Colors...
Kira flipped through the book, the one with the rainbow-striped spine of a book that had caught her eye just as she'd been about to leave the bookstore. Hmm. According to this, yellow represented energy, happiness, intellect.
A smile crossed her face at that. While conceivably Hayley and Dr. O. were the brains of the operation, and Ethan also had his hacker knowledge and was at times considered to be the smartest of the three teenagers, Kira sometimes wondered if she was the only one of the group with any common sense whatsoever.
She was so quick to write Conner off, she thought, sinking into one of the store's enormous cushy chairs to better skim through the pages and simultaneously mull things over. Prior to her arrival at the bookstore, she'd been in Dr. Oliver's basement lair, getting into yet another fight with Conner. Conner got into his share of snits with Ethan, but there was that underlying attitude of 'best friend'-ness between them. She and Conner, however, were completely opposing forces. He was a jerk jock, and she couldn't stand him.
She turned idly to the section on red, and noted that the color was associated with fire and blood. Which meant connotations of war, danger, strength, raw energy and power. But at the same time, it also represented passion and love.
Kira slammed the book shut, earning her a few raised eyebrows from other patrons, which she ignored. She could feel the last words she read burning in her, as though tattooed on the backs of her eyelids. Passion, she thought derisively, got that right.
Whenever she and Conner were fighting, before long it would escalate into a shouting match, giving up on the choice barbs and instead going for straight volume. But this last time...
"You are such a..."
"Such a what, Conner?"
"Stuck-up, snobby little--"
"YOU are such an arrogant, self-absorbed--"
"Obnoxious, high-strung ice queen--"
"Pig-headed jock--"
"I hate you!"
"I hate YOU!"
She'd stormed out after that exchange, vowing --although only to herself-- never to go back. She'd go for the fight, she'd never relinquish her duties, but if she'd rather break her own guitar than spend any more extra time with that idiot.
She couldn't quite recall what had provoked that particular exchange, though she didn't doubt that it had something to do with Trent again, as usual. She reopened the book, curiosity strong, and found the section on the color white fairly easily.
Correction--not a color, but the absence of color. Those words hit her like a sledgehammer as she thought of all the implications of it. The absence of color, meaning that the White Ranger was his own force, with nothing to tie him to them. The fact that he was a Ranger like they were meant nothing, rather, it seemed to aggravate him further.
Odd that if you put red and white together, they blended into pink, which denoted romance and friendship. Well, it made sense, really, because Conner and Trent had been friends once. Or had they? Come to think of it, Kira had never noticed the two of them hanging out together, sans Kira and Ethan. Trent was a lot more likely to go solo with Ethan than he was with Conner. Curious, that. Really, it seemed weird that Trent and Conner had always kept a respectful distance, and now Conner was all ticked off because Trent had betrayed their friendship. What was that boy ever going on about?
"Kira?"
She looked up. "Ethan?" Sure enough, her comrade-in-arms was coming over and perching on the overstuffed arm of her chair. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you," he said.
"I'm not apologizing," she said, correctly guessing her friend's ulterior motive. She looked up the color blue: tranquility and calm, wisdom, trust and loyalty. Ethan would often be the one to calm her down when Conner had worked her up, she mused. Ironic, because she had to act the peacemaker when the two of them went at it.
"Just come back, would you?" Ethan pleaded quietly. "You know he doesn't mean the stuff he said."
"He meant the stuff he said about Trent," she returned, darkness in her tone and her eyes. She didn't know why she was bothering opening this particular can of worms with Ethan again. It was never going to be resolved as long as Trent kept succumbing to the evil properties of his Dino Gem and kept rampaging the city and kicking their butts as the White Ranger.
"It's a touchy subject, I know," Ethan said. "You both have your reasons to be upset about this, Kira, but you have to learn to put it aside. This isn't about whether or not Trent betrayed us, and it isn't about any personal grudges or feelings either of you might have. This is about the fact that the White Ranger is terrorizing Reefside, and we can't seem to figure out a way to stop it."
"Why would Conner hold a grudge, though?" Kira said. "It doesn't make sense. He and Trent were never that close."
Ethan looked away for a moment, clearly uncomfortable about something. "Ethan..?" Kira prodded. "What's going on?"
"It's nothing," he said, shaking his head and turning to her to dismiss it with a smile. "C'mon, let's go back, huh? Hayley's putting the finishing touches on this new GPS system of hers that tracks usage of the Dino Gem powers, and she wants to practice some trial runs with us."
"I'll come as long as the jock keeps his fat mouth shut," she said.
"Now there's some of that famous love and peace I hear the Rangers are known for promoting and protecting," he said.
"I'd love to see Conner in pieces," she retorted, flashing him a wicked grin. The bad joke was her way of letting him know that she wasn't so ticked off anymore.
"See, it's that kind of attitude that makes you a team asset," Ethan said as the two of them stood up.
"I gotta put this back," she said, indicating the book in hand.
"Color theory?" he said, glancing at the title. "Way to be dorky. Okay, meet me at the front, I wanted to check and see if they had any new game guides."
"And I'm dorky," she said, rolling her eyes. As Ethan head off, she open the book again, this time randomly. It was a pretty interesting read, if she'd had more time...
Orange. Combining the energy of red and the happiness of yellow, representing determination, encouragement, and attraction. Reading over the paragraph, Kira couldn't help thinking that Conner was the driving force of the team, the one that inspired her to be a better fighter and a harder worker, not that she'd ever admit that to him. When they fought, it was like cats and dogs, but on their good days, she found that Conner was one of her closest friends, if not the closest, period.
Maybe she was being rash about this. Conner was just illustrating his team leadership. Normally she and Ethan cut him down as often as they could, which wasn't fair to him, seeing as how he never asked to be leader of the Power Rangers and didn't need the added hassle of his team undermining him. He was doing the best he could, given the circumstances, and his hatred of the White Ranger was just his way of trying to maintain his position and remind his team what they stood for. She couldn't fault him for that, could she?
Kira re-shelved the book, feeling an odd sense of calm. She could stand being nice to Conner for the afternoon, at least. He had enough common sense to know that she didn't really hate him, just as she knew that he didn't really hate her. Who knew, she might even apologize, she thought amusedly as she met up with Ethan and they headed back to the lab.
The next person who picked up the book would first be drawn to the page that Kira had unknowingly dog-eared in her haphazard shelving of the text. At the bottom of the page, which discussed color schemes, it read, When the primary colors red, yellow, and blue are used together, it has a dramatic and weighty impact. The ideal color work for a team of superheroes.