Disclaimer: Trini Kwan and the other Rangers belong to Haim Saban and his cronies. Her family, Ashley, Jim, and Mai-Ly, are creations of me.
Author's Note: This fic marks a new series, even though this is actually the second fic in said series. The first fic is Unbelievable, which had previously been in my "Missing Medley" series. This series is called "From the Inside Out," and it is a series of short shorts [not vignettes, there's a difference] that are going to chronicle the entire Ranger saga, from day one up until the series become nonprofitable and Saban cancels it. I'm not rewriting the series; I'm just going to look inside the heads of various Rangers at various high points through the PR era.

Friendship Bracelets
by Jeremy Ray Logsdon

"Trini, wanna play?" Ashley, her five-year old sister, asked hopefully.

"Thanks, but no, Ashley," Trini answered. "I want to be alone for a little while."

"Oh," Ashley sighed. "Oh-kay."

As soon as her little sister was gone, Trini shut the door to her room with a heavy sigh. (How weird is all of this?)

Trini's body was still reeling from the adrenaline rush of being a Power Ranger. It was almost... she hesitated to use the word addictive, but it sure was fun. It was absolutely incredible. With just one word, (well, three, technically...), she became one of the world's best fighting forces.

She just couldn't quite get her mind around the severity of the situation, however. The world was being attacked. Not by some mad-man from the middle east, but from some space hag on the moon. This just wasn't something she could readily accept. If she wasn't out on the front lines of the fight, she wouldn't have believed it.

It was like something from a comic book, for crying out loud. Superheroes? Superheroes belong in Gotham City, or... that city where Superman lives. This Earth, the Earth she had spent fifteen plus years of her life on, was not a world where superheroes should exist.

The supernatural wasn't a common occurrence. Truth be told, Trini believed in some things that weren't exactly natural. She believed in psychic powers. ('Though not phone psychics. A real psychic wouldn't offer their services for sale like that.) She maybe even believed in ghosts.

But she did not believe that there would ever be a need for teenagers with magical power morphers fighting evil creatures from outer space who wanted to do something to the Earth. What did Rita want the Earth for anyhow? Amusement? Slave labor? Something to do? Villainy for villainy's sake?

Three days ago, she would have laughed at anyone who had suggested some teens from Angel Grove were going to meet a disembodied head and be given a world of power to fight evil. Well, she wouldn't have laughed at them. She would have probably politely said, (That's a very interesting idea, Bulk. Thanks for sharing,) and quickly changed the subject.

Not today, though. She was a superhero. She wore shiny, yellow armor into fights, (that she shouldn't have even been able to wiggle in), and she piloted a great big cat into an even bigger fight with a bigger monster.

She smiled as she remembered the headline of the Angel Grove High paper. HUH? That was what it had said. HUH?, in big, black letters. The headline of the Angel Grove Gazette wasn't much more verbose. SUPERHEROES SAVE CITY? Each had used the question mark. Not that she could blame them. It was hard to believe. It was almost impossible for her to believe.

"I wonder if they know about us overseas?" she pondered. (Them?) "Them overseas," she added. Billy had called her last night, he was even nervous then, and they had attempted to talk about their new Ranger lives over the phone. They had ended up settling for talking about the Power Rangers as though they weren't them. Billy knew that phone lines were occasionally recorded for quality by the phone company; it wouldn't do for anyone to find out anything.

Trini made a mental note to start doing just that. Us and them. Esoteric versus exoteric. Trini and the Yellow Ranger. The Yellow Ranger wasn't Trini and Trini wasn't the Yellow Ranger. Now that was going to take some getting used to.

Later that night as the Kwans sat around the dinner table, Trini asked, "So... have you guys heard about those superheroes?"

"I read about it in the paper," her father, Jim, said with hardly any interest.

"I've heard what everyone has heard," Mai-Ly, her mother, added. "What do you think?"

"I think it is some kind of advertising gimmick for something," Jim theorized.

"I think I believe it," Trini decided.

"Mom?" Ashley asked. "Where did you get Trini's watch from? Can you get me one?"

"I didn't get her a watch," Mai-Ly answered. "Where did you get it, Trini?"

"Uhm...," she stammered. "It's a bracelet, actually. Billy gave it to me."

Ashley, snickered, sang, "Trini's got a boyfriend."

"He gave all of us a bracelet, Ashley," Trini said warmly.

"Any reason?" Jim asked. Smiling coyly, he suggested, "You starting a gang?"

"Yeah, Dad, that's it," Trini said, returning the smile. "Actually, it's just... They're friendship bracelets."

End