"Who would've though it? Omega sounds capable of having fun," Andre whispered to Mimi who still was looking at the control panel funny.

"Well at least we know he's capable of being human, unlike someone…" she whispered back using her head to gesture over to Nova who didn't seem to believe any of what she'd just heard was her partner.

"Tate doesn't seem that upset," Drew whispered to add into the mini conversation, "If it was one of us he'd be pissed."

Beth and Chris who while hadn't contributed were listening, nodded in agreement.

Tate wasn't a really relaxed guy, especially when they all knew of the school that the former red ranger who had led Earth's 2025 B-Squad to victory over Grumm was about forty-five minutes away by car. In the past two years since it had opened, rangers visited it at one point in time, just to get a glimpse at the famous ex-ranger. For Omega to get back as quickly as Tate would have normally liked would be impossible for any normal person. It was going to delay them for a while…

Or was it?

They heard a shriek and then frantic footsteps running down the hallway towards the Command Center and mere seconds later Sam bolted into the Command Center and took his place beside Nova, he face slightly flushed, probably from all the laughing or embarrassment or maybe he'd run back (though the latter very unlikely)…Tate couldn't decide.

"Omega-"

"I'm sorry sir," Sam replied as he tried to catch his breath properly, he'd just teleported and was still have a problem with where he ended up due to the security systems S.P.D. had put up since some species of aliens had similar capabilities and the fact that he was still new to the idea of teleporting himself as opposed to other objects. He'd managed to end up down the hall in a "broom" closet, freaking the poor janitor out who'd been searching for stain remover. The combination sprint and still recovering from laughing wasn't a nice feeling "I uh…"

The other rangers looked stunned…even Nova…there was no way he could've gotten back that fast…

Tate shook his head, "It's alright, I understand Commander Delgado can be very persuasive at times, please just next time, don't let her or Jack get a hold of your communications-"

"You can say that again," Sam muttered to himself before straightening up into proper stance, "Yes Commander."

She knew she shouldn't ask. She really knew she shouldn't…but she had to.

"If you don't mind me asking…what exactly were you doing?" Beth asked doing her best to sound professional; as if the information pertained to something important…she got away with it mainly because everyone else was wondering the exact same thing.

That included Nova.

"What were you doing?" she asked slowly in a voice that clearly stated 'I am so pissed at you right now you should be relieved there are witnesses in the room or you'd be toast.'

Sam looked over at Nova nervously, "I was with Commander Delgado and she wanted me to go visit Jack Landors with her and uh…when you called there was a bit of a fight over my morpher…"

"Yeah we figured that out," Chris muttered under his breath, Mimi nudged him in the side with her elbow to get him quiet.

"And?" Nova pressed, "You said you were at the school, that's a ways a way in a car, how'd you get back so soon?"

The first thing Beth noticed what how the young man immediately tensed up when she asked him the question. It was sort of putting him on the spot, but there couldn't be an "evil" reason right? That would make no sense. She didn't even know any "evil" reason existed in the realm of instantaneous transportation. But judging by the Omega Ranger's body language he did not want to discus it, and Commander Tate was not going to make him.

"Never mind that," Tate said causing the ranger's attention to revert back to him.

The look in Nova's eyes indicated that she was going to get to the bottom of it eventually and the B-Squad began to feel real sympathy for him as they remembered they shared a room.

"Someone should be put on guard to make sure Omega isn't attacked when he sleeps…" Beth whispered, but not as subtly as she would have liked.

"Cadet Duke, do you have something to say?" Tate asked turning to the young woman who turned as pink as her uniform.

"No sir," she responded looking at her feet.

"Good," Tate said as he eyed all the rangers. Sam did have to admit, with that smirk that seemed plastered on his face since Sam had arrived, did make him look strangely cheerful when he was about to kill them earlier… "Since you appear to not have the training to work with each other I am sending you to someone who will give it to you."

Nova frowned…first he had to go and cut off her access to the morphing grid halfway through her practice causing her to almost get shot by a Krybot while powered down, and now he was sending them off for more training? Did she get a say in anything? Ever? Why was it she had rank in the gold badge community that was supposed to be upheld outside of it, but wasn't?

But she bit her bottom lip, she was going to say something she'd regret and she was quite happy not working on Pluto, which wasn't even really a planet.

"When do we leave sir?" Chris asked glancing over at the other rangers before asking, "do we…uh…pack anything?" he added awkwardly.

Kat smiled at them, "Everything you need is on the ship, it has pre-programmed coordinates, and it should get you there in a few hours."

