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The email went out on a Friday night, fully encrypted under the algorithm Billy had designed for such purposes, just in case. It read:
"Hey guys. Apparently there's going to be a convention for fans of the Power Rangers next month. Panels, games, even a costume contest. How cool is that? Adam and I already booked a hotel room. Anyone who wants to come is free to crash with us. Let me know if you're in. It's going to be awesome!"
Across the room, Adam lifted his head from his history textbook and glanced over his shoulder as Rocky triumphantly hit 'send'.
"You're serious about this?" he asked his roommate.
"Completely."
"And you invited everyone?"
"Why not? Come on, Adam. We're talking about the opportunity to go hang out with our own fans, totally incognito. Who would pass that up?"
"Me," Adam retorted, pausing to scribble a few lines in his notebook. "Those people are crazy. Remember all that drama on the newsgroup last year?"
The incident Adam referred to was also how the Rangers had come to realize they had fans beyond the grateful citizens of Angel Grove in the first place. They had, on a lark, typed the phrase 'Power Rangers' into a search engine in the high school's computer lab and run across a discussion forum where a remarkable number of people were spending a remarkable amount of time chatting about any and all things Ranger-related. They kept tabs on every monster attack and every public appearance the Rangers made. They mused about everything from weapons and zords to suits and lineup changes. Since no one really knew anything about who was actually behind those helmets, they speculated wildly. Some of the theories were uncannily close to the truth. Others were just plain bizarre. And they wrote fictitious accounts of the Rangers' lives, a disturbing number of which involved creative ways of accomplishing sexual congress while still wearing the Ranger suits.
At first, the whole notion of having a fan base outside of the grateful citizens of Angel Grove was such a novelty that most of the Rangers found themselves checking the newsgroup on a daily basis. Interest tailed off after awhile, in the face of increased aggression from the Machine Empire and the stress of impending graduation. Rocky and Adam had stuck around longer than the rest of the team, with Rocky preferring to watch the group's activities in distant amusement while Adam actually crossed the line into participating in the discussion. He had quit in disgust several months ago, after his attempt to defuse an argument between fans of the Green/Pink pairing and those who favored the idea of a White/Pink romance by postulating that Green and White were actually the same person was met with an unexpected torrent of verbal abuse. Rocky had continued to be an occasional spectator, which is how he had learned of the existence of RangerCon in the first place.
"You don't have a say in the matter," Rocky reminded him. "The hotel room is booked in your name."
"And I still don't know how I let you talk me into that," Adam retorted.
Responses to Rocky's email trickled in over the next few days, a mixture of "yes", "no", and "good grief, are you insane?" The active Rangers were intrigued but agreed that it would be a bad idea to leave the city unguarded, much to Justin's disappointment. Jason was a yes. Zack was a yes as well, at first, but quickly had to back out due to a conflict with his summer internship. Trini was spending summer break in a study abroad program and couldn't make it. Aisha couldn't afford the airfare back from Africa, and Kimberly had a competition. Kat and Tanya, having been witnesses to the great newsgroup debacle, were members of the "no, and you're insane" contingent.
Billy's communication with his former teammates was spotty at best these days, so it came as a surprise to everyone when he not only responded, but responded with a cautiously optimistic "Let me see if I can secure a ship", followed a few days later by "I'll be there."
“I can’t believe he’s willing to travel light years for this,” was Adam’s immediate response.
“I can,” Rocky said. “You know he’s always been a geek, so he gets this sort of thing. Remember he went to that sci-fi con a couple years ago?”
“All I remember is Lord Zedd sending a monster that looked suspiciously like Chewbacca. Which makes me wonder, a convention for Power Rangers fans seems sort of like a magnet for trouble, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t worry. Divatox is more interested in making trouble for Justin and the others than she is in snooping on us. And Justin’s on my speed-dial if I’m wrong.”
***
Further emails were exchanged and plans firmed up as the next few weeks progressed. With the convention set to begin on a Saturday morning, they agreed to meet up early enough on Friday that they could collect Billy and make the drive to Pasadena with a comfortable amount of time to check into their hotel room and get their convention badges. Jason’s Jeep was fully capable of handling the rough terrain in the remote area outside Angel Grove where Billy had decided to land and cloak his ship for the duration of his visit. It was a spot outside city limits that they had used for Ranger-related activities often enough in the past; the odds of anyone wandering out there and stumbling across something they shouldn’t were vanishingly small.
They had talked now and again, but none of them had actually seen Billy face to face since the unfortunate incident that had led to his permanent off-planet relocation. He was consequently mobbed the second he set foot outside the ship in a flurry of awkward but enthusiastic hugs.
