Disclaimer: We don't own the Power Rangers series, just this plot, the characters and anything concerning this story (arsenal, monsters, etc.) :]

Hi! Here's the second part of 'Glue'! We hope you enjoy it!

Three days went by without a word being spoken between the members of the team. At school, they ignored one another; with Paige at war with Finn, Sean and Eve at one another's throats and Aaron caught right in the middle of the argument, refusing to take a side and ending up deciding not to speak to each member of the team until things had blown over between them.

It was only when each of them arrived for power training on the Monday afternoon that they looked one another in the eye.

"I'm waiting for an apology," Eve told the boys as they stood by their respective doors.

"For what?" Sean replied. "It was your fault for not seeing the counterattack."

"It was your fault for not following the exercise," Paige chimed in.

"It's combat practice; expect the unexpected," Finn retorted.

Aaron let out a long, heavy sigh. It was going to be a long training session. 'At least we're separated in power training,' he thought to himself.

"Rangers," Demitri called in an exited tone of voice. "Today's session will be…a little different than usual."

"Different how?" Paige asked, taking her hand off of her training room's doorknob and looking at Demitri curiously.

"For one, my dear knights, we will not be training separately today!"

"You're kidding me," Eve deadpanned.

"Cheer up, Eve! The session shall be held outside, in the forest!" Demitri exclaimed, grinning like a madman.

"The city has a forest?" Aaron questioned. "I mean, aside from the one near the school but that forest pretty much sucks."

"Well, actually it's Paige's back yard, but it's spacious and green enough to be like a forest from my own time!"

"Why, may I ask, are we going to be practicing together outside?" asked Finn, cautious.

Demitri's grin widened. "Due to your little spat the other day, I thought it was high time for you all to be working together more as a team. Now that you've all got your abilities under control, it's time to put them to proper use."

"Proper…use?" Eve said, cocking her head to one side.

"Well, I'll explain more when we're outside," Demitri response. "Let's get going team!"

Paige's backyard was, to be frank, enormous. The land that the Blake family owned was over 100 acres in total, with a least half of it was the woodland behind the house. As the team walked further and further into the undergrowth, the less and less of civilization they saw; with the gardeners becoming more infrequent, and altogether disappearing from sight.

After a while, the team reached a small clearing in the woods. It was there that Demitri, who had been leading the group's expedition up until now, stopped and turned to face them.

"Knights," Demitri began. "Having observed your progress during power training over the weeks, I believe that you are all ready to go onto the next stage."

"Next stage?" Aaron asked. "What, out in the woods?"

"Well, every other week power training will still be held within your individual training rooms," the brunette boy explained. "Right now, however, the woods is the perfect place to train as a group without being disturbed."

"What about the normal gym?" Eve enquired.

"Not enough natural obstacles."

"Okay, now I'm curious," said Sean. "What's this 'next stage' of training?"

Demitri smirked. "The combination of your powers for tactical use(?)!"

"Combination?" The group questioned in unison.

"For example," Demitri explained, his hazelnut brown eyes glinting with excitement. "An attacker creeps up on you five; Paige detects his presence, informs the rest of you, then Sean puts up a shield. Finn slows down his perception of time and locates the attacker, to which Aaron then hits them using his telekinesis. Eve heals anyone injured in the process, and voila! You've got a backup plan in case you cannot morph!"

"And how exactly are we supposed to perform this little routine while under stress?" Paige asked, sceptical.

"The solution is simple: you practice it."

"What, now?" Sean said.

"Of course; now go!" Demitri ordered, "I'll be your attacker!" and with that, he ran off into the forest.

The team stepped closer to one another, forming a circle as they scanned the trees surrounding them.

Paige closed her eyes, and slowed her breathing. 'I can do this.' She thought mentally. 'I've perfected it in training, I can do it here.'

"Look!" Sean exclaimed, breaking Paige's concentration as she opened her eyes. "He's over there!"

Zooming in her vision, which slightly misbalanced her, and caused her to blink several times, she saw Demitri about 100 metres away, grinning and waving. 'He's playing me.' She thought. 'How did I not hear him from there?' It was at that moment, she heard a rustle from behind her. It was subtle, but enough to alert Paige. "He's behind us!" The brunette exclaimed, turning around.

Finn blinked. "Erm…no, he's not," he told her, "Demitri's over there."

"No, Finn," Demitri said, suddenly appearing from behind the boy and knocking him onto the ground. "I'm not. Sean you need to put up that shield sooner."

"H-how did-?" Aaron began, only to be interrupted by Demitri.

"Simple illusionary magic," the boy told them. "Doesn't make any sounds though, unlike the genuine article. Trust in your scout's abilities, team. Again!"

Thus, the team performed the exercise again. This time, Finn failed to locate Demitri before he managed to break Sean's concentration of the field.

"Again!"

This time, Eve stepped out of the shield by accident, and got knocked down by Demitri.

"Again!"

Then, Aaron's discarded branch under telekinesis failed to hit Demitri on target.

"Again!"

Now, Paige couldn't locate Demitri due to the nattering's of the other team members.

"Once more!"

Sean's shield failed half-way through, as Eve began to argue with him after complaining she hasn't had the opportunity to heal Demitri yet, feeling left out of the action, and Sean declared it was her fault for having a 'terrible ability', suiting her 'equally terrible personality'.

"Again!"

The team must have attempted the routine at least 20 times over until they snapped.

