Maggie woke groggily to the ringing phone and snatched it up, mindful of the cat curled at her back. "Yes?" she mumbled.
"Hi," Kat's cheery voice greeted her on the other end. "Have a late night?"
"Not really, I just can't take catnaps like you can. Hang on." She set the phone down, indulged in a yawn and a stretch, and picked it up again. "Oops, sorry," she said to Tabby, who she'd accidentally knocked down. "Okay, I'm a little awake, now," she informed Kat. "Now, you have some explaining to do. What happened to Tommy?"
Kat's delighted laugh made her smile. "He said you might have figured it out. Can we come over, or meet, or something? I don't think we want to talk on the phone about this."
"Um, yeah, that's a good idea. Come on over here. Give me half an hour to get feeling alive again, okay?"
"Okay. It'll take that long to get Tommy to wake up." She chuckled. "He can't take catnaps either."
"Does he know?" Maggie asked.
"Yes. But I'll explain that when we get there."
"Okay. See you then." She hung up and looked blankly at the phone, then climbed off her bed. "I guess I'd better shower," she mumbled.
About a half an hour later, there was a knock on the door, and Maggie opened it up to see Tommy and Kat. She smiled. "Good, you're on time. I seem to remember you having a problem with punctuality."
"It wasn't me," Kat grinned. Tommy just laughed.
"What is it you wanted to talk to us about?"
"Come on in." She closed the door behind them, and led them to the living room. From one of the back rooms came Tabby, Tabitha in her cat form. She padded right over to Tommy, sniffed at him, and hissed, furiously. She backed up, her hair still standing on end, and warped into a tiger. Maggie's eyebrows went up, and she looked at Tommy. She was not prepared for his response; he shifted into a large white tiger and swiped at the gold one facing him. "Whoa." She grabbed the ruff of both cats. They both looked at her with green-gold eyes. "Go ahead and fight all you want, but not a peep out of you, either of you. If someone hears a tiger in here, Tabitha, you are going to come up with the explanation. And try to keep the destruction down, okay?" She stepped away; the gold tiger turned and bounded out of the room, and the white tiger followed her. "That is what I wanted to talk to you about," she said.
Kat grinned. "Tommy said he thought he confused you at the reception."
"Yeah, that's one way to put it." Maggie grinned. "Although I figure you guys ought to stop confusing me. I mean, I ought to get used to the fact that you guys are just not going to be normal. For Pete's sake, you're a were-cat." She almost added about Adam reading her mind, but decided not to. "So, what is up?"
Kat took a deep breath. "When Tommy's Green Ranger powers were lost, Zordon created the White Ranger, and gave those powers to Tommy. He called upon the White Tiger - you'll have to ask Adam about what the others called on - until they went to Phaedos to get the Ninjetti powers. Then I came in... and then you came in. Somehow, I don't understand, he's able to change to a white tiger." She was interrupted by a crash.
"Hey! I said no destruction!" Maggie yelled, and turned back to Kat. "I guess asking you to change to a crane would not be a good idea?"
She chuckled. "I inherited that power from Kim. The crane is her spirit animal, not mine. I don't think it would work. And I'm not sure it would have worked anyway." Then she grinned. "You ought to ask Adam. Aisha said his reaction to his spirit animal was quite... interesting."
"What was it?"
"According to Aisha, his reaction was... "I'm a frog". He was really shy at the time, and when Dulcea kissed his forehead, he blushed bright red."
"She kissed him?"
"And then said, ‘like the one you kiss to get a handsome prince.' So, was she right?"
"What, that he makes a handsome prince? Certainly." Maggie grinned, and covered her bright red cheeks. "Ooh, I think I might have admitted too much."
"Yes, I think you did." Kat grinned, then they heard another crash. "I'm working on teaching him how to go smaller, but he's not really getting the hang of it."
"Next time, we'll let them go nuts at your house. Let's go see what they've destroyed, shall we?" They got up and went in back to the bedroom, where they found both tigers laying stunned in the middle of the floor of Tabitha's bedroom. "All right, that's it. Change back to human, and explain this to me."
