Morning came around, and the Rangers came into Phillipe's office in the Embassy. Kendall and Phillipe had decided that it was probably for the best that they stay somewhere that they could keep an eye on them. Under the influence of Shearfear's spell, they were at each other's throats. It was like any tiny slight, anything that even marginally irritated them about each other got blown up out of all proportion. Chase, Tyler, Riley and Ivan all lived together in an apartment that already was only ever designed for two people, perhaps three at a stretch, and with no one there to referee, it seemed sending them there would just be an invitation for a bloodbath!

Phillipe had arranged for breakfast to be served in his office. To say it was a tense affair would be an understatement.

"Would you like some bacon with your ketchup?" Tyler muttered as Riley squirted a good dollop onto his plate. "Some of the rest of us might like some."

Riley slid the bottle across the table, purposefully a little too hard, forcing Tyler to react quickly to catch it before it flew off the table.

"It needs SOMETHING to give it some flavour." Riley grumbled. "You guys don't even know what real bacon tastes like. This stuff is so heavily cured it tastes of nothing but salt."

"Oh, spare us the 'everything is better on the farm' deal." Chase responded as he hacked away at a hash brown. "You grew up in the ass end of nowhere, we get it. It's not like we don't hear it every day."

"Oh, like you don't constantly bore us with New Zealand stuff." Shelby responded with a derisive snort. "Oh, we don't have to strap on a hundred pounds of armour to play Rugby."

"I don't..."

"The surf is so much better back home." Riley said, mocking Chase's accent.

"I can't help it if we have a better climate..."

"And the views are so spectacular back home." Tyler added. They all laughed as they got to this point. Chase looked a little sour, but he did smile a little.

"I suppose I do talk about it a lot." He replied as he took some toast from a rack on the table. "I haven't been home in so long. I just really miss it."

"I guess having Chloe here's reminded you a lot of home." Phillipe interjected, noting this turn in the conversation. "It must get you thinking a lot about what you left behind."

"I didn't leave that much." Chase admitted. "After High School I was just kind of coasting. Doing a few dead-end jobs here and there, bumming about on the skate parks...I just hadn't figured out what I wanted to do until all this began."

"I suppose I wasn't too sure either." Tyler admitted. "I left pretty much straight after High School to start searching for my dad. That's pretty much all I've been doing."

Just then, Koda came into the room, carrying some bags with him, dumping them on the floor. They all looked to him a little confused by this.

"Koda, what's with all the luggage?" Tyler asked.

"Training gear." Koda told them. "You all fight too much. We need work together, rebuild strong friendship."

"Koda..."

"After breakfast, come with me." Koda told them. "I have idea."

"Koda, we might not be friends, but we don't need to be." Shelby responded. "We can still fight together. Who ever likes everyone they work with?"

"NO! I don't believe!" Koda put down flatly. "Last fight; spend all time fighting each other!"

"He has a point." Phillipe agreed, looking to Koda. "So, what do you have in mind?"

"Finish breakfast." He told them, sitting down and starting to fill his plate. "Have big day planned."

Over in her lab, Kendall rubbed her eyes as she continued to work away on her computers. She had been working all night long to try and figure out how Shearfear had managed to sever the Ranger's friendships. With a piece of his blade to analyse, she was trying out every theory she could think of.

The thing that troubled her most in all of it was that friendship was not something that leant itself well to any form of solid science to explain. Normally she'd be looking for cause and effect, the triggering factor in anything, but that eluded her. There was no simple explanation. It wasn't as though they were friends because they did things to help each other, that would be simple to replicate. While they did do a lot to help each other, switching shifts to allow each other to keep appointments, making meals, running errands etc. and often these acts would be reciprocated, this wasn't always the case. Sometimes they did things when they knew the act would not be repaid or there was no real material gain whatsoever.

They weren't friends because they were Rangers, or because they worked together, Kendall knew that much. There were other people working at the museum now, and not all of them were exactly friends with the Rangers, or each other. She did have to explain once or twice that the Rangers had "other qualifications" and "extra responsibilities" as a dig team when other employees expressed frustration at being abandoned at busy periods with no explanation or when Kendall seemed to favour them for the perks such as social events and suchlike. It wasn't like she invited all of her employees to accept Prince Phillipe's invitation to the Embassy party.

The whole situation got to her, but she had to admit that it wasn't just because of the fact she was watching her team tear each other apart. It was the way it made her look at her own life. She loved her team, she loved having friends now, but if she was honest, she couldn't really put her finger on how it happened. She couldn't think of one defining moment that they went from being acquaintances to being friends. For so long, she had kept her distance from others in her field, many of whom didn't hide the fact they didn't think she belonged or that she got to where she was for reasons other than her hard work and intelligence. With the exception of Anton, there was a brief time that she had thought that one of her colleagues was becoming a friend. He worked with her on a post-grad paper, only to let her down when he published it with only his name listed as a contributor. She had for most of the early days maintained a distance from her Rangers, but somewhere along the line, she found herself smiling just thinking about them, or finding things that amused her or interested her and thinking she couldn't wait until she could share it with them. It was clear they were friends, but she couldn't actually think when that had happened. It just kind of...happened.