“Did you bring it?” Rocky asked eagerly.
Billy held up his suitcase by way of a response.
“Bring what?” Adam asked.
Rocky grinned, probably intending to look mysterious but only succeeding in looking like a dork. “You’ll see when we get there.”
Adam rolled his eyes and turned to Billy, hoping he’d get a more helpful answer, but all Billy offered was an apologetic shrug.
“I’ve been sworn to secrecy,” he explained.
“So the sooner we get there, the sooner you’ll find out,” Rocky added, practically bouncing. “Let’s go, already!”
They hiked back to the Jeep and loaded Billy’s things into the back. Rocky took the opportunity to whip a sign out of his own suitcase that read in big, bold letters, ‘RANGERCON OR BUST’.
“You’re not putting that in the window of my car,” Jason said.
“Oh come on, it’s fun!”
“No.”
“Can we at least vote on it?”
“Nope. My car, my rules.”
It took a solid fifteen minutes of arguing and Jason physically wrenching a roll of duct tape out of Rocky’s hand before Billy was finally able to negotiate a detente and get them both into the car. Jason won the battle but ultimately lost the war, as he came back to the car after ducking into a convenience store for all of five minutes to pay for gas and buy drinks to find the sign taped securely to the rear tire cover.
Jason glared at Rocky. Rocky grinned at Jason.
“Ninjetti stealth,” he said. “You should try it sometime.”
“Stealth your way out of this,” Jason retorted, and promptly cuffed him on the shoulder.
The rest of the trip wasn’t any less eventful. They got lost about twenty miles from the convention center and Billy had to remote access his spaceship’s navigation system to get them back on track. It was a relief to finally pull into the hotel’s lot and park. Adam got them checked in and handed out room keys.
“Would one of you mind taking my stuff up to the room?” Billy asked. “I want to find the pre-registration line and hold us a place in it.”
“Already?” Adam asked. “The con doesn’t start until tomorrow. And registration doesn’t open for another two hours.”
“I’ve been to conventions before,” Billy reminded him. “Trust me on this.”
Sure enough, by the time they had gotten settled in the hotel room and gone back downstairs to find Billy, the registration line stretched from the conference room in the back all the way to the front lobby. Despite Billy’s efforts to get in line early, he was still about fifty people back. As it was still another hour before the convention staff would start handing out badges, the line wasn’t moving at all.
The line contained an interesting constellation of people. Although a wide range of ages and demographics were represented, there were a fair number of people their own age. There were also several families with small children, many of whom were dressed as their favorite heroes. They ran up and down the hall engaged in animated mock-combat as their long-suffering parents stood in the line. Adam couldn’t help but smile as he spotted a young boy in a homemade replica of his old Black costume, swinging a soft foam axe. By the time they found Billy, they had passed a woman whose interpretation of the Pink Ranger involved a rhinestone-studded minidress and stiletto heels, a man who was inexplicably dressed as Batman, and a hulking, middle-aged fellow wearing a combover that did nothing to conceal his bald spot and a dingy t-shirt that read “RITA LIVES”.
Billy was engaged in a rather animated discussion with the girl in line ahead of him, a short, bespectacled brunette in a green t-shirt with a little cartoon Dragonzord roaring cutely on the chest.
“...And that’s why the most logical assumption would be that they’re nuclear-powered,” she said, apparently concluding her argument.
Billy shook his head. You’ve made a lot of good points, but your theory also has several holes in it. First of all, think about the smaller aerial Zords - Ninja Cranezord, for instance. There is no way to generate the amount of power required to keep a machine like that airborne with a reactor small enough to fit inside. And second, if they were nuclear powered, the destruction of the Thunder Megazord would have resulted in a radiation disaster on par with Chernobyl - or worse.”
“Then I assume you’ve got a more plausible theory?” the girl challenged.
“As a native of Angel Grove myself, I have it on good authority that the original Dino Megazord used solar power.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. In 1993, an unanticipated solar eclipse - presumably generated by Rita Repulsa for this exact purpose - caused the Megazord to lose power and fail in battle. It immediately resumed normal functioning after the eclipse ended - so there’s no other explanation. But it seems like this vulnerability was corrected in subsequent Megazord designs.”
Jason and Adam exchanged a look, and Jason pointedly cleared his throat.
Billy startled slightly, turned to look and smiled sheepishly at his friends. “Sorry, guys...didn’t notice you there. This is Heather. Heather, these are my friends, Jason and Adam.”
