Roses and Thorns

Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Power Rangers, Ninja Storm, and I'm not making any money from this fic

CamFan4Ever: Which she don't you think is a Mary Sue? There are... -counts on fingers 'Faye, Cally, Lila...'- three of them, plus two males. Cos there's a male equivalent of a Mary Sue as well.

I'm glad you like it so far. -Pleased- (I'd put a smiley in, but, for some reason, they won't upload... Grr). This is actually quite difficult to write... -Says to self- Ignore the temptation to make them perfect, give them flaws, make any relationships with canon characters realistic, make canon characters act realistically... There's too many things to remember! Wah!

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Tori walked into the storeroom of Storm Chargers in time to see Hunter and Blake mock wrestling with an empty cardboard box. The two Thunder Rangers seemed to be having fun, and were completely oblivious to everything else, even the fact that they were actually supposed to be working.

And if they had been working out in the shop like they were supposed to, they probably would have been able to stop Dustin from having to see Cally again, Tori thought to herself, putting her hands on her hips. She couldn't stop a smile from appearing on her face, though. Hunter and Blake having fun together tended to make most of the other Rangers happy... Except maybe for Cam.

The Bradley brothers still hadn't noticed Tori's presence, so the blue wind ranger cleared her throat to get their attention.

Immediately, Hunter and Blake stopped mock wrestling, and both looked guilty. Then, when they saw who it was, Hunter relaxed, though Blake still looked a little embarrassed.

"Hey, what's up?" Hunter asked Tori brightly.

"A customer just came into the shop," Tori replied, taking a quick look around the storeroom. To her surprise, she saw that everything seemed to be in order. Apparently, the wrestling match hadn't caused any breakage's or a huge amount of mess.

Hunter blinked. "Um, so what?" he asked. "Dustin can deal with them, can't he? Blake and I are clearing up in here... Well, we're supposed to be."

Tori shot a quick glance towards Blake, who looked like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Suddenly, Hunter's face blanched. "Oh, no," he groaned. "The customer wasn't a redhead called Lila, was it?"

Tori blinked, and shook her head. "Um, no," she replied. "It was an old girlfriend of Dustin's."

Both Hunter and Blake looked blank, and Tori remembered that they wouldn't actually know about Cally. She wasn't even sure that Shane did, unless Dustin had told him, and that probably wasn't very likely.

Hunter was the first one to speak. "Dude, I didn't know that Dustin had an old girlfriend," he commented.

"You wouldn't have," Tori replied. "Dustin won't speak about her at all if he can help it."

"Why?" Blake asked.

"I'm not sure that I should tell you," Tori answered, frowning a little. "I mean, it's not like I don't trust you guys or anything... But it's really Dustin's decision to tell, or not tell, as the case may be."

"You might as well tell them," Dustin commented, standing in the doorway of the storeroom. His eyes were flat, the usual humour that filled them gone. Cally's sudden reappearance had shaken him.

"Are you all right, Dustin?" Tori asked gently.

Dustin shook his head. "Not really," he replied. He looked at Blake and Hunter. "Cally was my girlfriend from a few years back," he explained. "I really cared about her, even loved her, and I was sure that she felt the same way... But she clearly didn't."

"What happened, dude?" Hunter asked gently.

Dustin took a deep breath. "I found out that she was seeing someone else behind my back," he replied. "I broke up with her, and she moved soon after... But now, she's back."

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"Hey, are you trying to see how that thing works?" Shane asked Cam, watching as the green samurai ranger studied his morpher with an intent look in his eyes.

Cam didn't reply. Either he had decided that Shane wasn't worth talking to, or he was so caught up in studying his morpher that he honestly didn't hear a word anyone said to him.

Shane decided that it was probably the latter. Cam might be a lot of things, but mean without a good reason wasn't one of them.

Shane walked over to Cam, and waved a hand in front of his face. "Hey, earth to Cam? Do you read me?"

Cam didn't even look up.

Shane sighed, and began pacing the floor of NinjaOps, trying to make as much noise as possible. When that didn't work, he hummed really loudly.

I'm running out of ideas, Shane thought to himself as he watched Cam still working.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to the red wind ranger, and he grinned to himself. If this didn't work, nothing would.

Shane walked over to Cam's computer, and reached a hand out towards the keyboard.

"Don't touch that, Shane," Cam said without looking up.

Shane grinned. "Finally back to the land of the living?" he teased.

Cam rolled his eyes. "Very funny, Shane," he replied. "I was trying to see how this thing works." He gestured towards the morpher.

"Well, you'd better be careful, Cam," Shane warned him. "If you take it apart a lot, then you might end up damaging it."

"No, I won't," Cam said.

"And why's that?" Shane wanted to know.

"I'm smarter than you are," Cam answered. "Now, was there anything in particular you wanted, or are you just going to hang around in NinjaOps all day?"

"You should get out more, son," Sensei told Cam. "Staying indoors all day every day is not very good for you."

"Yeah, but you stay indoors all day," Shane replied.

Sensei looked at Shane without blinking. "That is different," he said. "I must stay inside. The world is not ready for a talking guinea pig yet."

"Sure, whatever." Shane shrugged. "Catch ya later," he called over his shoulder as he left the NinjaOps building.

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"I could have told you that Dustin wouldn't listen," Cally said to Faye. "He won't forgive me, Faye. I hurt him too much."

Faye shrugged. "It was worth a try," she replied. "And who knows? Maybe Dustin will be able to forgive you eventually."

"Yeah, right," Cally muttered. "And pigs might fly."

"They do," Faye laughed. "In hurricanes, anyway."

Cally made a face. "That wasn't even remotely funny," she told Faye.

The two teenagers were walking through the town. Cally had just wanted to go back to their house, but Faye had wanted to go shopping. As usual. Cally was sure that her friend was a shopaholic. The amount of times Faye wanted to just have a little look in a few shops, which then turned into a few-hours trek through town...

"So, are you going to look at horse riding lessons and gymnastics lessons?" Faye asked Cally, listing two of Cally's most favourite things to do.

"Probably," Cally answered. Then, she gave a soft laugh. "What are you, my mother?"

Faye stared at Cally, but, before either of them could say anything, a sudden beeping noise went off.

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Read and review, please!

Ok, there will actually be action in the next chapter... But I'm too tired to write out an action-packed part tonight. I already fulfilled my goal - to write chapter five of Is Love For Real? and chapter three of this fic.

Night!