The two ranger "teams" looked over at each other…hours? This was not going to go well. Andre took a deep breath before releasing it and squinting for no particular reason. Hours? The atmosphere in the ship was going to be unbearable with all of them trapped in there. Beth and Sam both had sinking feelings that they might be unofficially in charge of making sure there were no corpses in the ship by the time they got to Zentor. Somehow they didn't think that would go over too well…

Though on the other hand, forcing them to be around each other in a confined space could do something good and force them to talk about things that wouldn't result in the mutilation or killing of anyone. They didn't get the feeling if they did talk about stuff like that, that it would stay on topic for long before they were back at each other's throat. Sam hoped this guy was good, he'd never realized it before, but they were a pretty misfit team and needed all the help they could get if they ever wanted to work together.

Not that they of course wanted to at this point…

"Why does Omega have to do this?" Chris snapped before he could stop himself, "Isn't he suddenly 'perfect'?"

There was a collective round of "ooooooohs" at that statement and they turned to Sam to see how he would react. He simply glanced over at Chris before looking back at Tate. He didn't know what to say to that and not give something away or retort with an insult which would be counterproductive.

"Must not take it personally," Sam repeated like a mantra in his head… "Must not take it personally,"

"Is that what you all think?" Tate demanded to know.

"Well," Drew began turning to the B-Squad, "I think I speak for B-Squad when I say that he and Nova show up late for battle, he gets one good idea about combining the Zords and suddenly he knows more about teamwork than us when he has NEVER made an effort to be a team with us. Why does he get the right to keep his morpher and we do not?"

The rest of B-Squad nodded in agreement as he spoke.

Tate's eyes narrowed, "Do you think I am incompetent?" the B-Squad rangers looked stunned, Sam meanwhile, clasped a hand over his cheek out of pure fear of what Nova would say to that. The gesture brought a small smile to Kat's face.

"Uh…no sir," Drew replied flushing as Andre nudged him forwards, "what was that for?" he snapped back to his team-mate in a harsh whisper.

"That's one of you," Tate sighed…he needed more Advil… Stat… he then added in a more drill sergeant tone, "What about the rest of you?"

"No sir!" the rest of the rangers replied snapping to a taller stance, except Nova, who didn't say anything to it.

"You take off immediately, dismissed."

Kat gestured for the rangers to follow her, and rather reluctantly they did. She led them to the ship and they entered, not pleased to see the seats were in rows beside each other. There was going to be on avoiding the others on the journey, and Kat was suddenly grateful she wasn't one of the passengers. She waved goodbye as the hatch closed and the ship took off.

The interior was silent.

Tension you could cut with a knife.

Andre sat in what would have been the pilot's seat if someone was driving and was attempting to pull his dark hair back into a ponytail…but his hair simply wasn't long enough for him to do it. Mimi sat in the co-pilot's chair while Chris and Beth sat behind them, then Drew, Nova, and Sam. All were doing something idle like Andre in an attempt to ease some of the awkwardness. Beth had started re-braiding her hair; Mimi had started playing a game of "I spy" with Chris, and Andre, Nova had started looking over her nails, while Sam just watched them all. No one knew what to do. They didn't want to talk because that would inevitably end up in arguing and they had hours to go on their journey still…no one wanted an unpleasant ride.

They stayed like this for an hour until…

"Red, do you have any idea what's on Zentor?" Nova asked looking over at Drew specifically who was about to answer Mimi's sudden challenge of 'I spy something green', which was narrowed down to Chris's uniform or an unidentified button on the ship's controls.

Sam was pretty sure that at that moment…time stopped. Had Nova just spoken to a B-Squad ranger of her own free will…and were those neutral words? Sam smiled at the young woman. It was a start.

Drew's eyes went wide, "Me?"

Nova raised an eyebrow and rolled her eyes, "No, the other red ranger in here…any ideas?"

"I heard that some people go there for special weapons and tactics training, apparently the guy there has a way of getting any team into shape," Andre sighed sensing Drew had no idea, "he's going to have a hell of a time with us. I've heard he's more annoying than scary though. But that's from the pink ranger from KO-35, and I'm not sure if she likes me…"

"Hard time might be an understatement," Sam sighed as he leaned against the back of his chair…god he wanted to go to bed…and eat, why wasn't he hungry at lunch when it was convenient? "I don't suppose she packed up anything to eat do you think?"

"I thought you weren't hungry," Mimi said feeling (for some odd reason) sorry for using up his food card, even though he'd given it to her.

Sam shrugged, "I wasn't, the people in the cafeteria kind of made me nervous so I left…" he paused, "Jack, Z, and I were going to go for lunch actually before-"

Beth smiled as she realized they were all sort of having a conversation that wasn't insults…well…yet… "So why were the three of you going to lunch? You've never worked for her and Jack left S.P.D. when we were all little kids," she asked trying to keep the conversation on neutral ground.