With a swift warping of reality, she was faced with two slightly embarrassed humans, and Tabitha laughed. "Sorry, Maggie, but seeing you angry at two tigers was worth everything."
Maggie scowled. "Yeah, I don't doubt it. So this is your encore?" she asked, turning to Tommy.
"Yes." He stood, brushing himself off, and helped Tabitha off the floor. "Quite interesting, don't you think?"
"Yes." She had a zillion other questions, all of them having to do with the secret she held for him and the other Rangers. "That's one way to put it."
She called him a couple of days later. "Tom, what do you say about taking the kittens for a walk in the park?"
"Still confused?" he asked, a touch of humor in his voice.
"Yes."
"Okay, sounds good."
They met on the north side of the park, and immediately, the two cats took off. Maggie scowled at Tommy. "You couldn't do the tiger thing in high school," she told him.
He shook his head. "No. I couldn't do a ‘Falcon thing' then, either."
"Great. You're a shape shifter." A vision struck her, of his tiger spirit going after the falcon spirit, and she burst into laughter. He glanced at her.
"What?"
"Don't you ever... come in conflict with yourself?" she finally sputtered out, and he chuckled.
"No. With Kat? Sometimes."
"And she is only a cat, right?"
He nodded. "I don't think she can change size. I'm not sure I can, either."
Maggie nodded; this is not what she wanted to talk about. "So, how did you become a shape shifter?" she asked. "More particularly, a Tiger? I'm fairly certain the other, Falcon power things are something you can all become, although why Adam would want to be a Frog, I have no idea."
He laughed. "The White Tiger...." His voice drifted a little, then he shook his head. "That came at a... precarious time, I guess is the best way to put it. I had lost my powers, had them drained to the point of near non-existence, and gave up the last to Jason, just so Rita couldn't have them back. A sort of.... last ditch effort for rebellion. Zordon created the White Ranger powers, I don't know how, and linked them to the White Tiger - the only non-mythical beast of the bunch." He made a face. "I was used to... abnormal Zords. And even with the Falcon, sometimes I felt like I was... an extra, sort of ‘buy five, get one free', but I got over it." He shrugged. "I felt like I fit a little more, then. With both the Dragonzord and the White Tiger, I was a... second...." He paused. "Not secondary, by any means, but the team was originally built around five people, and it took a while for the sixth to catch up."
This was very interesting, but he still hadn't answered her question. "Okay," she said. "But how did that turn you into a shape shifter?"
"You don't let up, do you?" he asked.
"Nope." She gave him her best innocent smile, and he smiled back.
"I... don't actually know. I mean...." He paused, uncertain. "I think the Falcon and the White Tiger are linked, somehow, if through nothing more than the color. No," he revised abruptly, "because that would mean Aisha could become a griffin, and Rocky a red dragon - which I would like to see, actually." He grinned at her. "But I don't think they can. I'm fairly certain Kim can't become a firebird. Maybe it's because the powers are... were made for me. Sort of specifically. Maybe that's it. I.... didn't even know I could until Kat showed me that the spell that was on her wasn't totally a spell, when she was a cat."
"Yeah, she told me about that."
"You knew?"
Maggie laughed at his incredulous expression. "From the minute I saw her. And I didn't think it was much of a coincidence that my locker was right next to her's; that's how I met Tabitha, too."
They'd wandered into Maggie's clearing, and a small white form burst out of cover, changing into Kat as she crashed, laughing, into Tommy. "I hope you're done," she smiled, grinning down at him.
"I think so." He glanced up at Maggie, who nodded, grinning.
"Yeah. If I have any more questions, believe me, I'll call you."
"Great," Tommy said in mock sarcasm, and Maggie shook her head.
"Do you always have this many questions?" Tabitha asked, stepping out from the same trees Kat had just come from.
"Yes, actually," Maggie grinned. "And thank you so much for not giving me that... greeting."
"Oh, certainly." Tabitha glanced at the two on the ground and giggled. "Don't worry, it'll never happen."
Maggie looked to see the two lost in a kiss, and stifled one of her own giggles. "Let's leave them alone," she whispered, and the two fled the clearing, laughing the whole way.
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