Chapter Text
It was a cool afternoon in Angel Grove, just chilly enough for coats and sweaters to feel warm, but not stuffy. Classes at the high school had just wrapped up for the day, so the Power Rangers were heading to their lockers to pick up their things. Kimberly was in the middle of a long gossip session. “But then I said, ‘I’ve seen icebergs that were hotter than you’,” she gabbed.
“Did you actually say that?” Trini was playfully appalled.
“That one had bite, Kim!” Zack agreed.
As Kimberly turned towards her locker door, she found a folded piece of paper stuffed in the vent. “What is this?” She pulled it out, opened it up, and read its contents. “Don’t ever come near the girls’ bathrooms on the third floor again. You know what you did.”
“What?” Zack took the letter. “Does it actually say that?”
“Say what?” Jason, Billy, and Tommy came over from the other side of the hallway.
“Someone put a threatening note in Kimberly’s locker,” said Trini. Zack handed Jason the paper.
The boys read over the warning. “I don’t see the logic,” mused Billy. “Why would someone want to start a turf war with you?”
Sensing an unwanted presence nearby, Jason turned to the corner where Bulk and Skull were skulking around. “Hey,” he said sternly. “Do you clowns have anything to do with this?”
“Wha- no,” denied Bulk. “Wasn’t us.”
“Yeah, wasn’t us,” parrotted Skull. He fumbled for something stuffed in his jacket. “This one was mine.” He fished out a slightly crumpled piece of lined paper and awkwardly held it out to Kimberly.
Kimberly cautiously took the paper to read. “You’ve cartwheeled into my heart, want to meet for milkshakes on Saturday?” She looked up at the two buffoons with an eyebrow raised. Skull snorted and hid his face in Bulk’s sleeve, while Bulk covered his mouth with his fist, trying not to laugh. Kimberly pursed her lips. “Yeaahh, I think I’m busy that day.”
Up in the Moon Palace, Rita stepped up onto the balcony, where she found Baboo and Squatt leaning over the railing, giggling like a pair of schoolboys looking up naughty words in the dictionary. “What are you two boobs laughing at?” She demanded to know.
“We’ve been writing scary letters to mess with the Power Rangers!” Squatt announced. “We already got Kimberly!”
“Look at ‘em squirm! They have no idea it’s us!” Baboo laughed.
RIta peered through her telescope down at Earth, where Squatt and Baboo had scattered more of their notes throughout Kimberly’s house. On the front of her bedroom door was a torn-up scrap of paper reading “Go die in a hole”. Kimberly took it and scrunched it up. But when she entered her room to throw it out, she found another note taped to the back of the door. This one was in one piece, and read “I know where you live”. Kimberly snatched this note down too, and tore it into several pieces. Tossing the scrap paper in the trash, she huffed and parked herself at her desk to do homework. But on the inside cover of her English textbook was the scariest letter of them all; a drawing of a person blown up into several pieces, and big letters reading “DEATH TO KIMBERLY THE PINK RANGER”.
Rita drew back from the telescope and laughed. “She’s terrified out of her wits! You two have actually impressed me for once!” She turned around. “Now to prepare a monster to kick those Power Geeks while they’re down!” She sashayed off to the workshop with the two blue goons trailing behind her. “Finster!” Rita burst into the room to find her monster maker with his head down on the table, dozing off. “Wake up, you lazy twit! We need a monster!”
“Huh?” Finster jumped at the sound of Rita’s voice. “Oh. My apologies, oh nasty one, I…” He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping.” Indeed, in the Moon Palace gang’s last battle against the Power Rangers, the Rangers had turned the gang’s weapons against them and infected Finster with his own virus, which was starting to take its toll on his health.
“Well?” Rita was already impatient. “What are you waiting for?”
Finster pulled a nearby clay sculpture closer to himself and picked it up to hold. “I’ve just been fixing up this older sparrow monster,” he mumbled. “He’s a nasty piece of work; he’ll do anything to see people suffer.”
