It Runs in the Family
by Catherine Semerjian

His friend, Adam Park, looked at him. "He's my cousin, why are you so happy?"

Rocky grinned; "It's fun playing pranks on people when Bryce is around."

"And it isn't when I'm around?" Adam asked, sounding miffed.

Tommy Oliver grinned; "Adam, I've never seen you play a prank in all the time I've known you." He said. All five teens at the table were Power Rangers in disguise.

"Don't tempt him." Rocky warned; "It took me forever to get the glue out of my hair."

Tanya Sloan looked at Adam in surprise. The Black Turbo Ranger was grinning as he got up; "I need to go check on something. I'll be right back." Adam strode off towards the exit.

"What do you supposed that was all about?" Kat wondered.

"Dunno." Rocky replied.

The Rangers chatted for a few minutes until Adam came back, only now he was wearing sunglasses. "Excuse me." He said quietly; "My cousin goes to school here and I was wondering if you knew him. His name is Adam Park."

Tommy grinned; "Very funny, Adam."

Adam appeared to frown; "You obviously know him. My name's Bryce Park, I'm his cousin." This time Adam appealed to Rocky; "Tell them, Rocky."

The Blue Turbo Ranger held up his hands innocently; "I don't know what kind of game your trying to play, Adam. But it isn't funny."

The person smiled innocently; "Fine, Rock. I guess I'll just have to post your image on America's Most Wanted again, eh?"

Rocky paled at the memory. "Just take your sunglasses off, Bry." The person now known as Bryce nodded and removed the shades.

Kat and Tanya gasped while Tommy's mouth hung open in shock. Bryce looked exactly like Adam with the exception of azure blue eyes in place of chocolate brown ones. Bryce grinned at their reactions; "Let's start again. Hi, I'm-"

"Bryce!" Adam exclaimed. "Cuz!"

Bryce called back; "What's shaking?"

Adam shrugged nonchalantly, hardly noticing the incredulous stares from Jerome Stone, Bulk and Skull. Bryce grinned; "I think we should sit, we're scaring a lot of people." Adam looked at his friends, only Rocky was impervious to the shock of seeing two cousins who were almost identical.

"I'll snap em' out of it." The Blue Ranger assured him;

"Why don't you two spar or something? Give 'em something to talk about."

Bryce laughed; "You have an evil mind, Rock." Bryce turned to Adam; "You ready to get your butt kicked, Cuz?"

It was Adam's turn to laugh; "In your dreams!"

Tommy and the others watched the match in amusement. It was hard to tell the combatants apart. Not only that, but the actions of the two were so quick it was hard to tell WHAT was happening. The crowd gasped as Adam's attempted kick to his cousin's midsection was cuaght. Bryce grinned. But Adam leapt up and caught his cousin in the head with his other foot. The small crowd cheered as Adam kicked up and helped his cousin to his feet. "No fair!" Bryce said; "The Insaguri Kick's a wrestling move!"

Adam grinned sweetly; "You should have got Owen to teach it to you then."

Bryce made a 'bla bla bla' motion with his hand as Adam spoke.

"How mature." Tanya teased him. After only a few minutes in Bryce's presence the other Rangers already began to feel at ease with him.

"Who won?" A strange female voice called out.

"I did." Adam replied.

"Who is that?" Kat asked, noticing the girl standing near a tall blond. She was a head shorter than the guy, with straight dark brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. The guy was a little taller than Tommy with longish blond hair and expressive blue eyes.

"Hey, Adam, Bryce." The girl said.

"Hey." The guy grinned.

"Who are they?" Tanya asked. "That's, Starr Park, Adam's little sister and thar's Ryan Steele, Adam's half brother." Rocky replied quietly.

After settling the members of Adam's family in at his house, the other Rangers decided to confront him. "Why didn't you tell us about your family, Adam?" Tommy demanded.

