and Ronny flying until they landed harshly on the ground.

Julie grimaced as she pulled out her sword and ran forward, trying to remember all of the lessons from Dr. O that she could, but the monster deflected all of her blows with his canon arm before it locked her sword in place and used that momentum to throw her into another set of barrels.

“This is getting old,” she muttered to herself as she pushed herself up, trying to get back into the fight.

She watched as the monster yelled something at Dax before firing another blast at him, exploding an old car that was behind the Blue Ranger and sending him flying forward from the strength of the blast.

The White Ranger quickly ran over to the others as Dax recovered, ready to take the fire off of her teammate so he could actually stand up, but right as she got there the monster fired another blast that tossed them into air. Julie felt weightless, for a moment, before she fell face first into the ground.

This wasn’t good.

“Hey!” she dimly heard Dax call.

Julie looked up from the ground as she tried to push herself to her feet to see the Blue Ranger holding his sword, ready to attack, before a girl ran up and yelled his name.

“Dax!” she screamed. “Be careful!”

What in Dino Jesus’ name was Mira doing here?!

“I thought he left her back at the mansion!” Julie complained, loudly, as she ran over and helped Ronny to her feet.

“I thought he did too,” the Yellow Ranger replied.

Dax yelled something at Mira, telling her to get back, but instead of being able to run the monster quickly grabbed her.

“Toss me the scrolls if you want to save her!” the monster yelled, holding out one hand while he kept a tight grip on the girl.

Julie looked on in horror as she watched the inner turmoil the Blue Ranger faced. Rose reached out and grabbed onto her arm, tightly.

“We don’t have a choice,” Dax said. “Will, give me those scrolls.”

What?

“What?” the Black Ranger asked, confused. He sighed, angrily as he ran towards their teammate despite Ronny yelling after him.

Julie watched as Will handed Dax the scrolls reluctantly. She chewed on her bottom lip as Dax apologized to them before he slowly started to walk forward with the scrolls in hand.

“Hurry up!” the monster yelled. “Come on, give me that!”

She closed her eyes, briefly, as Dax placed the scrolls in its hand only for it to yell “Sucker!” and toss Mira at the Blue Ranger who just barely to catch him in time.

Julie went to run at the monster, but it disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Hartford wasn’t going to be happy about this.

After they had gotten back to the mansion and Dax informed them of what happened, with Mira by his side, Hartford and Mack had had a long talk with him about his priorities regarding being a Ranger and dating someone while being active.

Julie, firsthand, knew how hard it was. It was one of the main reasons that her and Connor had never actually started dating. They had seen the disaster that was Ethan trying to date Cassidy, and then Angela after it was all over, and the weird will-they-won’t-they between Kira and Trent and had decided to step back. Dating while being a Ranger was hard.

And poor Dax had to figure it out firsthand.

The group of Rangers (minus their Blue Ranger who was supposed to be breaking up with his girlfriend if the talk between him and the Hartford’s worked out the way it was supposed to,) however, didn’t have much of a chance to rest before the monster was back and demanding the one scroll that they already had and didn’t give up.

“Where’s Dax?” Mack asked, grabbing Will’s shoulder to grab his attention as the Black Ranger was focused fully on the monster.

“Three guesses and the first two don’t count,” he replied, jerking away angrily.

Julie sighed as she watched the monster swing its sword around menacingly. “Mira? Again? I thought you guys talked with him?”

“We did!” Mack answered. “I thought…”

“There’s still five of us!” Rose said, stepping forward. “Let’s get him.”

The other four Rangers looked at each other and nodded before jumping into the fight.

Dax or no Dax, they still had a job to do.

She vaguely heard Ronny ping Dax’s Tracker as she jumped into the fight, grabbing onto the shoulders of the monster to flip herself over it to try and attack it from behind. She got in one kick before it turned around and grabbed her leg.

“I don’t think so!” it growled in her face before it lifted her and tossed her across the parking garage roof they were fighting on top of.

Julie yelled as she flew through the air before she, inevitably, crashed into the ground. Mack made like he was going to run over to her, but she waved him off as she pushed herself to her feet.

Where was Dax?

Just as the White Ranger was about to jump back in to try and get another hit onto the monster, the unthinkable happened and a small hoard of Chillers appeared and started to run towards them. Julie veered off from her attack against the monster, knowing that it hadn’t done any good so far so why would it now, to go after the things she knew she could hit.

Foot soldiers were great warm-ups for actual fights.

The hoard broke the five Rangers up, leaving each of them to face eight or so Chillers while the monster looked on at the many fights. Julie gritted her teeth as she slammed the heel of her hand into the jaw of one of the Chillers before she ducked, avoiding the blow of another one. She spun around and swept it off its feet, barely giving it time to hit the ground before she teleported out of the way of a strike by another one.