“A bird?” Rita was not impressed with the figure. “How is a bird supposed to scare the Power Rangers?”
"I'm sorry, my queen," croaked Finster, "but the Soulless Sparrow will just have to do. My mind is too scattered to think of anything else." He placed the avian sculpture on the table. With a sudden sharp inhale, he gripped the edge of the table for balance while pressing his other hand against his queasy stomach.
"Maybe he should sit this one out." Baboo put one hand on Finster's back and the other on his forehead, warm underneath his headband. The frail old Terrichaun was panting without moving, shivering when he wasn't cold. "He looks like he might spew!"
"Next time you create a virus to mess with the Power Rangers, make sure there's a cure before you send it out!" Rita huffed off back to her telescope. "Brains of the group - yeah, right!"
"She's gone! Now let's get you back to bed before you get the rest of us sick!" Tugging on Finster's sleeve, Baboo led his senior back into the dormitory, where he eased him down onto his mattress, not bothering with the blankets as he was already overheated. He unhooked his patient's apron straps to take some pressure off his shoulders and propped his head up with a spellbook under the pillow. "There. If you stay put right here, no one else will catch your germs!”
"Thank you..." With a weary sigh, Finster slipped off into sleep, conserving what little energy he had left.
In the middle of the night, Kimberly could not sleep. She kept glancing at the windows and the shadows they created; tree branches looked like ominous, craggly hands. Somewhere out there, someone knew she was the Pink Ranger, and wanted her dead. Why would someone want that? What did she ever do to deserve such a thing?
She nearly jumped out of her skin when her communicator went off. She sat up and answered the call. “Hello?”
“Rangers, I am sensing tension within you.” Zordon’s voice came through. “If it is safe for you to do so, teleport to the Command Center.”
Curious about what could be happening at this hour, Kimberly got up, stuffed a pillow under her sheets as a decoy, and teleported away into the desert. The other Rangers, dressed in pyjamas, were there with her. “It is unusual that you are still awake at this hour of the night,” boomed Zordon. “Has something happened to you?”
“Someone really has it in for me,” reported Kimberly. She fished out the note from her textbook to show off. “I don’t know why. All I know is that I’m not safe.”
“She’s not alone,” said Billy. “I’ve found a few scattered papers threatening me as well.” He produced a few notes with varying messages on them, reading things like “die”, “surrender Blue Ranger”, and “I kill you scum”. After him, the other Rangers dumped a few other papers on the pile.
“This is so not cool,” huffed Kimberly. “Who is doing this? They really make me feel like no one likes me.”
“I like you!” Alpha attempted to console his friend.
“Rangers, so long as no physical threats are made, there is no cause for alarm,” announced Zordon. “These letters may seem intimidating, but they could easily be one of Rita’s schemes to make you lose confidence.”
“He’s got a point.” Jason turned to face the other Rangers. “I don’t recognize the handwriting on these. If they were from someone at school, I think I could have matched the writing.”
“Yeah, you know that big bulletin board with those sticky notes from other kids all over it?” Zack recalled. “I’ve seen that thing a hundred times; I don’t think whoever wrote these notes goes to our school.”
“Wait, then how did a letter end up in Kim’s locker?” Tommy asked.
“Like Zordon said, these notes could be Rita messing with us,” said Trini. “She’s our prime suspect. Or at least, one of her henchmen is.”
“I didn’t think any of them could write,” said Alpha.
“Look, I think right now, we just need to get a good night’s sleep,” said Jason. “In the morning, we’ll keep extra vigilant in case anyone tries to give us trouble.”
“Works for me,” said Zack, “I’m beat.”
"I wish you peace in these difficult times." Zordon gave his blessings. "May the power protect you, always." With that, the Rangers teleported back to their houses to return to bed.
In the morning, when the Power Rangers returned to school, Kimberly held her books close to her chest and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. She dressed in her most plain shirt and jeans to avoid getting any attention. When she passed by the girls’ bathroom on the third floor, she spotted Sharkie, the punkish girl who tended to hang around with the vaping kids, glaring at her from the doorway. Paranoid, Kimberly quickened her pace.