She nodded a greeting to each of them. “Nice to meet you. So you guys are from Angel Grove, too?”
“Born and raised there,” Jason confirmed.
“I moved there in high school,” Adam added.
“This must all seem pretty strange to you then,” she said. “I mean, living in Angel Grove, you guys see the Rangers and deal with monster attacks all the time, up close and personal. It must be terrifying sometimes.”
Adam shrugged. “Sometimes, but for the most part people just know to stay out of the way and have faith that the Rangers will come through for us. It’s tough dealing with all the damage to the city, but usually as long as people follow the Emergency Response Plan, no one gets seriously hurt.”
Heather nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve talked to some people who think we shouldn’t have events like RangerCon or write stories about the Rangers online because they’re real people and the work they do is so serious. But the way I see it, they deserve to have fans. They’re saving the world, they’re literally heroes.”
“I agree,” Adam replied. “And I think most people in Angel Grove would, too. They may express it differently, but there are just as many fans of the Power Rangers there as anywhere, if not more. We appreciate them. A lot. And you know, they’ve been known to show up in person to thank us for that.”
Heather’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “No way.”
“The mayor declared an official Power Rangers Day not long after Rita first attacked, and they showed up at the celebration,” Billy said. “And they’ve made appearances on local television, too.”
“Wow. I can’t even imagine.” Heather was quiet for a few seconds, clearly thinking about having that kind of interaction with her favorite heroes.
“Say, where’s Rocky?” Billy asked, noticing the absence of his other friend in the sudden conversational lull.
“He stayed in the room,” Jason said. “Said something about wanting to change.”
“Oh,” Billy replied. Something in his tone sounded suspiciously knowing, and he looked as though he was trying very hard not to laugh.
“Hey, guys?” Heather interjected. “I’m dying of thirst, would you mind holding my spot in the line while I go grab a soda from the vending machine?”
“Sure, no problem,” Adam said.
“Thanks, want me to get you anything?”
No one did, and she thanked them again before hurrying off down the hall.
Jason folded his arms and leveled his gaze at both Adam and Billy.
“What?” Billy asked.
“I had no idea that the two of you were such good liars.”
Both of them started laughing.
A few moments later, pandemonium erupted in the hallway. People were pointing, shouting, and madly snapping pictures.
“Wonder what that’s all about,” Adam commented.
Jason turned around to look, craning his neck to see over the crowd. When he saw the source of the commotion, his jaw dropped.
Standing in the middle of the hotel lobby was the White Ranger.
“What?” Adam prompted.
“It’s some dude dressed as Tommy,” Jason replied. “I mean, it’s got to be a costume. But it looks way too real.”
“No way.” Adam joined him in straining for a good look.
The White Ranger had paused in the open space in front of the check-in desk, and had launched into a very accurate reenactment of several of Tommy’s signature moves as the line cheered him on. The only two people who didn’t seem impressed were Jason, who was intimately familiar with the real White Ranger’s martial style, and Adam, who was every bit as familiar with Rocky’s.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Adam muttered.
It was at that point that they both noticed that Billy was, as discreetly as possible, laughing his ass off.
The White Ranger concluded his demonstration with a formal bow, and the registration line broke out in wild applause. He then started down the hallway, pausing occasionally to high-five someone or pose for a photo. Once he spotted the others, he took his helmet off and jogged over. Sure enough, it was Rocky, flushed and wearing a manic grin. Adam sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. This was going to be a long weekend.
“Hey guys!” he said cheerfully. “Did I miss anything cool?”
“No, you’re the most excitement we’ve seen so far,” Billy replied. “Does the costume meet with your expectations?”
“Oh yeah, it’s fantastic! Helmet’s a little stuffy, and harder to see out of than my old one, but I had kind of expected that. Other than that, though, it’s perfect.”
“Wait, did you make this, Billy?” Jason asked. He looked Rocky up and down, reached out to tap the flared shoulder of his chest armor. “It looks like the real thing.”
“That’s because it more or less is,” Billy said, lowering his voice and looking around to make sure no one was listening in. “It’s made of the exact same type of nano-fiber as the real suits; just without any connection with the Morphing Grid, of course.”
“Of course,” Adam replied. “And you did this, why?”
“Well, Rocky said in one of his emails that he wanted to go in costume, and scientific curiosity took over from there.”
“So basically you used actual Ranger technology to make a costume for a convention...just to see if you could?”
Billy shrugged. “I was waiting on the Aquitian Science Council to approve my next project, and I had some downtime.”