Adam refused to meet their eyes. "I didn't want to put them in any danger." His tone lowered slightly; "You know as well as I do that the Machine Empire is watching us all the time, I didn't want them to go after Starr and the others." Adam had already demonstrated a fierce protectiveness of his younger sister. Adam continued his explination, finally looking at his friends; "I say the wrong thing and, Boom, one of them gets hurt . . . or worse. I won't let that happen, no matter what."

"We're sorry, Adam." Kat said; "We had no idea." Adam had always been a person of few words, always would be. Adam rarely opened up, he always preffered to keep things bottled up inside himself, rarely letting anyone in. Rocky had known Adam much longer than the others and even he was only just starting to gain Adam's trust. Sure, he trusted them all in a fight, but he didn't trust them enough to open up to them. Rocky could only hope that Adam would trust them that way soon.

It was night on Earth. But on the moon, the Machine Empire was busily preparing plans for the next day's attack on the Rangers, specifically, the next day's attack on Adam Park.

The next day found the Park family engaged in a tag-team sparring match. Adam and Starr were facing off against Bryce and Ryan. Starr was just about to cream Ryan when several dozen Cogs appeared. "What the Hell?!" Bryce yelled, knocking one of his new opponents to the ground.

Meanwhile, Adam called the others while he did his best to watch over a winded Starr. "You all right?" Adam asked.

"Never better, Big Brother. Kiyah!" She yelled as she backflipped over his head to land on top of a pile of Cogs. "So sweet!" She grinned, delivering a vicious roundhouse to the nearest Cog.

"Where's the competition, Adam?" Ryan called out; "It's like I'm fighting you over and over again!"

Bryce chuckled at the remark as he chopped another cog down to size. "At least I'm smarter than a Cog, unlike you!" Adam retorted, moving to help his half-brother after his group had vanished.

By the time the other Rangers got there, Bryce and Ryan were sparring again. "What's the problem?" Tommy asked.

"Taken care of!" The family members said in unison.

"You could have saved us some!" Rocky muttered, irrate.

"We wanted to, but I felt like kicking butt!" Starr grinned.

Bryce made a mock terried noise and crouched behind Ryan. "I'm terrified! Help! Help!"

Starr wasn't impressed; "You wanna go?" She challenged.

Bryce hung his head, still behind Ryan; "No."

"That's right, Boy!" She smirked. "I'm older than you, fourteen year old!"

Bryce replied; "You're the youngest one here. So there!"

It was Starr's turn to hang her head; "Oh."

The Rangers had sat down with Adam and Starr by this point. "Don't worry, Starr." Ryan grinned; "I'm sure you could kick the crap out of Rocky."

"That's not that big of an accomplishment." Kat pointed out with a grin.

"Hey!" The Blue Ranger exclaimed.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!"

An inhuman voice yelled; "I am DESTROYER! Prepare to die, Adam Park!" The monster was huge; at least 4 meters tall, with rough, metallic limbs and a deadly looking sword in it's hand. The Rangers morphed quickly.

To their surprise, Starr yelled; "No one hurts my brother without MY say so. MIGHT OF ICE." Everyone was momentarily blinded by a flash of lightning. When the stars cleared from his eyes, Tommy saw that Starr had been transformed. Gone were the black jeans and green t-shirt to be replaced by a black body suit, complete with Zorro type hat and mask over her eyes. "I am the Ice-Master." She grinned.

"Don't have all the fun." Bryce grinned, cracking his knuckles; "Power Surge!" A silver fire cascaded over Bryce Park's form and changed him into a being wearing a silver face mask, silver shoulder armour and a black bodysuit. In his hands, Bryce held what appeared to be a solid silver fighting, or Bo staff; "I am the Silver Avenger." Bryce said, his voice aloof.

"A freaking family of GI-Joes." Rocky muttered in disblief.

Ryan pulled out a crystal; "Trooper Transform. We are V.R!" Ryan now wore silver body armour with red and blue squares on the chestplate.

The Rangers were stunned. DESTROYER took advantage of their surpise by attacking. However, the Ice-Master made the save. A burst of ice shot forth from her hands and froze the monster's legs in place. By this time, the Rangers had recovered, and they attacked as well. "You fight well, Humans. But you will not withstand this." DESTROYER cackled as at least six dozen cogs materialized.