From the Moon Palace, Baboo and Squatt were laughing themselves silly. “Kimberly’s a chicken~!” Squatt mocked.
“Now that the Power Rangers are distracted, we can send our monster their way!” Rita announced. “Soulless Sparrow, go forth and show those pathetic teenagers who’s boss!”
Soulless Sparrow appeared in the streets of Angel Grove. Seeing no one around, he decided to stir up some trouble of his own. “Suck it, Angel Grove! You want a nice day? Too bad!” He turned a trash can upside down.
“What?” Rita was confused. “No! Go find the Power Rangers!”
“Hey, this is awesome!” Soulless Sparrow started knocking over road signs and beating the trees with them. “Trash is sweet!”
“For the love of Lokar! He’s just making a mess!” Rita grumbled. “The one time you goons have a good plan! FINSTER! How do you get your stupid bird to do what it's told?”
With a low groan, Finster appeared in the doorway, having traded his apron and jumpsuit for a nightshirt and robe that swallowed up his meager frame. His glasses were askew on his muzzle, awkwardly slipped on while rising from his oh-so cozy bed. “The Soulless Sparrow thrives on discontent,” he explained, clinging to the door frame for support. “If you want it to attack, you have to send it to the high school.”
“The high school? Fun!” Soulless Sparrow obeyed its command. “Here I go!”
“Excellent! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Rita turned around, only to see an empty space behind her. “Finster?”
She was met with the unpleasant sound of vomiting in the other room. “Oh, great! Wonderful!” She snarled. “Get back in bed, you ancient plague rat!”
On Earth, the Soulless Sparrow made it to Angel Grove High School, where the morning gym class was running laps around the field. “Out of the way, losers!” He hollered. “Or eat my wings!” He flapped his feathers to drum up the wind, scaring the gym students away.
From inside the school, other students were staring out the window at the chaos. “What is THAT?” They asked. “A giant bird thing?”
Picking up on the presence of a monster, Kimberly realized she needed to get out there and morph without being seen. She quietly fished the hall pass marker from the door frame and dashed off towards the bathroom; the third floor girls’ bathroom, of course. She tried to ignore her fear as she slipped inside and entered a stall. She took her shoes off and left them at the foot of a stall as a cover, so anyone who wondered where she was would assume she had been in there all along.
Unfortunately, just as she whispered her dinosaur’s name and morphed into her Ranger form, two random girls entered the bathroom and parked themselves in front of the mirrors to fix up their faces. “So are you going to Angela’s party on Saturday?”
Kimberly perched on top of the stall toilet, staying as still as possible. She had been hoping she could just morph and then sneak out through the vents, but now she was in major trouble of getting caught and having her secret identity busted. So she waited silently and awkwardly, waiting for the other girls to leave.
Elsewhere in the school, the other Rangers had been able to get outside without anyone seeing them sneak away and gather up to morph.
“DRAGONZORD!”
“MASTADON!”
“TRICERATOPS!”
“SABRETOOTH TIGER!”
“TYRANNOSAURUS!”
“Let’s chuck this pheasant under some glass!” Jason led the Rangers into battle against Soulless Sparrow and his putties. “EEYAH!”
“YAH!” Zack kicked a putty’s feet out from under it.
“You Power Rangers are nothing but a bunch of suckers!” Soulless Sparrow raised his wings. “Eat this!” He slapped Billy and Trini in the face with both arms.
Billy and Trini rolled out of the way and quickly got back up. “You’re gonna need to hit harder than that!” Trini turned a cartwheel and kicked the avian monster in the face.
“Oh yeah? Then try this!” Soulless Sparrow started flapping, blowing the school’s windows open. One unlucky classroom was unfortunate enough to have a wasp fly inside, freaking out the students.
Inside the vents, Kimberly was trying to crawl towards an exit, having escaped the bathroom. When she came near the room with the wasp, she froze as she heard voices. The wasp was trying to enter the vents, and a teacher was batting at the ceiling with a broom. “Come on,” Kimberly whispered. “Why is everything getting in my way?”
