Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers Jungle Fury, nor am I making any profit by writing this.

The Tiger and the Cheetah

Confidence

(Lily's POV)

"Jarrod, Lily, Theo. Join us in the great hall this evening," Master Mao announced.

A gong was rung signaling the end of our final test.

"Yes!" I exclaimed as Theo and I gave each other a congratulatory high five. We had been students for a long time, and it was nice to know that all of our hard work had paid off.

"Where's my towel? Cub, go get me a towel. Move it! That's a direct order from a senior student," Jarrod shouted knocking over a basket of towels.

The cub cowered before the much older, much taller bully that was Jarrod. However, he remained rooted in place. My guess is that the poor cub was so scared out of his wits that his feet were failing him at the moment.

"Here's a towel," said another cub that appeared to be around my age.

Jarrod reluctantly took the towel all the while glaring daggers at the older cub for sticking his nose where it didn't belong.

"Look, I don't want any problems," said the taller cub.

"Too bad," Jarrod replied roughly shoving the cub to the ground.

All of my instincts told me not to watch anymore because this would probably turn out no differently than every other time that Jarrod picked on a cub. Try as I might, I couldn't pry my eyes away from the scene that was unfolding before my very eyes. Much to my surprise, the cub looked poised to retaliate against Jarrod.

"Oh! Is little cub gonna do something?" Jarrod asked amused.

The cub roared and Jarrod was sent sailing through the air courtesy of some kind of burst of energy that emanated from the cub. Strangely enough, it was eerily reminiscent of a tiger animal spirit.

"What did I just do?" the cub asked looking at his hands in disbelief. "I'm sorry! I don't know what happened."

Just as Jarrod was about to respond in kind, Master Mao clapped his hands. Jarrod bowed his head and walked away looking rather ticked off.

I was both surprised and impressed by this cub that stood up to Jarrod. It was more than that though. There was something about this cub that drew me to him, but for the life of me, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Up until now, I had never even seen this cub before. I didn't even know what his name was. One thing I did know though was that nobody ever stood up to Jarrod. They just let themselves or others get bullied around by him. The fact that this cub had stood up to Jarrod told a great deal about his character. Call it guts. Call it confidence. This cub sure had an abundance of it. I had a feeling that I would be seeing a lot more of this cub in the not-too-distant future, and I'm not so sure that would be a bad thing. As a matter of fact, I found myself looking forward to it.

TBC

A/N: I know it's still early in the season, but I couldn't help myself. I see Theo and Lily as best friends, but nothing more than that. At any rate, I hope you liked this. Please R&R. No flames.