At the school, Monty was finding a quiet place to have his lunch. Victor was still sore about his near-miss at getting fifty trophies, and the fact that very soon he would have to run for re-election. While Monty did care about his friend dearly, to hear him whining about his trophies so much was starting to get a little wearing and so he had to make his excuses and leave Victor to go work off some steam and figure out how he was going to get himself on top once again.

Despite his irritation, Monty still only felt confident enough to eat lunch in the canteen whenever Victor was with him. By himself, he had to look for somewhere he could be by himself. It was for the best anyway, it wasn't as though he had the largest circle of friends.

"I wonder what mom packed for me today." He mused, pulling out his lunch box and beginning to take a look. He smiled as he realised he had some pretty good eats on this occasion. Tuna with red cabbage coleslaw, some steamed cauliflower and best of all…a big slab of his mom's home-made pumpkin bread!

"Score!" He declared, pulling it out. "Today is really looking up!"

He bumped into someone, and as he looked up from his lunch, he saw a chest…a muscular chest, wearing a white t-shirt and leather jacket! He gulped as he looked up, confirming his fear. It was Ace.

"Hey there Monty!" Ace greeted him with a little smirk. "It's been a while since we had a chat!"

Monty was about to turn and run, but two of Ace's friends were directly behind him. They grabbed the tiny student and turned him to face the bully.

"Now why would you try and leave without saying goodbye? Things like that hurt my feelings!" He commented. "Almost as much as all those mean things you said to me at the food court when my cousin was with you."

"Ace…I…um…" Ace snatched his pumpkin bread away and threw it down the hall.

"Save it!" Ace snapped in response. "You were real brave when Victor was around, what's changed?"

"Well…for one thing there are three of you…"

"Let's put him in the trash!" Ace stated, looking to his friends, who took Monty tightly from each side and picked him up. They laughed as Monty squealed and kicked, trying to get away as they carried him towards a trash can. They were about to dump him in, when Ace felt something hit the back of his head. He reached up, finding crumbs in his hair. He looked to the floor seeing pumpkin bread.

"Alright, whoever did that just bought themselves a whole world of pain!" He announced, turning around to see Viera standing down the hall, holding the remainder of the pumpkin bread.

"You there! Let him go!" She demanded regally. In her search for something to eat, she had seen the assault. Ace looked to her and scoffed.

"This is nothing to do with you babe!" He said disrespectfully as he looked back to Monty. "You still have a date with…HEY!"

Ace and his friends were astounded as Viera got in between them and grabbed Monty's legs, yanking him down to the floor with surprising strength. She just looked to the bigger kids defiantly.

"You will NOT harm him!" She commanded. Ace stood over her, looking down on her.

"You know, you're lucky you're a girl. If you were a guy you'd be collecting your teeth." Ace told her, before looking her up and down. "Then again, you are kind of a babe. You new around here? Maybe you'd like to get aaaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

He screamed as Viera grabbed his fingers as he reached for her and snapped them. He stared at her in amazement as he clutched his throbbing fingers.

"I am not a 'babe'!" She snapped at him. "Now leave before I break the rest of them!"

Ace took a swing for her, incensed that a girl would treat him like that. He didn't count on the fact that his intended victim had been trained to defend herself against potential political kidnappings and assassination attempts by some of the deadliest creatures in the Lion Galaxy since she could walk. He ended up taking a face-first dive straight into the trash can himself.

"Hey, you can't do that to Ace!" One of the others called out, coming right at her. Viera shoved Monty into a corner while she fended off her attackers. Monty could only watch in awe as his saviour once again leapt to his aid. She defeated both of them with very little effort, leaving them laying, before turning her attention back to the trash can where Ace's legs were still kicking in the air, trying to topple it to escape. He pulled it over, before yanking it out and stomping on his chest, glaring down at him.

"I don't care what your problem with him is, it's over now." Viera stated. "I will NOT have this conversation again! Understand?"

Ace nodded, before getting up and running off with his buddies. Viera looked to Monty, who was still cowering in the corner. She offered him a hand.

"Are you alright?" She asked him. Monty stared at her, misty-eyed, with a goofy grin on his face.

"You're…you're amazing!" He said dreamily. Viera smiled a little hearing this.

"Well, you seem alright now." She responded. "I should probably be going."

"WAIT!" Monty called after her. "I…I want to thank you!"

"Thank me?" Viera asked.

"For your help!" He clarified. "My name's Monty."

"Viera." She replied. "I should really be going, I was just looking for…"

She tailed off as she started sniffing the air. Monty wondered what she was doing.

"What is that delicious smell?" She asked him. He looked a little stunned.

"That's…that's my lunch!" He told her, pulling out his lunch box. "Would you like…oh, OK!"

He didn't get a chance to invite Viera to take it, before she had taken the box from his hands and grabbed one of his sandwiches, beginning to devour it.

"I think you might prefer the pumpkin…"

"What IS this?" She shrieked in delight. "This is delicious!"

"Really?" He asked. "Well, you can take it if you like…"

"Thank you!" Viera replied, grabbing the rest of the sandwiches and handing him back the box, before walking away. Monty watched her go and sighed.

