Chapter 4-Romancing the Lonely Ones

It was closing time at Jungle Karma Pizza and the pizzeria's five employees, Dom, Fran, Casey, Lily, & Theo, were busy cleaning up the restaurant area. It had been three weeks since RJ & Dom's old friend Ena had shown up and the Owl Master had been a great help to the place. Not only had she covered shifts and helped out Fran when the rangers had had to go out to battle the minions of Dai Shi, but she had also helped create some new favourites for JKP's customers, and she had also begun to teach Casey, Lily, Fran, & Theo some of her Owl moves.

When she'd been asked why she was teaching Fran, the only person at JKP not to have been trained at Pai Zhuq, she had answered that many of the Owl moves relied on brains, not brawn, and she felt that all women should know how to defend themselves. Fran had also proven to be the most adept at Owl Sight (aka, seeing into the future). When asked why this might be, Ena had explained that most people have the ability, it just takes someone who is more perceptive than others in certain aspects of life to master the Sight. This answer had caused quite a comotion among the students, especially Casey and Theo. Actually, mostly Theo.

"Are Ena & RJ upstairs yet, Fran?" Lily asked her bespectacled friend as she finished mopping the floor.

"Yeah. The coast is clear," Fran answered as she came from the kitchen.

"Okay, boys. Grab a seat," Lily instructed as she put her mop and bucket away and grabbed a chair next to Fran.

"Why? What's going on?" Casy asked the girls.

"We are going to help RJ & Ena with their relationship."

"Say what?" Dom asked, staring at the teens like they had each grown an extra head.

"We've been thinking," Fran started. "It's obvious that they like each other and we think that they need a nice, romantic dinner to admit their feelings for each other."

"And we were wondering if you three could help us plan one," Lily added.

"Wait, why should we plan a romantic dinner for two people who obviously don't want people to know that they're into each other?" Theo asked.

"Because they've been beating around the bush, so to speak, for the last 12 years?" Dom answered. "Don't worry girls, I see where you're going and I'm all for it. The problem is that we need to make sure that they have no idea what's going on."

"We've already got some of the logistics figured out. What we really need is you four to help us come up with a menu, decide who will serve, get them diverted so that they don't know what we're doing and so forth," Lily explained.

"But there's one problem with planning a romantic dinner for them," Theo said. "Ena's got Owl Sight! She'd be able to figure out what we were doing before we even did it!"

"Don't worry about that," Lily told her friend.

"Ena has said that she only ever uses the Sight when it's absolutely necessary," Fran added. "That part is all taken care of."

"So all we have to do is start planning, right?" Casey asked.

"Right!"

Two days later and it was Sunday. Sundays, JKP closed early because Monday was the beginning of the work week and most people had to get ready for the week. Sunday was the slowest day of the week at Jungle Karma, and thus it was the perfect day to serve a romantic dinner to two unknowing Pai Zhuq masters.

Come Sunday morning, everything for the night ahead was planned down to the last detail. Fran and Lily took Ena to the mall to get the perfect dress, telling her that they wanted to get some new clothes since Lily's wardrobe was still slightly stunted and RJ had just given everyone a raise.

On the male side of things, Theo and Dom had been tasked with decorating, which meant that they had to go out and get said decorations from the store while Casey kept RJ busy by training with the Wolf Ranger. Dom also had the added bonus of supplying the suit since RJ, in his infinite Zen-like wisdom, did not own a single suit.

Since Jungle Karma Pizza closed at 8:29 on Sunday nights, the dinner had been planned for 9:30. At 8:59, Casey, Lily and Fran took RJ and Ena to their respective rooms to get ready for the dinner while Dom and Theo made a romantic setting on the other side of the loft floor across from where the TVs and recliner were. A table (with a tablecloth) and two chairs were set up. The table was set with two plates, two glasses, two knives, two forks, and a single candle that was to be lit at 9:25.

The dinner had been made throughout the day whenever anyone had a free half hour in the loft kitchen (which was frequent but hard to pull of since RJ was the head chef and they would have to pass him in order to head upstairs) and Dom, being the only one over the age of 21 in this little escapade, had bought the wine. However, they managed to pull it off and at 9:27, everything was ready.

At 9:29, Casey and Lily led RJ and Ena to the table where Dom and Theo stood, in waiter's uniforms, and pulled out the chairs for the two masters. Theo, Lily, and Casey left just as Fran was coming down the stairs with two glasses of wine.

Dom placed a salad in front of his two friends and said, "Hello, I'm Dominic. I will be your waiter this evening."

Not quite knowing what their friends were up to, RJ and Ena went along with it up until Josh Groban music started and they finally had to ask their "waiter" what the hell was going on.

"Nothing, sir. We just thought that you might like a nice dinner after everything you've done for all of us. That's all."

They agreed to accept this nice evening, but decided, through that special link all masters had, to question Dominic and his accomplices in the morning.

Elsewhere in the loft, three rangers and a bookworm silently congratulated each other on the way the evening seemed to be flawlessly going. The two masters were now dancing to the music the girls had chosen for the evening and staring into each other's eyes.

It had been agreed that should Dai Shi and Camille decide to partake in some after-hours evil, the three primary-coloured rangers would fight, leaving RJ and Ena to enjoy their evening while Dom and Fran served the dinner.

However, it seemed that even Dai Shi and Camille took the occassional weekend off. What the rangers didn't know, though, was that they would be in for a thorough talking-to, Pai Zhuq-style, when morning came. In the meantime, everyone was going to enjoy this evening.

So, I think that ended strangely. Oh well. That was chapter 4; I hope you liked it.