Outside, the Rangers decided to scatter to confuse Soulless Sparrow. “Come and catch me!” Zack shouted.
“No, catch me first!” Tommy yelled, running in the opposite direction.
“Hey, hold still!” Soulless Sparrow snarled. “Get them, putties!”
However, being the brainless goons that they were, the Putty Patrol had a hard time keeping up with the Rangers. They kept knocking into each other and falling down. “Oh, never mind! I’ll crush you all myself!” Soulless Sparrow raised a wing to the sky. “Yo, Rita! We need some giant magic around here!”
“Look at him, taking initiative!” Rita was delighted. “I’d be glad to help! Magic wand, make my monster GROW!” She threw her wand to the earth, and when it hit the dirt, Soulless Sparrow grew to the size of a skyscraper.
“That is one big bird!” Jason exclaimed. “We’re gonna need some Dino Zord power!”
“You got it!” Tommy pulled out his Dragon Dagger and called upon the Dragonzord.
“ROARRR!” Dragonzord came stomping onto the school field to fight Soulless Sparrow.
“I’ve got an idea!” Billy shouted as Dragonzord took on Soulless Sparrow. “If we cut off the sparrow’s feathers, he won’t be able to blow anything else away!” He gripped his Power Lance and hacked at the monster’s leg.
“Let’s go!” The other Rangers threw their weapons at Soulless Sparrow, cutting off more and more feathers.
With all the shaking from the monsters’ stomping, the students in Angel Grove High all dove under their desks for cover. Seeing her opportunity to escape without being seen, Kimberly scrambled through the vents towards the roof of the school, where she kicked the grate open and crawled out onto solid ground. “I see him!” She drew out her Power Bow. “Take this, you big bully!” She shot arrows into Soulless Sparrow’s face.
“Come on! One more shot!” Tommy clutched his Dragon Dagger close. Playing his melody, Dragonzord roared loudly and snatched Soulless Sparrow’s neck.
“We’ve got him now!” Kimberly leapt from the roof, landing gracefully alongside the other Rangers. Together, they brought their weapons together. “Power Bow!”
“Power Axe!”
“Power Daggers!”
“Power Lance!”
“Power Sword!” The Rangers all joined hands. “Power Blaster!” They shot Soulless Sparrow right in the face, making him explode into a flurry of feathers.
“That was epic!” Tommy sent Dragonzord back to sleep in the ocean. “That birdbrain had no idea what hit him!”
“You know what I learned?” Kimberly asked. “I don’t need to be afraid of lowlifes who try to get me down! I’m a Power Ranger, and I’m stronger than anyone who threatens the safety of others!”
“That’s the spirit, Kim!” Trini praised. “Let’s stick together and keep fighting the good fight!”
Late in the evening, the Moon Palace dormitory door creaked open. Baboo and Squatt poked their heads inside, watching over Finster as he slept. “You were right,” whispered Squatt, “he really doesn’t look good!”
“That’s why we came down here,” said Baboo, carrying a medical kit that had been hidden in the archives for years. “We’re going to take care of Finster until he gets better!” He crept into the room and untied Finster’s headband. In its place, he laid down a cold blue rag.
Upon feeling something cool and damp touch his fur, Finster mumbled softly and pried his eyes open. “Baboo? What are you doing here?”
“We’re looking after you, of course! Now lift your head up.” Baboo put a hand under Finster’s chin and placed a glass thermometer under his tongue.
“Boy, you’ve been sleeping all day!” Squatt exclaimed. “You must have been some tired! And hungry, too! I can hear your stomach rumbling!” He leaned on the bed, a little too close for comfort. “Hey, I think there’s still some seaweed stew leftover from dinner! That’s your favourite!”
“Hey, back off him, lunkhead!” Baboo shoved Squatt back. “You’ll get sick too!” He took the thermometer and peered at the readings through his monocle. “It’s past a hundred. Is that good or bad?”