The one that missed her barely gave any thought to her disappearance before it leaped back up and swung its pickaxe around, trying to hit her, but she pushed one of the others in its path and watched in delight as they started to attack each other. Another one reached out to grab her and she took hold of its forearm before flipping it head over heels and smashing it into the ground.

“There’s too many of them!” Will shouted from another cluster of Chillers. Julie looked around, quickly, while ducking underneath the blow of another one to see Will and Mack standing back to back.

“I have an idea!” the Red Ranger yelled.

Either the two boys were suddenly psychic and could read each other’s minds or Mack didn’t actually tell anyone his idea, because Julie heard nothing other than the sounds of the ongoing fight as Mack jumped away and Will pulled out his Tracker.

She let out a yell as one of the Chiller’s foots connected with her chest, knocking the breath out of her, as another grabbed at her arms and lifted her off the ground. Julie kicked out in an attempt to wiggle out of the hold, planting her foot in the middle of another approaching Chiller’s chest and using it as leverage to flip herself, and the main Chiller holding her, backwards.

Julie crashed roughly into the ground, but the blow of the monster falling was enough for it to slacken its grip so she was able to finally get out. She stood up, panting, and dropped into a fighting stance.

This was getting real old, real quick.

“I don’t know how much more we can take,” Ronny said, rolling to a stop next to her and quickly jumping to her feet.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Julie added. A blur of pink came flying at them and the two girls barely managed to hold their arms out to try and catch Rose as she was sent soaring towards them. “You okay?”

“As okay as I can ever be,” the Pink Ranger replied, dusting herself off.

The three female Rangers stood back to back as each of their groups of Chillers turned towards them. Julie reached out, her open hands hovering over the arms of her teammates as she prepared to teleport them out knowing full well that the three of them wouldn’t be able to take on the large horde when she started hearing the sounds of lasers firing from the ground.

“Do you think that’s-“

“Will’s Hovercycle!” Ronny said, answering Rose’s question while interrupting her.

As if called by the others, over half of their swarm ran and jumped off the side of the building to go and fight against Will and his new vehicle leaving an alarmingly small number of monsters for them to face and evening out the odds.

“Ronny, you go help Mack fight the big one,” Julie ordered. The Yellow Ranger nodded at her before immediately running, jumping into the ongoing brawl. “Rose, you and I, let’s finish these suckers.”

“You got it, boss,” the Pink Ranger replied. Julie could hear the smirk in her voice as the two moved back to back and immediately started attacking.

On the offensive was the best way that Julie knew how to play this, immediately grabbing onto the arms of two of the Chillers and thrusting them together. The two stumbled a little as they knocked heads and the White Ranger used their momentum to flip them. She quickly jumped over their prone bodies, grabbing onto the shoulders of another and using her own momentum to bring him to the ground, teleporting away before it could even fully fall.

She tried to roundhouse kick out at one, barely being phased as it blocked the kick before completing the spin and kicking out her other leg and striking it on its chin and knocking it back and away.

“How’s it going Rose?” she called over the fighting.

“Just dandy,” the other girl replied. Julie turned and watched as she jumped in the air and dropped into the splits, hitting two Chillers as she fell to the ground in a move that earnestly reminded her of Kira and she couldn’t wait to tell her old Yellow Ranger that her trusty move was still being used.

As if on cue, the Chillers they were fighting disappeared. With no time to waste, Julie ran over to the main fight just as Ronny was getting thrown across the parking lot.

Will appeared out of nowhere and kicked the monster before running and picking the Yellow Ranger up, leaving Julie to run full tilt towards the thing. She had never tried to teleport with a monster of the week, but it didn’t hurt to try.

The White Ranger reached out, trying to grab onto its arm, but it easily knocked her away as it had the entire time they had been fighting.

Julie landed on the ground and was quickly followed by the rest of her team, all coming to a stop while the monster stood a small distance away and laughed.

“I don’t know how much more we can take,” Mack groaned as he pushed his way to his feet. Julie grumbled as she followed his motions, knowing that he was right.

“He’s absorbed the power of the first two scrolls,” came a familiar voice. “Five of you could never stop him.”

Julie’s head jerked around to see what looked like Mira smugly sauntering towards them, but it didn’t look like the Mira they had known at all. She seemed taller, more imposing. Her hair was pulled back and instead of a sweater she was wearing leather and a cape.

This? This was definitely not good.

“I knew Dax was too good for her,” Ronny said, struggling to her feet.

“’Good’ being the key word there,” Julie added.

Then, as if summoned, Dax ran up to them, fully morphed. He stood in front of the group of absolutely exhausted Rangers as they tried to catch their breath. “Hey, I’m back and ready to rock,” he said, standing tall and facing down his monster of an ex-girlfriend.