“Downtime. Right. And another question. Rocky. Why not one of your old suits?”
“I’m myself all the time,” Rocky explained. “So that’s boring. The whole point of wearing a costume is to be someone else for awhile.”
“Fair enough. So why Tommy, of all people?”
Rocky grinned. “Well, frankly, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
Jason facepalmed.
“Would it help if I told you I considered going as the Pink Ranger?”
“No, actually, that makes it worse.”
Heather trotted back over to the line with a bottle of Sprite dangling from her fingers, and her face lit up when she saw Rocky.
“Wow, great costume!” she enthused.
Rocky beamed. “Thanks!”
Jason continued to facepalm.
***
The registration line finally started moving, and at a decent pace. Before long, they’d made it to the front and obtained their badges for the weekend. Rocky proved a hit with the convention staff as well, and Adam got roped into taking several photos. After Rocky filled out and submitted an entry form for the costume contest, they went back to their hotel room to unpack, then migrated over to Heather’s room for dinner with her friends. There were six of them all together, all girls, and they had pooled their resources to stay in one of the hotel suites. They were a couple years older - Heather had just finished her junior year of college - and had been attending RangerCon annually since its inception. The room smelled of a strange mix of perfume and the pizza the girls had ordered, and was strewn with suitcases, costume pieces, and various Ranger-themed paraphernalia.
Rocky picked up a little plush Red Ranger with a chubby body and an oversized head that had been sitting on one of the beds. “This is adorable. Where on Earth did you get this?”
“Oh, Cheryl makes those,” Heather explained, motioning to the slender, olive-skinned girl with a head of corkscrew curls who was presently dishing out pizza in the corner of the kitchenette. “She spends all year making them in her free time - dozens of ‘em - and sells them in the dealer’s room.”
“That is awesome,” Rocky said. “I’m totally buying one.”
“Just make sure you get there early,” Heather advised. “She usually sells out pretty fast.”
“What else can you get in the dealer’s room?”
“Oh, all sorts of stuff, all of it fan-made. Replica weapons, costumes - not that you need any help in that area - model Zords, t-shirts, different kinds of art, comic books…”
“Hold up. There are Power Ranger comic books?!”
Heather smirked at him. “There are now.”
The comic books were a collaborative effort between two of the room’s other inhabitants; written by Katie and drawn by Becca. It took a fair bit of cajoling, mostly by Rocky although Billy was equally interested, but the two girls finally agreed to provide a sneak preview of the self-published book they’d be distributing at the convention. The story was equal parts action and drama; in fact, it bore a weird similarity to all the times the Rangers had dealt with parallels between the kinds of monsters they were fighting and what was going on in their personal lives. The Ranger characters - and it was the Zeo team being featured in this particular story - were of course wildly different from their real identities. They were all older, for one, and members of a top-secret government organization that had given them their powers. And none of them bore any physical resemblance to their real Ranger counterparts. Still, for all the differences, some of the characters’ personality traits were surprisingly spot-on. Gold was a commanding figure, stern, but warm. Blue, equal parts intelligent and zany. Yellow, vivacious and assertive; Pink, steadfast and empathetic. Red was, of course, the spotlight character, talented but overemotional; the similarity between his episodes of brooding and Tommy’s were almost uncanny. And Green was a quiet guy with a dry sense of humor that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Adam’s own.
“This rendering of the Megazord is fantastic,” Billy commented. “You have a real eye for detail, Becca.”
She blushed at the compliment. “I taped a bunch of news footage of the monster battles for reference. I had to rewind and pause it so many times that the tape wore out.”
“Well, the dedication shows in your work. Yours as well, Katie. You’ve done an excellent job developing the characters and making them seem real.”
The others exchanged glances at that. Of course it would be easier for Billy to take an objective look, since he was the only one of them who didn’t have a fictionalized counterpart in the story.
Jason was a bit more skeptical. Sure, there were similarities, but he really didn’t think he was that serious all the time. And he certainly didn’t bear the same striking resemblance to Denzel Washington.
“I’m curious,” he ventured. “How did you decide to write the Rangers the way you did, when no one knows what they’re really like?”
“You know, there’s a lot of people who write stories about the Rangers, and everyone kind of has their own interpretation,” Katie replied. “But it seems like if one person writes something that gets really popular, other people will pick up ideas from it and use them in their own stories, and stuff kind of gets decided by consensus.”
“Consensus?” Heather echoed derisively. “I guess that’s the nice way of putting it. You know how vicious some people can get when their headcanons don’t agree.”