"This isn't going to work Demitri!" Finn yelled, getting up off of the ground. "Do you honestly expect us to be mashed together like this so suddenly, and instantly be capable of being a team!?"

"Before all this, we didn't even know each other!" Sean shouted at an equal volume to Finn's previous statement. "How can we just suddenly get along now? I don't want to work with these losers! They've tarnished my reputation enough already!"

"What? So now we're losers, Sean?" Eve demanded, pushing him aggressively. "God forbid we try to be nice every once in a while and tarnish your already terrible reputation in the school! The world doesn't revolve around you, you arrogant pig!"

"Eve, Sean!" Aaron yelled. "Stop getting at one another's throats all the time! If it wasn't for your constant bickering, we wouldn't even be having this fight! You're old enough to stop acting like a bunch of brats!"

"Oh, like you can really talk, Mr. 'I'm the leader'," Paige interjected. "In case you haven't noticed, you're not helping! You wouldn't even pick a side when all this kicked off! Stay out of it!"

"It was your fault for picking sides! You should have just let them be!" retorted Aaron. "Maybe then we wouldn't be in this mess!"

"Silence!" Demitri bellowed; halting the argument instantly as the group turned to him. "I have never, not only as the prince of Rosenstorgh but as the commander of the Mystic Knights seen such insolence! You are the city's protectors! You are a team, the only one standing in the way of Kale's path of mayhem and destruction! You are honourable knights, chosen by me. Act like it!"

"We're teenagers Demitri!" Paige exclaimed. "No matter how much you want us to be, we're not your knights! We're just teenagers, thrown together last minute to save the world! We're not a team, we just got caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time! We have every right to argue about this!"

"Take a hint Demitri," Finn added. "We don't want to be a team! We never did!"

"My, my, Kale was right," a smooth, deep voice said, from behind the group, stopping the conversation. "A small argument between your team and everything crumbles around you, Demitri."

The group turned behind them to be met face to face with what appeared to be a man. Except, his limbs were impossibly long to be a regular human being. He had long, slender legs, along with arms reaching his knees, dangling there like tassels on a lampshade. All along his arms were deep blue tattoos, which appeared to be runes of some kind. However, all of this was almost unnoticed by the group, as they were drawn to his piercing silver eyes, sunken into his skull like a long-decayed corpse.

Demitri's eyes widened. "Manipula," he muttered under his breath.

"Ah, I'm so glad you remember me, my dear prince," Manipula replied, grinning slyly, revealing a sharp set of yellow teeth.

"How could I not?" Demitri said; his hazelnut brown eyes wide with something that could only be described as the terror seen in the eyes of a rabbit as it sees a pair of headlights. "You're a notorious criminal in Rosenstrogh."

"Indeed," Manipula remarked. "Five of your precious mystical knights during your father's reign encountered me; none of them lived to tell the tale."

"You turned them against one another," Demitri said, his voice strained. "You made them fight one another to the death."

"No, no my dear," he told Demitri, his silver eyes glinting with malice. "They turned against one another of their own free will. I simply…planted the seeds of distrust in their minds. Transformed into each member briefly, you see? They did the rest."

"Dem?" Paige asked, placing a hand on the prince's shoulder, causing him to snap out of his staring match with the monster and look back at the rangers.

"I'm fine," he told the five; though everything in his body language told them otherwise.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, dear Demitri," Manipula said, nothing in his voice giving the slightest twinge of true sorry being felt. "But I'm afraid I'm under orders to destroy this batch of knights as well. No hard feelings, right? And of course, I'll have to get rid of you too. Master Kale doesn't like meddling children in the way of his work."

"You'll have to get through us first," interrupted Aaron, standing in front of Demitri defensively.

"Oh really? How can you expect to defeat me, when you cannot even solve a simple dispute among yourselves? I'm not like your previous foes, rangers."

"Rangers," Demitri told the teenagers. "Don't morph yet. In this state, Manipula can easily copy the ranger form, and use it against you in battle. Injure him in his invisible state first: that should weaken him enough to stop his transforming aptitude."

"Right!" The team responded, nodding in unison.

"Let's go, team," Aaron told the group. "Let's see how much we've improved our powers since the start!"

Hello, dear readers! It's Rish. Hopefully you enjoyed it! Rosie did not fail to make me happy with this! Don't you guys love her writing?

I planned to put this up sooner but I wasn't feeling well so I wasn't able to edit.

Oh, and guys, I just watched Sea of Monsters and it was so awesome! I wanna go back to the move theater and watch it again! Please! I might next week but that is so long! If you guys are Percy Jackson fans, well, I hope you enjoy it because I sure did! We needed more ThaLuke scenes, though...or at least mentions. I am so sure Paloma Kwiatkowski will do an awesome job as Thalia! Jake Abel didn't fail me again as Luke. Douglas Smith was absolutely adorable as Tyson! And I loved Leven Rambin as Clarisse (her as Glimmer was good, too, but she had more scenes here)! And Grey Damon/Chris Rodriguez was hot! I'm actually a Percy/Clarisse fan now because of this (though nothing beats Percy/Calypso & Chris/Clarisse for me)! I am so excited for Titan's Curse! More ThaLuke (I hope)! Titan's Curse was a great books so I hope the movie will be just as good. Can Jake Abel and Paloma Kwiatkowski get married and have kids, please?

Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing (and sorry for my Percy Jackson rant up there)! We hope you continue, it lifts up our spirits! And now, I'm off to do my NTROPSY homework!