“No, I just don’t think the teams would be fair,” he retorted, casting a look at the two young rangers who would be competing. “They’d all have an unfair disadvantage going up against three seasoned adults.”

“Actually, it would be perfectly fair,” Ethan assured him. “It would be the first and second of each color, and the Dino Thunder ranger of each color.”

“And that’s why he’s blue,” Billy laughed as Tommy sighed, his argument defeated.

“Fine, I’ll race, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“That’s all well and good, but I don’t plan on playing this little game,” Adam continued to protest, his arms crossed.She smiled. “I don’t know about that. He’s really the strongest fighter in our group, except for maybe Jason. Trini and Zack are both pretty strong, too. Billy and I were always sort of the weaklings.”

“Billy? He looked pretty tough to me,” Trent said, surprised.

“Yeah, well—he’s been working on it over the years. I think it really bummed him out when he lost his powers and the others got new ones; I know he was working a lot harder during that year, according to Jason. I guess he never fell out of the habit. Me, well… Tommy was probably holding back, too.” She giggled. “I used to pull that girly trick on him all the time. He’d fall for it every single time we fought. Trini always said I should stop using it so often, because I was losing the element of surprise, but he fell for it anyway. Jason did too, almost as regularly. The big softies.”To Kimberly’s delight, the house had many wonderful surprises. The top story, which had been sealed off by her grandfather after World War II, had been sealed off completely furnished. The windows had simply been boarded up and the rest left to sit. Except for the heavy tarps that covered the furniture, everything had been left just as it was, as if the occupants had only stepped away a few hours ago. It was a treasure trove of antiques going back to the original days of the house. The rooms gave Tommy a creepy feeling, but Kim was thrilled to find boxes of photos and family records stored away in one of the bedrooms.

The addition of the upstairs doubled the square footage of the house from the county estimate and meant that she would also be able to restore the rooms on the first floor to their original dimensions. She had purchased the property at such a ridiculous price, she had more than enough left over to repair the house, but it was going to take time, even with the added bonus of Ranger technology on her side.