She looked to one of her many computers as it found something about the blade. It wasn't just an ordinary blade, she already knew that much. Its chemical composition was only partially made up of elements on Earth's periodic table, again she wasn't surprised. Being an alien, she didn't doubt that on his home planet, there would be things that weren't available on Earth, just as she was sure that there were things on Earth that weren't available anywhere else. What intrigued her though was that the blade emitted a low level of radiation. The computer assured her it wasn't harmful, but the radiation didn't seem to be in the spectrum she was aware of.

"Alright, what is going on here?" She asked, starting to run any kind of comparisons they could on the radiation. She found that there was something it was similar to, but it troubled her. There was a certain level of an unknown radiation that registered on her equipment...when Ivan and Riley returned from the tourney!

"It's magic?" She stated, beginning to think about it. She didn't claim to know much about magic. Not real magic anyway, she knew about the tricks performed on stage, and while she didn't claim to know how all of them were performed, she knew that they were more about misdirection and had very logical explanations how they were performed but REAL magic? That was something else entirely. She knew that the Energems had a power she didn't fully understand. Her technology harnessed that power, but the power itself was well beyond even her understanding.

It wasn't the first time that Ranger teams utilised magic as a power source. While most used technology to harness the power, the power itself was mystical in nature. Indeed, the Lightspeed team was the first team that had used powers that were completely man-made. This could only complicate matters.

The team that were closest to the mystical nature of their powers, their magic, were the Mystic Force team. Anton had explained to her at length about the Rangers he had met in his time within their world. Unfortunately, even if she could find the Mystic Rangers, she doubted they would be able to teach her everything she needed to know about magic in time. From what she understood, those connected to magic were reluctant to teach, since by nature it was dangerous knowledge to have. They were reluctant to even talk about it according to Anton, but there was one underlying thing that she had heard from all Anton's story. Where there was a spell, there was a counter-spell.

"Great, now all I have to do is figure out magic without a tutor in one day." She grumbled thinking about it. It was an impossible task, one that she had no idea how to accomplish. It would have been so much easier if it was just another of Wrench's devices. Even if she wasn't always familiar with the exact devices he used, she was usually able to figure out the technology behind it.

She turned her attention back to the screen, to the one indicating the radiation caused by the magic within the blade and she smiled as a thought came to her.

"This is probably the woolliest theory you've ever had Kendall." She remarked as she started to get to work. "I really hope this works."

Up on Sledge's ship, Shearfear was working hard, repairing his blade and getting it ready for the battle ahead when Sledge came into the lab. He grabbed a workbench, throwing it and scattering tools everywhere. Rather than a fit of temper though, he didn't actually seem to be enraged. If anything, he seemed...energised! He turned to Shearfear.

"Are you done with that thing yet?" He asked as he grabbed up his blaster rifle.

"You're looking..."

"I feel like I could take on an ARMY of Rangers!" Sledge rushed out as he started his usual checks on his blaster. "A little time with my fiancée..."

"I...think I get the picture." Shearfear interrupted him, holding up a hand, hoping that he would mercifully stop. He really didn't need that mental image.

"So, is your blade ready?" Sledge asked him. "I want to press the advantage as soon as possible!"

"It's not quite ready." Shearfear replied. He could see a distinct turn in Sledge's mood and started to back up. "I just want to be sure I don't make any more mistakes like the last time..."

"See that you don't!" Sledge snarled, slamming a fist into a bulkhead behind him. "By the end of the day, either my fiancée has an Energem wedding ring, or a new set of toenail clippers! Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes Mater Sledge." He responded in a meek little squeak as Sledge left the room. He went back to work, examining his blade. It looked like it was ready, but the last thing he wanted was to risk Sledge's wrath if something went wrong a second time.

He looked to the blade, examining it through the green lens of his viewing glass, checking the magic imbued into it.

"Everything seems to be as it should." He said as he considered it. He couldn't help running the footage of his previous battle with the Rangers again. "So what am I missing?"

He watched as his blade smashed against Margaret's bond again, seeing the piece spinning away. He looked a little closer as he ran the footage again, this time checking through the red lens of his spy glass.

"Of course." He responded as he saw the problem. He had been incarcerated on Sledge's ship so long, it never occurred to him. There was friendship in Margaret's bond with Phillipe, but there was also something else, something much stronger. He hadn't seen it in so long it never occurred to him. He got back to work on his blade.

"I should have known." He said as he got to work. "By the time I'm finished with this, no bond will stand in my way."

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city, the Rangers arrived at their destination. They had all followed Koda at his insistence. They were a little surprised though to see he had brought them to the gym.

