Well,
here's another story from me! I recently saw the episode "Graduation
Blues" and I really didn't like how they had filmed it. So then this idea
hit me, what if Billy had never went to Aquitar? What
if what he really wanted was to be graduating with his friends? Here's my
version of 'Graduation Blues'
Flames
accepted. Afterall, how am I supposed to become a
better write if all I getare nice reviews?
Disclaimer: I don't in any way own
Power rangers. Not even close.
Graduation
Blues - AU
“Congratulations
Billy, you’ve exceeded Angel Grove’s expectations.”
The sandy
blonde young man stood dumbfounded as the Angel Grove’s high school principal
shook his hand enthusiastically.
‘Graduated?’
he thought dazedly, his subconscious noting that Mr. Kaplan was still grinning
at him, ‘how could I have graduated early?’
Feeling the
principal shove his diploma into his hand, Billy Cranston soon found himself
standing alone in the currently empty hallway. ‘Now what?’
Thoughts
of confusion clouded his mind as he took a walk through the park. Things
weren’t supposed to happen like this. He was supposed to graduate with his
friends! He was supposed to walk across the stage to receive his diploma. He
was supposed to be the one giving a speech as valedictorian! He was supposed
to...
Be
graduating with his friends.
Billy stopped
short in front of a lake, the very same lake that Kimberly and Tommy had
started their love. How could’ve things have changed so quickly? Billy was a
person that wasn’t very fond of change. What was he going to do now?
He thought
back to the day he first became a ranger. It had taken a long time for him to
get used to the fact that he was one of five fighting superheroes. Then, Jason,
Trini and Zack had decided to leave for the peace conference. Talk about
another big change, it took awhile for him to see Rocky, Adam and Aisha in the
place of where his first friends used to be. Then came the
day Kimberly left and Kat taking her place. And then he was the only
original ranger left. The next big change was Aisha leaving the team and him
giving up his zeo crystal to Tanya.
Now he was
graduating early.
This wasn’t
supposed to be! He was supposed to be graduating with Jason, Zack, Trini, and
Kimberly. Like they had planned when they were young.
Life had a
funny way of sneaking up on you and changing things around.
Halfway
across the world, a young girl looked up from her books, deciding to take a
break from studying. Stretching her arms, a framed photograph caught her
attention. Her eyes strayed to the tall young man with sandy blonde hair that
was surrounded by a group of smiling people.
‘Hmm, I
should give him a call,’ she thought, ‘I haven’t spoken with him in
awhile.’
Picking up the
phone from her nightstand she dialed the familiar number. “Hello?” she said
after a moment, “May I speak to Billy please?”
There was a
pause. “He’s not home?”
There was
another pause. “GRADUATED?!” she screeched, “No no,
I’m alright. Thanks for letting me know Mr. Cranston.”
Disconnecting
the call, she immediately began punching in another set of numbers. ‘Everyone
has to hear about this!’
Billy
stood in front of his mirror getting ready for the party that Tommy and the
others were throwing for him. His white shirt was casual along with the black
pants he wore. His eyes strayed to his closet, where the various amounts of
clothing in blue hung. Billy sighed. He would never feel as comfortable in any
color as he had with blue.
Making sure he
had his house key, he locked the door and left, heading towards Ernie’s Juice
Bar.
An hour
later...
“I can’t
believe you had everything ready so quickly.” Billy was standing with Tommy,
observing the scene around him.
“Hey,” his
friend chided, “it’s not everyday one of your friends
forgets to graduate.”
Billy chuckled
as Tanya and Kat came up to him. “I think it’s great,” Tanya told him.
“Do you know
what you’re going to do with all your spare time?” Kat asked.
The former
blue ranger just shrugged as Rocky and Adam joined the group. “Not really
sure.”
“Hey Billy!”
The group
turned to look at Ernie as he came through the doorway dragging along four very
large boxes on a cart. Billy walked over to where Ernie stood, while Tommy,
Adam, Rocky, Kat and Tanya stood around looking puzzled, each wondering about
the brightly wrapped presents.
“What’s all
this Ernie?” Billy asked bewildered, starring at the boxes in front of him.
Ernie grinned.