“Tell me about it,” Adam chimed in. “I read this one White/Pink fic where the Green Ranger had died. And it was a great story, but when I decided to post on the newsgroup that I had some different ideas about White and Green, people acted like I had just told them the Earth was flat.”
The entire room fell silent, and Adam suddenly found himself on the receiving end of the laser-like gazes of half a dozen fangirls. It was an unenviable position, to say the least.
Katie looked at him sidelong, eyebrow cocked. “AGFrogger?” she inquired.
“Don’t tell me,” Adam muttered in response. “You’re TigerWings, and I just totally stuck my foot in my mouth.”
Cheryl snickered quietly, the sound cutting off as Heather elbowed her in the side.
“We...should probably go to bed,” Rocky said. “You know, big day tomorrow and all.”
They bid each other somewhat awkward goodbyes and the boys booked it back to their room.
***
Saturday dawned, and Adam woke to the smell of coffee and eggs, and the unmistakable weight of someone sitting down on his back. He groaned, mumbled a few curse words interspersed with Rocky’s name, and buried his face in his pillow. Rocky had been waking him up with this, the most obnoxious method possible, ever since their sleepovers in grade school.
“Good morning, Adam,” came the infuriatingly cheerful voice. “Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey.”
“What time is it?” Adam grumbled.
“Seven-thirty.”
With considerable effort, Adam lifted his face from the pillow and looked back over his shoulder, eyes narrowed in clear dismay at his friend’s bright smile. Adam felt strongly that no one had any right to be so energetic that early in the morning. It wasn’t natural.
“Seven-thirty,” he echoed. “Are you suicidal?”
“Come on, Adam,” Rocky pestered. “The con opens at nine, and I don’t want to miss a thing.”
“That’s an hour and a half away. Let me sleep.”
“But I brought breakfast. And coffee.”
Coffee? That was almost enough to motivate Adam out of bed. Almost.
“Did someone say coffee?” Billy’s voice drifted over from the other side of the hotel room. He had lost the draw for a bed and ended up sleeping on the pull-out sofa, not that he minded much. He’d had a reputation for being able to sleep anywhere ever since Jason had caught him napping in the Zord bay in between repairs.
“You got it! I was too excited to sleep, so I went out and found this little cafe down the street. Got a green tea for Jason, coffee for the rest of us, and breakfast sandwiches for everybody.”
“The last thing you need is any caffeine,” Adam grumbled. “Get off me, will you? And let me at that coffee.”
Rocky obliged. Adam rolled out of the bed, stretched, and attempted to finger-comb his hair out of his face. He really needed to get it cut; this was getting ridiculous. But never mind that now; coffee was the priority.
Jason ambled out of the bathroom, already showered and dressed. “You got breakfast, Rocky? I was wondering where you went.”
Adam shook his head and took a long sip from his styrofoam cup. “You’re up, too? I swear, morning people are a different species.”
Over breakfast, the four of them pored over the convention schedule, trying to hash out which panels they were going to attend. The conversation was periodically interrupted by Billy waxing enthusiastic about the coffee; despite his having advanced nutritional synthesizer technology to the point that it could create an exact molecular replica of the beverage, it was still impossible to get a decent cup of coffee on Aquitar. He suspected the fault was in the water.
“It says there’s a filk concert tonight,” Jason said, pointing out the relevant item on the schedule. “What is that?”
“I’ve seen some filks on the newsgroup,” Adam said. “It’s pretty much song parodies that fans write. Some of them are really clever.”
“Speaking of newsgroups,” Billy interjected between bites of his sandwich. “What exactly was going on between you and Katie last night? What was it that you called her? TigerWings?”
Adam rolled his eyes. “I so haven’t had enough coffee for this conversation.”
Fortunately - or unfortunately, in Adam’s opinion - Rocky was more than willing to fill in the blanks. “TigerWings is like, the single biggest Power Rangers fanfic author on the net. She wrote this incredibly long story about Tommy and Kim...well, really about White and Pink, but you know what I mean. Without knowing anything about the two of them, she figured out they were a couple. Just by how they behaved in monster fights. And she was so right about it that she convinced a bunch of other fans to start shipping it too. Only problem was, her story killed off the Green Ranger as a plot device so White and Pink could hook up. And that ticked off a lot of Green Ranger fans.”
The more Jason listened, the more utterly baffled he looked. “But...they’re both Tommy.”
“The fandom doesn’t know they’re both Tommy,” Rocky reminded him.
“So what does Adam have to do with all this?” Billy asked.
“I wrote a fic about Green and White being the same guy, and everyone jumped down my throat about it,” Adam admitted, reluctantly.