"She's beautiful AND likes my mom's food?" He said as his thoughts drifted away. "She really is perfect!"

In another part of town, Mick was sitting in Principal Hastings' dining room, relaying to her the most recent events of the team. It was a little odd to talk about Ranger related business to anyone outside the team. He assumed that Levi would occasionally let his adoptive brother Tom in on a few things, and he knew that Sarah had a pretty extensive network of friends in Amber Beach who knew about her activities, but in general it was just habit that no one talked to anyone outside the team. Preston likened it to the Magic Circle, which he had explained to Mick was a society that magicians would join by invitation who took an oath to share secrets of their tricks, but only with other members in an effort to protect their craft by limiting the chances anyone who wasn't a magician would learn the secrets behind their tricks. That said, it did mean that he was a little limited in his discussion since the only other people he could talk about his thoughts with were already on the team and so had already made up their minds on most of the issues.

Jennifer, Principal Hastings to the students, listened as Mick told her all about Viera and her family. He told her about being ripped from his home and his family to be sold like second-hand furniture. He told her about his years as a slave on the ship, of watching a veritable revolving door of slaves enter the ship and leave as corpses, including many good friends. As he finished his story, she was finally able to take a breath. Being in education, she had heard a lot of stories, mostly from history books, but sadly also more than a few from her own students, but she had never met anyone who had actually been sold into slavery on the orders of a despot.

"Wow." She breathed as she heard him complete his story. It was pretty much the only thing she could think of to say, as lame as it sounded coming out of her mouth.

"I…I hate feeling like this." Mick admitted. "This isn't like me. This anger, this hatred, it's been a part of me for 20 years, but I've always tried to still be me."

He took a sip of his drink, looking to her.

"I always try to be a good person, but when I see that crest, when I see her, all I can think about is her family and what they've done." He admitted. "She's come to me for help, and the only thing I can think is what if she uses what we give her to be just as bad as her dad? What if she uses it to be even worse?"

"I can't say I blame you after everything you've been through." Jennifer answered, thinking about it. "I mean, that is the risk you're going to take helping her get a weapon back online."

"That's exactly how I feel. Plus, we only have a small amount of Ninja Steel left, only two stars!" He told her. "How can we afford to give one up for her when we can't be sure what she's going to do with it?"

"Mick, I know this might seem like a strange question, but…have you heard of Hitler?" Jennifer asked him. He just gave her a somewhat withering look.

"I may be an alien, but of course I know who Adolf Hitler was." He responded. "I did a bit of research on Earth so I wouldn't stand out…well…too much. You really can't look into Earth's history without hearing about him."

"I was actually meaning William Patrick Hitler. Well, until he changed his surname to Stuart-Houston." She continued. Mick just shrugged his shoulders. "Well, he actually served in the United States Navy during World War II. He ended up fighting against his Uncle's regime. He won a Purple Heart too." *

"He served in the US Navy?" Mick asked her. She nodded.

"He's not as well-known as his uncle obviously, but just because he was related to him didn't mean he was like him, and his actions proved that." She stated, picking up her coffee and taking a long sip. "Sometimes people aren't much like their relatives at all.

Mick just nodded as he saw the point she was making.

"I can't tell you for a fact what this Viera is like, or what she'll do with that ship of hers. The only thing I can tell you is I always try to live my life by one rule."

"What's that?" Mick asked her.

"I always respect everyone, right up until the time their actions prove to me they don't deserve it." She told him. "And while occasionally it might cost me, I like to think that for most people, giving them a chance goes a long way to getting to see the best of them."

"Thanks for this." Mick answered. "It's been great being able to talk."

"Any time." She replied. "Say, do you have class this afternoon?"

"No, I'm free for the rest of the day." He answered. "Why?"

"Because if you need to relax a little I have a great pool." She told him with a smile as she went to get changed. Mick just scratched his head.

"You have a pool too?" He asked her. "Seriously, how the hell did you afford this place?"

"Oh, that's a story for another day." She replied.

Back at the school, Sarah was getting her books out of her locker for her last couple of periods of the day when Preston came over behind her, tapping her on her shoulder. He tried to do the old joke of tapping her on the opposite shoulder to get her to turn the opposite way, but she turned towards him instead, smiling.

"You're learning." He commented. This was a deliberate thing. As his assistant for his magic shows, he had explained to her that focus and being able to figure out where her focus needed to be were very important. Even when things went right, a stage in a magic show had a lot of distractions. The audience, special effects, pyrotechnics, mist and lights. All of them could be highly distracting which could affect the proper execution of a trick. Often it would just mean that it took the audience out of the illusion and out of the suspension of disbelief if someone missed a cue or forgot where they were in the process of a trick, but sometimes if someone wasn't where they were meant to be, it could be extremely dangerous, and Preston was becoming a lot more adventurous and ambitious with his tricks. He had just ordered a whole host of new escapology props and hanging upside down in a sealed water tank was not an ideal place to be if the assistant forgot to take the safety pins out of the hinges to allow the escape.