“Some very special friends of yours heard about your graduation and decided to
surprise you.”
Billy turned
to his friends, still looking shocked. “You guys didn’t have to get me anything
you know.”
“Hey don’t
look at us,” Tommy answered, holding up his hands, still looking puzzled. “We
didn’t get those for you.”
“What?” Billy
turned back and faced Ernie. “Who sent these to me Ernie?”
Ernie was
still grinning. “Stand back and count to three and find out.”
Still puzzled,
Billy obliged and began counting. “One. Two. Three.”
All at once,
the lids of the four boxes popped off, noisemakers were heard throughout the
room and confetti was thrown at him. Out popped four faces that he had missed
very much for a long while, all grinning at him.
“SURPRISE!!! CONGRATULATIONS BILLY!!!!”
The room was
deadly silent and Billy blinked, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing in
front of him.
“Oh my,” he
whispered, taking a step forward.
“GROUP HUG!!” Jason hollered and he along with Zack, Trini
and Kimberly jumped out of the boxes and dashed towards the very shocked Billy.
Tanya
didn’t have the slightest clue of what was going on. Who were those people
hugging Billy? Confused, she turned to Kat and nudged her, “Who are they?”
But her blonde
friend looked just confused as she felt. “I-I’m not sure,” the pink zeo ranger answered, her voice laced with puzzlement, “but
one of the girls down there is Kimberly. She was the one who gave me my
powers”, Kat paused observing the young group of people hugging the former blue
ranger, “I think- I think they’re the original rangers!”
“What?” Tanya
turned and looked at the group of people in front of her once more. They were
all laughing and talking as if they were the only people in the room. She
watched as Tommy stepped up to the group and the girl in pink launched herself
onto him with a cry of “Tommy!”
Pretty soon,
she was being introduced to the original rangers. Tanya gulped as she faced the
original yellow ranger. She had heard stories of Trini, how good of a fighter
and how fierce she was on the battlefield. Tanya had always tried to live up to
the legacy that the pretty asian
had left behind.
“I still don’t
understand,” Billy was saying as Tanya was pulled out of her thoughts, “I mean, I just found out that I was graduating today! How did you
all get here so fast and how did you find out?”
Jason grinned.
“You can thank Kimberly here,” he said, wrapping an arm around the former pink
ranger, like a brother would with his sister, “she called to check up on you.”
“Yeah,” Kim
piped up, “it’s a good thing I did or else we’d be missing this party.”
“But how did
you get here so fast?” Adam asked.
“Well, I’m
representing the
“You know
Kimmie,” Zack cracked, “She can convince the most stubborn person.”
“And as for
us,” Trini said, indicating herself, Jason and Zack, “Well, when you’re some of
the peace ambassadors for the world, they’ll pretty much let you travel
anywhere.”
“I can’t
believe you guys would drop everything just to fly out for me,” Billy said,
beginning to become all choked up.
Trini and Kim
stared at him. “Why wouldn’t we? We told you that we’d always be there for
you”, Trini said, gently laying a hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah,”
Kimberly added, “We’re the fabulous five remember?”
“And we go by
the musketeers motto. ‘All for one and one for all’ remember?” Jason joined the
conversation.
“And, we’re
family,” Zack added his input.
Billy looked
at each of his friends’ faces and smiled, feeling the happiest he’d ever been. “Thank you guys.”
Kat
and Tanya stood together with Rocky and Adam, observing another group hug. “Why
aren’t you in that hug with them?” Kat asked turning to Tommy.
Tommy smiled
as he looked at the original rangers. “Because, they have
something special between them.”
“What do you
mean?” Tanya asked.
“I think I
know what he means,” Rocky said thoughtfully, as the group turned to him, “He
means that they have a special bond only between them, that no one could
possibly hope to break.”
Tommy nodded
and continued where Rocky left off. “Exactly. They’ve
known each other since they were kids, and shared the experience of being
Earth’s first rangers. They were fighting months before I joined. They were the
ones that Zordon choose. We’re all friends here, and very close friends at
that, but there’s no denying the bond between them.”
Tommy smiled
as he looked fondly at the group in front of him. “They are their own little
family.”
Review!