Rocky whipped his head around to face Adam, eyes wide. “Wait a minute, that was your fic? You never told me...oh man. ‘AGFrogger’. How the heck did I not see that?”
“Wait a minute,” Jason cut in. “Adam, are you telling me that you’ve been out there writing stories about us behind our backs? Isn’t that kind of dangerous to the whole secret identity thing?”
“I was not writing stories about us,” Adam replied tersely. “I was writing about the people our fandom decided we were. And since you aren’t actually a thirty-year-old black guy, you ought to know that those two things have very little in common with each other. And besides, I quit writing fic after Katie sicced her friends on me, so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
“I don’t know,” Billy mused. “I mean, I’ve spent enough time around sci-fi fans to know how passionate people can get about their opinions. But to go through all of that over fanfics about Tommy?”
Adam set down his coffee cup and leveled his gaze at Billy. “Now that I know Katie is TigerWings, I’ve got a hunch about who the rest of her friends are, too. And if I’m right, Heather’s written a series of ridiculously graphic erotic fics, and all of them star you.”
The look on Billy’s face was worth the entire conversation.
***
If the line for registration yesterday had been impressive, the crowd that had gathered in the convention center for opening ceremonies was even more so. They cheered raucously as an emcee from the convention staff bid them all welcome and declared the con officially open. And then they scattered, en masse. Rocky bolted for the dealer’s room, determined to get first dibs on those plushies he was interested in. Heather materialized out of nowhere, this time in a t-shirt that declared “My other ride is a Megazord”. Adam vanished as soon as he spotted her.
She grabbed Billy by the arm; he blushed reflexively at the thought of what she had been writing about his fictional counterpart.
“Come on,” she said. “The Ranger Tech panel is starting in room two, and those guys are gonna love your theories about Zord power supplies.”
They vanished into the crowd as well, and Jason was left alone.
Taking stock, he couldn’t believe how many people had shown up to this thing. The idea that they were all fans - directly or indirectly - of him was absolutely staggering. Humbling, as well. And he was more than content to wander aimlessly and people-watch as he started looking for Rocky, or Adam, or both of them. He knew where Billy was, at least, but he was none too interested in hearing him spend the next hour or two telling people they were wrong about Zords.
He followed a throng of fans into the convention center’s main auditorium; a quick glance at the schedule showed him that this would be a screening for the pilot episode of a Ranger-themed TV series that had apparently started airing in Japan. He lasted about five minutes before he had to leave; the production values were incredibly low and everything was so grossly inaccurate that he couldn’t help laughing, and the people around him were starting to give him dirty looks. He felt bad, but really, could the zipper on that rubber monster suit have been any more obvious?
After stopping to request a photo with someone in a particularly convincing Gold Ranger costume - he couldn’t help himself - Jason found himself in one of the smaller panel rooms. Several tables were set up, with groups of about half a dozen people clustered around each. They had sheets of paper, pencils, and dice in shapes that Jason hadn’t been aware existed.
“What’s this?” he wondered aloud.
“RangerQuest,” explained a guy at the nearest table. “It’s an RPG like Dungeons and Dragons, except you get to play a Ranger. This is a beginner’s group, you want to join us? We don’t have anyone playing a Red yet.”
Jason had only ever heard of ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ in the context of Bulk and Skull making fun of Billy. But if this group needed a Red Ranger? Well. That was all the invitation he needed, and he pulled up a chair. “I don’t know much about this kind of thing,” he cautioned. “But I’ll give it a shot.”
***
The costume contest was beginning in twenty minutes, and no one could find Jason. Rocky had left to queue up with the rest of the contest entrants, leaving Adam and Billy to the search. Their plan to attend panels together for most of the day had quickly flown out the window, and before they knew it, it had been six hours.
Ultimately, it was Adam having to dive into one of the smaller panel rooms in his continued effort to hide from Katie and her friends that led them to the right place. Jason was at one of the gaming tables, sandwiched between a guy who was drinking Mountain Dew like it was his job and a guy building towers out of his dice with an expression of pure boredom. Gameplay had ground to a halt as Jason had gotten embroiled in what seemed to be a very involved debate with the DM.
“I’m telling you, it says right in the rules. Power bonuses don’t stack with other power bonuses, but you can use a power bonus and a damage bonus at the same time. And Tyranno Charge is a minor action, so there’s no reason I can’t apply it to my Power Sword, that gives me a total of twenty damage, and that means your monster is dead.”