"It's pretty hard not to when you do the same trick every time." She teased him. He just smiled as he came a little closer.

"So, there's a signing at the comic book store tomorrow night." He informed her. "I just thought, it's been a while, it might be about time for a second date."

"Second date huh?" Sarah asked, moving a little closer, wrapping her arms around his waist. "I like the sound of that."

"I was thinking once we go and get something to eat. Not that snooty French place I promise. Calvin recommended some burrito place." Preston told her.

"Burritos? You know what I like!" She said with a smile as her phone started to ring. She pulled it out, seeing that it was her mom on the other end. "Hold that thought. Hey mom, what's happening?"

Sarah listened to the conversation on the other end as Preston waited patiently. She just looked to her.

"Really? You're serious? Dad's coming home? That's great!" She screamed. She leapt at Preston, hugging him in her moment of excitement. She was confident he would still be a long way from a hundred percent, but the fact that he was being allowed to return home to continue his recovery was a good indication that they were confident in his strength. With Mr Tien's deep pockets paying for his care, and the fact that he had in the interim been helping a lot of the staff with their finances, they weren't exactly in a rush to kick him out the door like someone with limited insurance. Preston was only too glad to return the hug. He knew that as much as it hadn't been her fault, Sarah did feel guilty about the fact her dad was injured in one of her Ranger battles. Having him come home had to be an incredible weight off her mind. "When?"

Her face slipped a little as she heard the answer.

"Tomorrow night?" She asked. She looked to Preston regretfully. She knew he was looking forward to their date, but her dad coming home was a pretty big deal. He just gestured to her that it was alright. "Well, I was going to go somewhere with Preston, but yeah, I'll be there…wait…what?"

"What?" Preston mouthed as she looked to him again. Sarah put her hand over the mouth piece.

"Mom just suggested I invite you to the house." She informed him. Sarah knew her mom was delighted with the amount of time she had been spending with Preston and had been hinting and pushing for them to become a couple for weeks before Preston had plucked up the courage to ask her out. Her mom was a bit of a hopeless romantic, and Sarah was starting to think their most enthusiastic shipper. Preston looked a little nervous but nodded and gestured to her to go ahead.

"It's fine, tell her it's fine." Preston told her. Sarah just went back to the phone call.

"Yeah, mom? Preston says that fine, he'll be there." Sarah answered. "He wants to know if he should bring anything…just himself you say? OK, I'll tell him. That's great news! OK, I love you!"

She hung up and hugged Preston again tightly. He was only too happy to respond. Calvin and Hayley came over, smiling brightly.

"Aw, isn't that cute!" Hayley responded. "Do you remember when we were at that stage?"

"Uh, Hayley? You've only been going out three years." Sarah reminded them. "You still are at 'that stage'."

"How cute, young couples who think they have everything figured out." Calvin replied, pulling Hayley in closer. "They'll learn."

"Hey guys." Brody said as he came up to them. "I was just reviewing some of the footage from our last battle. I think I came up with a great training routine for us today."

"That's good, because I don't fancy getting my ass stomped like that again." Levi answered as he arrived. "I managed to slip Viera's forms into Mrs Finch's paperwork today, so we shouldn't have any problems while she's here."

"Well, that's one thing." Hayley mused. "It's difficult enough when we had that little snafu with Dr Williams."

"How was I to know he was from Spurgeon?" Sarah asked.

"Where did you first hear of Spurgeon?" Brody asked her.

"Oh." She responded sheepishly. "Oops."

"You know, people pick things up through just being around it they don't realise." Brody replied with a shrug. "That's probably how I always thought dad's song was actually his."

"What's this about your dad's song?" Levi asked.

"Oh, it turns out it was actually a song your brother sang." Brody told him. "I guess dad liked it and sang it for me and my brother."

"I can't believe you thought one of Tom's songs was your dad's." Levi chuckled. "You do know he only did cover versions, right?"

"WHAT?" Sarah called out. "And after always calling Brody a plagiarist? That cheeky son of a bitch!"

"Uh…guys? Is anyone else noticing that Viera's missing?" Calvin asked. They all looked around, realising he was right.

"Wait, I thought you guys went to find her." Hayley said, pointing to Preston and Sarah.

"We thought you did!" Preston protested.

"So, you mean an alien with only a day's experience on Earth is running around unsupervised?" Sarah gulped as she started to flail nervously. "Oh, this isn't good, this isn't good, Mick is so going to kill us!"

"VIERA!" Hayley called out as she saw her rounding a corner. Viera came over, still eating as she noticed them. "Viera, where were you?"

"I told you, I was going to get something to eat." Viera answered as she gulped down another mouthful. "I found a human willing to give me something."

"OK, we really need to be more careful." Brody commented as the bell rang. "Viera, from now on, try to make sure at least one of us is with you alright?"

"I'll try." She answered.

"OK, so it's gym class next." Hayley responded. "I hope you like dodgeball."

"Dodgeball?" Viera asked. "What's that?"

A/N: The passage marked with a * is true. I thought it illustrated the point pretty well.