“Give it up Rangers,” Mira, or whatever her name was, said. “Thanks to Dax, we now have the three scrolls.” She turned to the monster and exchanged a smirk before running off.

The monster, on the other hand, stood in front of them and fired off a large, brilliant blue laser directly at them. Julie couldn’t hold in her scream as it struck the group of them, directly.

Well, not all of them.

“Drive Vortex!” Dax shouted, barely managing to dodge out of the way. He summoned his weapon and jumped into the fight, hitting the monster directly in the chest.

“Mack, Ronny, Rose,” Julie said. “Go!”

The three nodded and pulled out their blasters, jumping and firing as one while the monster was distracted. Julie turned to Will and nodded, summoning their own blasters and firing as well.

“Let’s pick this lock’s pockets,” Mack said. “Send him back where he belongs!”

“Wait, it’s a lock?” Julie couldn’t help but ask. “How-?”

The others ignored her as they powered up their blasters and she quickly followed, forgetting herself, and locking onto the monster.

“Fire!” they all shouted, together.

The six laser beams that emerged out of their blasters were all of their own colors before they merged, fully, into a bright orange hue that struck the monster directly. Julie held her blaster aloft, still, as the monster sparked and started to explode.

Before it could fully fall apart, Julie watched as it started to grow and towered over all of them from thirty-stories high.

Of course.

“You’re no problem for me now!” it gloated, looking down at them with whatever counted as its eyes.

“Nothing a few good Zords can’t solve,” Dax said.

Julie nodded at the others as pulled out their Trackers. She pushed the number ‘6’ as Mack yelled out, “DriveMax Zords, Activate!”

“Control console drivers on their way,” Mr. Hartford said over their comms from back at the base.

Knowing they had practiced this, just in case it ever happened, Julie reached up and grabbed the suitcase that contained her handlebars as it flew through the air.

Mack was the first to move, after catching his own, jumping up and landing directly into the cockpit of his Dump Driver. The rest quickly followed, with Julie landing and locking in last.

“I’m in,” Dax said over the comms.

With that, they didn’t waste any time and quickly formed the DriveMax MegaZord – coming to stand just as tall, if not taller, than the monster itself.

The two weapons quickly combined into their sword form, the quickest and easier way to fight at the limited distance that they had, before running full tilt towards the giant monster. It, easily, retaliated and sent a huge wave of energy at them as it swiped its own sword that knocked them down to the ground.

“Did anybody get the number on that truck?” Julie asked, rubbing the back of her head from where it bounced off of her seat.

“Whoa,” Mack said. “This guy packs a wallop.”

Between the six of them, they managed to get the Zord back on its feet right as The-Person-Who-Still-May-Or-May-Not-Be-Mira raised the last scroll into the air for the monster to absorb. Julie immediately recoiled, hoping that it wouldn’t give the monster another energy boost since they couldn’t even take it now with just two of the scrolls powering it.

She watched through the cockpit as their enemy lowered the scroll and looked at it, confused, before raising it again – yelling something.

But nothing happened.

Dax started to cackle from his place in the cockpit as she called up, “Dax! You tricked me!”

“And you, me!” the Blue Ranger replied.

“Wait, what?” Will asked, turning in his seat.

But they didn’t get the time as Spencer, of all people, ran up carrying the actual third scroll of Neptune and threw it up at them.

Mack reached out, just in time, and grabbed the scroll out of the air with the arm of the MegaZord.

“Thanks again, Spencer,” Dax yelled down. Julie watched as the butler gave them two thumbs up before running off and hiding, afraid to be near the giant monster vs. robot fight.

Smart move.

“Let’s see what this baby can do with a little scroll power!” Mack said, excitedly.

All of the sensors in the MegaZord went crazy, for a second, imbued with part of the mystical power of the scrolls of the Sword of Neptune, before evening out and Julie could tell that it gave them the power that they needed to fight the monster.

That was currently funning directly at them, brandishing its sword in the air.

As easily as anything, the MegaZord slashed down with its sword and, not only knocked the monster’s sword out of its hand, but split the sword into the two remaining scrolls and leaving the monster weaponless.

“Three scrolls, no waiting,” Dax said, once he saw that Spencer had caught them. “That’s service with a smile.”

Julie couldn’t hold in her joyous laugh, reaching back and fist-bumping the Blue Ranger.

Without needing to be told, Mack initiated the finishing move – swinging their sword in a circle and sending the burst of energy at the monster that, now weakened without the power of the two scrolls, was defenseless and easily taken care of.

Julie watched as it was finally, finally destroyed in a brilliant blaze of light.

The White Ranger fiddled with her phone as the group of Rangers walked through the mansion, Will and Dax at the lead. Mack glanced over at her, worried, but she shook him off with a smile.