“You’ve only been playing for a day!” the DM protested. “You can’t be right about this. No one ever combines those two powers. It has to be an illegal move.”
Billy actually snorted with the effort of stifling his laughter.
“Jason?” Adam ventured, equally amused, if managing it a bit more effectively. “Having fun, are we?”
Billy couldn’t recall the last time he had seen Jason genuinely blush; it had to have been middle school. Adam, for his part, didn’t think he had ever seen it. Nevertheless, blush he did, looking for all the world like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
“Costume contest’s in ten minutes, Jase,” Billy explained, finally regaining his composure. “I’m sure you don’t want to miss Rocky’s big moment?”
Jason balked, realizing he had lost all track of time. “It’s seriously three in the afternoon?”
He bid a quick goodbye to the other gamers - the DM looked as though he was glad to see him go - and the three of them booked through the crowds outside back to the main auditorium.
“Remind me to introduce you to real D&D sometime,” Billy couldn’t resist offering.
“Just shut up and watch the contest, all right?” Jason replied.
The costume competition was one of the keystone events of the convention, and with good reason. The competitors were numerous, and the costumes ran the gamut. Rangers, monsters, even a few Zords, all were represented. Some of the costumes were very good, even without the benefit of the wizardry Billy had used in creating Rocky’s. The Gold Ranger Jason had gotten his picture with before was one. A Turbo Pink who turned out to Cheryl was another; she was apparently just as talented at sewing spandex and vinyl as she was at sewing plushies. And Rocky’s costume was a hit, of course. He drew a standing ovation with a repeat performance of what the con staff had dubbed the White Ranger Kata, the same homage to Tommy’s martial style he had performed in the lobby the day before.
While most of the costumes were impressive shows of talent and dedication, a few looked like they had been slapped together at the last minute, and a few more were just plain weird. A couple of people entered costumes that were Ranger suits of their own imagining; one purple, another orange, and one otherwise typical-looking Red Ranger who had chosen to enhance his outfit with a cape. There was a distressingly realistic-looking Lord Zedd and two different Ritas, one of whom turned out to be a man in drag. And there was a separate youth division for the children in cosplay, who of course brought a smile to everyone’s face.
When at last the results were announced, Rocky came in second place, losing out only to a Thunder Megazord constructed out of cardboard and finished in what must have been dozens of yards of multicolored duct tape. Cheryl placed third.
Although mildly disappointed, Rocky was a good sport about the whole thing, and spent well over an hour after the contest finished posing for photos alone, with other contestants, and with anyone who asked. The others finally managed to drag him away by bribing him with the promise of food. He ignored the suggestion that they go back to the room first so he could change, arguing that it would save time to only make one trip and change before the filk concert. There was no stopping him from walking out onto the streets of Pasadena in full costume, and into the Mexican restaurant down the block. Adam threatened to pretend he didn’t know him, but as it turned out, he wasn’t the only one who had kept his costume on to go in search of dinner. There were at least a dozen other con attendees scattered throughout the restaurant, some in costume, others easily identified as fans by some other Ranger paraphernalia. The waitstaff seemed somewhat bemused, but at least Rocky wasn’t getting as many strange looks as the man dressed as Rita, who was presently sharing an order of nachos with his friends in the corner booth, his distinctive conical hat tucked carefully into a corner where no one could accidentally step on it.
They practically inhaled their meal - between panels, shopping, and Jason’s unplanned gaming marathon, no one had remembered to eat lunch - and compared notes on the day between bites. They had to hurry back to the hotel after that, and Rocky finally, reluctantly, changed back into ‘civilian’ clothes before they headed downstairs for the concert.
The filk concert turned out to be more like a strange, fannish take on an open-mic night, held on the stage in the hotel’s lounge. The bar was open, for those fans who were of age, even offering a small selection of themed cocktails in the convention’s honor. The Pink Ranger was a watermelon-flavored vodka concoction; the Dragonzord a combination of rum and midori that was as green as the Zord itself. There was also an absolutely vile sounding shot that involved tequila and was named after Goldar. The ex-Rangers couldn’t legally drink yet, nor did they think trying to circumvent the drinking age was worth the effort. They did, however, spot several rounds of Goldar shots getting delivered to the table occupied by Katie and her friends. Fortunately for Adam, they seemed too involved in singing along raucously to every song they knew to notice his presence.