"This is your idea?" Tyler asked him. "You want us to work out?"

"Koda, we train every day." Chase reminded him. "What are we doing here?"

"Need work on friendship." Koda told them. "What make good friendship? Strong friendship?"

The team all looked around, not quite understanding what Koda was getting at. Tyler looked to Chase.

"Trust." He responded. "Knowing that someone will cover your back!"

"I was dealing with..."

"Yes! Trust very important!" Koda agreed as he interjected to stop this devolving into another argument. "What else?"

"Working together." Phillipe stated. "Friends should be able to work as a team, to make things easier on each other."

"Glad you say that." Koda said with a smile as he stepped away from them a little. "NOW!"

They all turned in time to see Alessandra running straight for the ropes. She leapt into the air, soaring straight over the ropes. She landed on Koda's shoulder, rolling over to land nimbly on her feet as Koda fell backwards, landing on the floor. Koda got up to his feet as Alessandra looked to the Rangers.

"Koda tell us you fall out." Alessandra told them. "Ask us to help."

"A good friendship relies on trust and co-operation." Jack said as he stepped around the ring, coming into view. "Some of the best friends I've ever had I knew through this industry."

"Wrestling?" Chase asked, looking a little sceptical. "You want us to wrestle?"

"Trust and co-operation are vital for this too." Jack said, ignoring Chase's remark. He gestured to Alessandra. "What you just saw her do, she could only do because she knew Koda would be there."

"I trust Koda to catch." She told them as she put her arm around the Blue Ranger.

"The top rope is about ten feet from the floor." Jack told the team as he patted Koda on the shoulder. "As soon as Alessandra made her jump, she lost all ability to stop her momentum. If Koda didn't catch her, she'd have fallen all that way straight onto solid concrete, and we'd be scraping her onto a stretcher."

"So...you want us to do...that?" Riley asked. None of the others looked particularly convinced either. He just chuckled.

"Alessandra's done this for years; this is a bit beyond your first lesson." He told them. "But we will teach you some things, and trust me; your safety WILL be in each other's hands. So take that responsibility seriously."

"So...we're going to spend the day learning to pretend were fighting?" Chase asked. Jack just looked to Koda.

"I'll pair up with that one first." He said, before taking Chase aside. "Oh, just to let you know, there's another thing you need to learn about this business...respect."

Back at the Embassy, Margaret was overseeing the damage control efforts, and not just the repairs to the building. She was on the phone to what seemed like the thousandth reporter to phone asking for a word with the Prince regarding the attack at the party.

"I'm sorry, but the Prince is unavailable for comment at this time." She said wearily, parroting the party line she had said more times than she had cared to count. She opened up a note on her palm pilot to take his details. "If you would leave your name, publication, a number we can contact you on and your deadline date, someone will be in touch with you once we have prepared an official statement..."

She tailed off as the reporter said something to her.

"Well I'm sorry if you feel that way, but until we prepare an official statement..." She heard something else. "Well, same to you asshole!"

She hung up the phone and leaned back against a wall. Matt arrived a moment later, chuckling as he heard this. It wasn't often that she lost composure.

"So is that official Zandarian policy on dealing with the press?" He asked her. She just groaned.

"No, it really isn't." She answered. "I'm just fed up with all these vultures. I just know they're going to try and paint this as his fault."

"You really think so?" Matt asked her.

"No, I just think that a 25-year-old with little political background trying to be taken seriously as an Ambassador throwing a party at which a bunch of American citizens are attacked isn't going to sell any tabloids at all." She replied sarcastically. "It doesn't matter that people are attacked in this city all the time, this happened at his doorstep."

"You're always trying to protect him aren't you?" Matt asked her.

"It's kind of in the job description." She responded. Matt didn't look convinced at all. He just sat on a desk, looking at her.

"It's a lot more than that isn't it?" He asked her. "He doesn't know how you feel does he?"

"I'm sorry?" She asked him in response. He just smiled.

"I kind of suspected there was something when I first met the two of you." Matt told her. "Now, I'm convinced. Why have you never told him?"

She didn't answer. She just looked to the phone as it started ringing. She sent it straight to voice-mail.

"I've...I've grown up with him." She responded. "I've been around the household my whole life. I'm more than aware what's expected of him."

"What's expected of him?" He asked.

"His dad would completely freak if his son told him he wanted to be with his bodyguard." Margaret told him. "He's already tried to set him up with a bunch of noblewomen from all across Europe..."

"Well, I don't claim to know much about the rules of aristocracy, but from what little I know about Phillipe, he's more into making his own traditions than listening to his father's." Matt told her. "He's here isn't he? Didn't his dad say this was a waste of time?"

"You really think it's that simple?" She asked him. He just shrugged.

"All I think is it might be worth letting him make the decision himself." Matt told her. "Think about it would you?"