“I’m sorry for doubting you, Dax,” Will said, slinging his arm around the Blue Ranger’s shoulders. “I guess we all are.”

“Hey, if it weren’t for you guys keeping my eyes open, I might never have figured it out,” Dax replied.

“What gave her away?” Ronny asked, genuinely curious. Julie looked up from the name she was hovering over in her phone to hear the answer as well.

Dax sighed. “For one, the only time I saw that monster was when she was around.”

“That’s not much to go on,” Rose chimed in.

He held up his finger, continuing. “But then she let it slip that she knew we were looking for the jewels. I never told her.” At once, the other five immediately understood. Dax, on his part, shook his head disappointed before looking at the ground. “I’m sorry, guys. I never meant to get sidetracked like that.”

“I can’t blame you,” Will said, smirking. “She was hot.” Julie slapped his arm. He hissed and grabbed at the spot. “Evil, but hot.”

“Thanks,” Dax replied, truly smiling for the first time since he discovered the whole plot even if it didn’t truly reach his eyes. “Now, let’s check out this sword.”

Julie, Will, and Dax, who each held one of the scrolls because they were too afraid to keep them all together on the way there without knowing what would happen, immediately set them down. Julie set hers, the first one, followed by Dax who set the third one.

Will handed his to Rose who slid the second scroll into the last place.

They didn’t have to wait long before the scrolls started to glow, until they transformed from normal scrolls into the actual sword itself.

But, it wasn’t perfect.

“The jewel’s gone,” Rose remarked as she picked up the sword, pointing to a spot in the hilt that was concaved as if, yes, a jewel did indeed belong there. “Now what?”

Before Julie could get any closer, just to look at it, she saw the hair on Rose’s head start to stand up as if she had touched something staticky before the sword itself started to shake and flew out of her hands and immediately imbedded itself into the map on the wall.

Will was the first one to walk towards it. “Anybody ever been to St. Lucia in the Caribbean?”

Later that night, Julie paced outside of Dax’s door, her phone clutched tightly in her hand.

She knew she needed to tell her old team, but this wasn’t how she wanted to do it, but Dax had just looked so sad at dinner even as he joked around as they made plans for their trip to the Caribbean. She didn’t know if talking to a previous Blue would help, but she had to try. Dax was the most joyful on the team, always the one to want to learn more and more about the past Rangers.

What better way than one who had had similar problems?

With one last sigh, Julie pushed the call button on her phone and watched as the screen came to life – the familiar sight of Ethan who immediately answered the video call before it even got through one ring.

“Julie! My favorite Olympian! How’s it going?” he asked, his white smile glowing in the dark of, what looked like, a lab at NASADA.

Julie smiled, even though this was going to be a defining moment of their friendship – more so than the fight they had gotten in years ago that almost ended the bond that they had shared since day one. “Ethan! I’m the only Olympian you know,” she replied. “But, I need a favor.”

“Shoot, Jules,” he said “You know I got you.”

“I need you to talk to my Blue.”

She watched as his face went slack, confused at the statement. “Your Blue? But I’m your Blue.”

“I promise I’ll explain later,” she insisted. “And it’s a super long story, but something happened and my Blue Ranger is down in the dumps about a girl he was dating turning out to be evil? And, well, Cassidy wasn’t necessarily evil, but you know all about dating as a Ranger and I figured that, coming from another Blue Ranger, it would be helpful for him to hear and-“

“Hey, calm down,” Ethan said, calmly. She could see him adjust in his chair, sitting straighter as if the full gravity of what she said fully hit him. “So, talk to your Blue? And you’ll explain, fully, with all of the details?”

Julie, her heart in her throat, could only nod.

Ehtan was quiet for a moment before his bright smile shown through again. “Put him on.”

With that, Julie knocked on Dax’s door. Almost instantly, the taller man opened it and looked down at her, confused.

“Hey Julie,” he said. “What’s-“

She thrust her phone out, screen first, as Dax looked down and saw that she was video calling someone. “I know your sad and I can’t really help you, but this is the only thing I could think to do. Dax, meet Ethan James, the Blue Dino Thunder Ranger. Ethe, this is Dax Lo, the Blue Operation Overdrive Ranger.”

“Dude, no way! I love your work!” she heard Ethan’s voice said, the speakers going in and out at the loud noise.

Dax looked up at her confused, before taking the phone. Julie smiled at him and he, reluctantly, smiled back as Ethan, always excitable Ethan, continued to ramble about all of the movies that Dax had ever been in that he liked.

He mouthed a thank you at her and she just shrugged, before he turned around and went into his room – shutting the door behind him.

She would have a lot of explaining to do to Ethan, but she knew that this was definitely the right move.