And the songs themselves, mostly performed by the fans who had written them, were both eclectic and hilarious. Among the highlights were “Changin’ Up My Suit”, a speculation on why the Rangers’ costumes kept changing in the style of NSync, and “Mo Putties, Mo Problems”, a brilliant rap that nearly caused Rocky to fall out of his chair. The man in the Rita costume - whose real name was Phil, if the cheers were any indication - showed up not only still in costume but also in character and turned a Celine Dion tune into an ode to Lord Zedd. Katie, Becca, and Heather were the last act of the evening, channeling the Spice Girls with “If You Wanna Be A Ranger”.
It was well after midnight by the time they got back to their room and finally collapsed into bed.
***
Sunday morning was greeted with a bit less enthusiasm than Saturday had been. Even Rocky’s batteries seemed to be running a bit lower than usual, and he waited for the alarm clock to sound before getting up. They packed up and loaded everything into Jason’s car, Jason made Rocky take the ‘RangerCon Or Bust’ sign off the tire cover, and they went across the street for breakfast and some much-needed caffeine before heading back into the fray.
They stuck together this time around, unwilling to lose their driver to another marathon game of RangerQuest. There were fewer panels than there had been on Saturday and they drifted from one to the next, browsing the dealer’s room for souvenirs in between. The “iron cosplay” event was particularly fun, a contest in which two teams of volunteers were made to create costumes out of random junk within very short amounts of time, which were then judged on inventiveness and accuracy. Rocky and Jason goaded Billy into participating, figuring his knack for building cool stuff out of junk would come in handy. He ended up in a makeshift Pink Ranger costume that involved pink crepe paper, cut up paper plates, a bow made out of tinfoil and yarn, and a tutu. Adam made sure to take plenty of blackmail pictures.
They ran into Katie and her friends as they left the panel.
“Can we talk?” she asked, looking directly at Adam.
Adam struggled uselessly for an excuse to say no, only coming up with “Um” before Rocky gave him a less-than-subtle nudge.
“All right,” he relented.
“We’ll meet you at the closing ceremony?” Heather offered.
Everyone agreed and disbanded, leaving Adam and Katie alone.
“Look,” she said, not bothering to beat around the bush. “I know you’ve been avoiding me all weekend, and I don’t blame you. But I want to try and clear the air before we go home, so hear me out, okay?”
Adam nodded, and she continued.
“I never had anything against your fic,” she explained. “I actually thought it was really good. The people who had a problem with it were just taking the whole thing too seriously, and I tried to get them to knock it off. Or at least stop acting like they were hassling you on my behalf. And when you disappeared from the newsgroup after everything...well, I felt bad. So I want to apologize, and tell you that not everyone in the fandom is like that, really, and say...well, that I think you’re a really good writer and I wish you’d come back.”
Adam didn’t answer at first, taken aback. Then he shook his head, chuckled quietly to himself and scuffed his sneaker against the tiled floor.
“And here I was, thinking that if anything I owed you an apology for making you think I was trashing your writing,” he admitted. “But you’re a really good writer, too. And I think that everyone having different ideas about the Rangers is what makes the fandom so interesting.”
Katie’s expression brightened, and she extended a hand. “Mutual apology, then?”
Adam took the offered hand and shook. “Mutual apology.”
“So are you gonna come back to the newsgroup?”
“Can I think about it?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. But...can we exchange emails, at least? I’d love to have you look over my next story before I post it.”
“...I’d like that.”
She pulled a pen out of her pocket and wrote her email address on the back of his con schedule, and he did the same.
After the convention was brought to an official close, the former Rangers said goodbye to their new friends and piled into Jason’s car for the long drive home.
“I’ve got to admit,” Adam said. “That was more fun than I thought it would be.”
“You’re right,” Jason agreed. “Maybe we can get some of the others to come next time, too. You know, now that we know that not everyone who goes to these things is crazy.”
“There’s going to be a next time?” Billy asked. He sounded hopeful.
“Duh!” Rocky said. “Of course there’s going to be a next time. Didn’t I tell you what I got in my prize package from the costume contest?”
“No, what?”
“Four free tickets to next year’s RangerCon.”
***
Two weeks later, a padded envelope arrived in Tommy’s mailbox. He opened it up to find it contained an anonymous note reading “Wish you were here” and several photos. Every picture was of someone dressed in an exact replica of his White Ranger costume, engaged in a variety of random shenanigans. Throwing kicks in the middle of a hotel lobby. Cuddling a small plush version of the Red Ranger. Attempting to eat a burrito through the mouthpiece of his helmet in a Mexican restaurant. Posing suggestively with a man dressed as Rita Repulsa. Every picture but the last.
The last photo was Billy, wrapped in pink crepe paper and wearing a tutu.
“What the hell?” Tommy said.