"We'll take the Cogs. You take tall, evil and annoying!" The Ice-Master called to the Yellow Ranger.

"Right!" The diverse heroes split into several groups, each battling their own enemy.

"Cuz, help!" The Ice-Master cried as the remaining Cogs ganged up on her. Ryan wadded into the fray towards his half sister, tossing the thin machines of out his way. Bryce tossed her his weapon, hoping he didn't hit her in the process. But the Silver Avenger's aim was true and with the help of the newfound weapon, The Ice-Master and the V.R Trooper managed to get rid of the Cogs.

Unfortunately, DESTROYER was far more powerful than the Rangers had expected. Only an indomitable will and a tremendous treshold of pain kept Adam on his feet. The others Rangers were unable to move and Adam had a badly broken ankle, which severely limited the number of moves he could use. Just as DESTROYER was preparing to finish him off, a blast of Silver fire slammed into the Monster, knocking it off course.

It was Bryc e Park, using his Fire Staff to keep the monster at bay. Adam's ankle injury nearly took him down, but Ryan caught his arm. "It looks bad. What can you do, Ice-Master?" He asked.

The Green Ranger saw the young hero wince at the extensiveness of the break; "It's pretty bad, but this should help." Starr aimed her hands and a tiny blast of ice coated the broken limb.

"Thanks." Adam gasped; "We've gotta help-" Just as the words were out of his mouth Bryce cried out and crumpled to the ground.

"THAT IS IT!!" Starr roared; "NO ONE HURTS MY FAMILY!!!"

Before his sister could do anything suicidal, Adam yelled; "Quadri team!"

Exactly three seconds later, Ryan fired his Trooper Cannon, Bryce fired his Fire Staff, Adam his blaster and Starr fired from her gloves. DESTROYER screamed shrilly and exploded in a blinding flash of yellow. Ryan and Starr high fived then helped the other Rangers to their feet.

"Surprised?" Starr grinned, returning to her normal form.

"After today, nothing surprises me." Tommy replied.

King Mondo was being avoided by all. DESTROYER had been his favorite creation. Now the king had to go to the scrapyard and salvedge what he could of the monster. As he walked, Mondo vowed greater and greater revenge against the Rangers with every step.

The following day at the Youth Center, the Rangers, Ryan, Starr and Bryce were sitting and relaxing. Zordon had assured Adam that his ankle would be fine in a few days, but he still needed to wear a cast. When asked about it, Adam told them he had injured himself while sparring with Tommy. Since it was Ryan, Starr and Bryce's last day, the Rangers had insisted on a celebratory drink to say goodbye to them.

"My group is called the Masters." Starr was saying; "There are four of us. Fire, Wind, Earth and Ice. I'm the leader."

"There's a surprise." Bryce joked.

Starr looked at him; "We go wherever we're needed and help out the locals."

"I'm with the Avengers." Bryce stated; "There are three of us, Gold Silver and Bronze. I'm the second in command."

Ryan proceeded to tell them of the V.R Troopers. The eight heroes quickly shut up as Lieutenant Stone walked up to them. "Bryce Park?" He inquired.

The Silver Avenger stood up; "That's me."

Stone looked at him solemly; "I'm afraid you'll have to come with me, Son. You too, Rocky."

He looked at the Blue Ranger. "What?!" The two exclaimed in unison.

"We need to ask you two some questions." The lieutenant said grimly. The three walked off leaving five very surprised heroes behind them.

What no one noticed was that Stone could barely control the laughing fit that threatened to consume him.

"What was THAT all about?" Kat demanded.

The others shrugged. "They thought my pranks weren't funny." Adam said innocently.

Tommy looked at him incredulously until Tanya started to laugh. Soon Starr joined in.

"I'll get you next time, Adam. Next time." Bryce vowed evilly as he heard the others start crack up with laughter.

"And your little sister too." Rocky added.

T H E E N D , O R I S I T??