“A temperature past one hundred degrees is a fever.” Finster pushed himself up with his elbows. “It means my body is fighting the virus. In that sense, it’s both good and bad.” He turned to Squatt. “And you, your offer is generous, but I don’t think my stomach can handle anything more than plain water right now.”
"Really? It must be bad if you don't want seaweed stew!" Baboo fished a stethoscope out of the medical kit. "Here, let me see it!" He nudged his elderly patient back down onto his back and pressed the bell of the stethoscope to his middle.
“What’s all that chatter?” Rita came storming into the dormitory. “What are you dummies doing in here?”
“Baboo found a medical kit, and now we’re taking care of Finster!” Squatt announced. “He’s in real rough shape, your evilness!”
"Even your guts sound angry!" Baboo said loudly. "You must be really sick!"
“I’ll say! That monster you gave me was useless!” Rita shouted. “Soulless Sparrow…more like Brainless Birdy!”
“I’m sorry it wasn’t to your liking, my queen,” bleated Finster, sitting up and wringing his hands, “but I’m in no condition to do any better.”
“Hey, it’s not your fault!” Baboo put a defensive arm over Finster. “So just leave him alone!”
“What did you just say to me?!” Rita was appalled that any of her henchmen would dare talk back to her.
“You can yell at me if you want, but back off Finster until he’s well enough to fight back!” Baboo insisted.
Ordinarily, Rita would have beaten her minions over the head with her wand for giving her attitude. However, it wasn’t often that the cowardly Baboo would ever stick up for himself, let alone for the same colleague he always ragged on for being old and eccentric. Finster leaned into Baboo's embrace, moaning in pain as he curled himself up to retain body heat. “Oh, no, don't cry,” said Baboo softly, holding onto the sickly Terrichaun and keeping him upright. “You're gonna be okay.”
Seeing her henchmen get along for once made Rita think twice. “Fine. I'll let you off the hook, but only because you're useless in this state!” And she disappeared from the room, probably to go yell at Goldar instead.
Baboo turned to Squatt. “Do you still have the bottle of medicine I gave you?”
“Yeah, it’s right here!” Squatt fished a brown bottle and a spoon from his satchel.
Baboo measured a proper dose. “Alright, here we go. Down the hatch.” He gave the sweet liquid to Finster, which he took with no issue.
Finster settled back into his pillows and blankets. “I hope this helps settle my stomach. It’s so hard to rest when I feel this awful.”
“Hey, it’s not so bad! You get to lie in bed and relax!” Squatt insisted.
“Don’t be all sunshine and rainbows!” Baboo argued with Squatt. “Being sick is the worst! Everything hurts and you feel like garbage!”
“Come on! It’s better than getting yelled at all day!” Squatt fought back.
“Boys, please,” croaked Finster, “that’s enough. You don’t need to shout.”
“Oh…” The two goons looked at each other. “Maybe we should give him some space.”
“Yeah, let’s get outta here.” Squatt scattered from the room.
“We’re out! Get well!” Baboo turned towards the door as well.
“Baboo.” Finster shifted to his side. “Thank you.”
Baboo stopped dead in his tracks. “Huh?”
“I’m serious.” Finster took the young Pongie’s hand in his own. “Caring for the sick is one of the kindest things you can do for another person. You’ve done very well.”
“Really?” Baboo gasped. “No one’s ever said that to me before!”
“Then let me be the first.” Finster smiled. “I’m very proud of you.”
“No one’s ever been proud of me, either!” Baboo dropped down and squeezed the old Terrichaun. “Oh, I finally have someone to believe in me!”
Finster was taken by surprise from the big, tight hug, but reciprocated and put his arms around Baboo’s blue fur. “You’re more affectionate than I thought.”
Baboo pulled back and adjusted the cloth over Finster’s forehead. “You just lie back and get some sleep, and you'll be feeling better in no time.” He gently patted his senior’s shoulder until his eyes closed, then crept out of the room and closed the door quietly.