"Probably trying to get that transfer," Chris snorted, but was elbowed by Beth angrily.

"What transfer?" Sam asked cocking his head to the side.

Nova let out a groan, "I'll explain it later, okay?"

Sam's head stayed in the same spot but his gaze shifted over to Nova who was waving the apparent accusation off as though it was nothing when it was obviously something he should be informed about. What had happened when he'd been talking to Commander Tate? Why did he always manage to miss things like that?

"Uh…anyways…I was…sort of…" he struggled to find the right word, but couldn't "well… Jack, Z, Sky, Sydney and Bridge were rangers at the time…they got me enrolled at S.P.D., after I got accepted into the gold badge program we hadn't talked much." Sam paused and took a deep breath, he felt horrible for the way he'd treated the other rangers, especially when they'd known the entire time about his 'destiny' to be the Omega Ranger "When she came to visit Commander Tate she thought she'd come and see me and Jack too. I was literally dragged out of the base by her. I hadn't seen Jack in years, I didn't even realise he was a teacher."

He put his feet up on the edge of Nova's seat stretching out his legs. Much to the surprise of the B-Squad, Nova didn't protest to the invasion of her personal 'bubble.' Drew turned to Beth smiling, but Beth frowned.

"No, get a footstool or something," she replied before the question was even asked.

Chris studied the two gold badges he despised so much and tried to think of a way to annoy them…he didn't come up with much better than, "So enough with this Nova and Omega shit, what are your names?"

Sam and Nova glanced at each other. Gold badges weren't called by their first names. They never had been. Why should it change? Nova was about to protest but Sam replied hoping to open friendly relations with the other rangers. No use hiding behind codenames anyways…

"I'm Sam Breaker, this…" he said gesturing over to Nova, "is Lisa Bright, but don't call her that."

"Damn straight," Nova agreed nodding to Sam and glaring at Chris, as if daring him to call her Lisa. If he did she was going to break his arm in two places, no lie.

"Lisa's a pretty name," Beth remarked edging forwards on her seat, "why don't you like it?"

"Don't go there," Nova grumbled angrily folding her arms across her chest. She looked over at Sam's feet and then back at him. He wiggled his toes in response and earned a fleeting smirk from her.

The ship went silent again.

"Awkward," Sam remarked, then added "Alright, what about you guys? Tell us something about you, maybe it'll get us through the trip…" his stomach rumbled in response, "okay, after I find something edible."

He cracked his neck and took his feet down from Nova's seat. Removing himself from the main sitting area he began searching through the bags Kat had packed for them. He went over to the bag that said "Super Emergency Supplies," (a weird label for Kat to put on the bag, it didn't even make sense.) The undoing of zippers began and the throwing aside of everything that wasn't food…

Drew thought for a minute running a hand through his blonde hair, "Well, what can I say? My name's Andrew McCormick Jr., I grew up in a little town called Charterville. I was a big comic book fan when I was a kid. Apparently Charterville was known for having a superhero team of its' own when my father was a kid and-"

"Wait, I thought your last name was Williams…" Mimi interrupted as she frowned at her team-mate. She was supposed to know about him already.

Drew rolled his eyes, "It's what I'm under the academy as, my father worked there for a few years and the database wouldn't accept two people with the same name even with a number added to it. I don't know some sort of weird problem they've since worked out. But everyone knows me as Drew Williams so I go by it, no big deal."

"So where'd the Williams come from?" Nova asked frowning.

"My godfather's last name."

"Ah I get- ouch!" Nova began then snapped as she was nailed in the back of the head by a flying pair of binoculars, "Holy shit that hurt! Omega! Stop throwing things!" She turned around in time to duck as a green pair of sweatpants went over her head and landed on Drew.

"Thanks a lot Omega," Drew mumbled sarcastically pulling the sweatpants off of his head.

The constant shuffling sound abruptly stopped. Sam didn't respond.

"Sam?" Andre asked letting the name roll of his tongue awkwardly, as he attempted getting used to the fact Omega did indeed have a name, "you alright?"

Sam cocked his head to the side as he peered into one of the black backpacks. He struggled to pull something out of it by bracing his feet against it and then pulling with his upper body. It took a while but he managed to get it out. He stared at the object and turned it over numerous times before placing it on the ground. The other rangers were leaning over in an attempt to see what he was doing.

"Care to fill us in?" Chris asked rolling his eyes, he didn't care if they were being nice now, it was just a ploy to get Nova's morpher reinstated, he was sure of it.

Sam picked up the object and showed it to the rangers who gave him strange looks. The smooth silver surface reflected the light in the ship.

"Is that a-" Andre began but Mimi beat him to the punch.

"A toaster?"

Nudge Nudge Wink Wink

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