A/N: Thanks again for the reviews. Expect a lot of Tori/Hunter, Sky/Z, and Sky/Z/Jack in this next chapter, so I hope you guys enjoy this one. Read & Review.

Chapter 7

"Heated"

The following morning, B-squad got up bright and early ready to face another day. They all met up in the Control room, and to their surprise, found the former ninja rangers with Commander Cruger. "Sir?" Sky wrinkled his forehead while entering.

"Cadets, nice for you to join us." B-squad made their way inside as they all face Commander Cruger. "Well, now that we're all here. Let's get right to business." They listen intently. "Shane, Dustin, Tori, and Hunter all agreed to stay here at SPD till Dr. Manx and Boom build a time portal that would lead them back to the year 2004. It may take weeks and even months to complete. In the meantime, while in SPD, they must do training like the rest of you and will be required to wear the gray uniforms. Do I make myself clear?"

They exchange looks and sided with the agreement before answering. "Yes, sir."

He nods his head. "Alright. You are all dismissed. Please show them around."

They gradually exit the room.

"Well, I guess we're all one big happy family now." Shane stated rather sarcastically while heading out.

Syd squeals from behind, startling everyone else in front of her. "Yeah! Isn't that great!"

"Dude!" Dustin stepped aside once she cuts in between himself and Tori. "Are you always this...bubbly?" He asks while staring down on her with a bizarre look on his face.

She smiles. "I'm sorry. I just can't help myself."

"Yeah. When you're around good looking guys." Z added as Syd shot her a dirty look. She smirks playfully in return. "What?"

"Let's start the tour, shall we?" Jack takes charge. "Let's split this up. Let's see...Sky, I want you to show Hunter and Shane around. You can start with the rooms."

"Okay."

"Bridge go with Dustin and Syd with the blonde."

"The name is Tori." She corrected him. "Thank you very much." Jack kindly apologizes after that.

As the others were heading to different directions Z frowns and pouted her lips after being left with nothing to do. "What do I do?" She asks eagerly.

"You, my good old friend, will be coming with me."

"But you already know your way around."

Jack looks at her carefully. "Z, you're not showing me around. I just want to talk."

"Okay..."

He places an arm around her neck. "We haven't seen our friends back home for a long time now and I thought maybe you want to come along and see how they're doing just for old time sake."

Z bit her lip and forced a weak smile. "Oh. Um, can we do it some other time? Sky and I are going to the record store later on today."

"You two are going out again?" Jack asks surprisingly. "Didn't you just had your date yesterday?"

She rolled her eyes. "Jack, this is not a date. We're just gonna go to the record store and check out some music."

"Since when does he listen to music?" Z glares at him and crosses her arms. "Alright. Fine." Defeated, Jack easily gave up. "We'll go some other time then."

She smiles. "Thanks, bro. I know I can always count on you." Z then runs off to catch up with the ladies. "Wait up!" Jack deeply sighs as he stared closely at her direction before she disappeared around the corner.

"You were a blue ranger?" Syd gasps once their tour inside SPD Headquarters ended. After showing the blonde her room next to the guys', the girls began heading outside to show her the training facility. "And you were the only female ranger?" Syd questions. "How lucky are you?"

Z rolls her eyes irritably at Syd. "I wouldn't say I'm lucky. It's tough being the only girl on the team." Tori explains. "But I guess being the first female blue ranger in our history is pretty cool. I never liked pink anyway." Syd's mouth fell open as Z burst out laughing.

"Hey! What's wrong with pink?" She questions offensively.

Tori chuckles. "I'm only messing with you."

Just in time, the guys appeared down the hallway as they make their way over to them. "Hey, there ladies." Shane winks flirtatiously at the two. "You following us?"

Tori scoffs pathetically. "Dream on."

He turns to her with an evil glare. "I wasn't even talking to you." Tori makes a funny face as Hunter chuckles.

"Well, I'm done here. If you guys need any assistance let us know." Dustin raises his hand up. Sky turns around and gives him his full attention. "Yeah?"

"Where's the bathroom?"

"Go straight ahead, and it will be on your right."

"Thanks, man."

"Anytime."

"Wait." Bridge follows his newly found goofball friend. "I need to go to."

Sky slowly walks over to Z and stops right in front of her. "So..." He looks down shyly before meeting her gaze. "You ready to go?" Syd watches on from the side and smiles.

"Sure. Ready when you are."

Meanwhile, as Bridge, Dustin, and Shane remained in SPD Headquarters playing video games nonstop and Syd continues driving Jack crazy in the training room for her amusement, Tori and Hunter agreed to go outside and talk privately. They walked around the huge building for about five minutes under awkward silence, waving to a few SPD cadets walking by. The silence continued on for another few minutes with Hunter looking back at her every second of the way. He could no longer take the tension that's building up around them as he stops right in front of her. "Tori..." Hunter whispers as his female companion furrowed her eyebrows in bewilderment. "You haven't spoken to me since we found out who I end up marrying in the future. Is there something wrong?"

She lowers her head. "I'm fine, Hunter."

"No, you're not." She slowly looks up at him. "Look, we can't do this anymore."

Tori continues to act clueless. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about us, Tori." He says sharply. "The sparks between us is there and you can't deny it. I can't deny it." She furrowed her eyebrows. "I know you feel the same way about me as I feel for you."

"You're talking crazy here, Hunter." She scoffs ridiculously while releasing his hands off her shoulder. "What sparks? There's nothing going on between us."

"Then look me in the eye and tell me you're not upset that I married Kira and not you."

"What?"

"Say it!"

She shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. "I'm not upset that you married Kira and not me!" Tori exclaims with a straight face. "There. Happy?"

"Come on, Tor. I know you don't mean that."

"Why should I care who you marry?"

"Because I want you to care."

She rolls her eyes. "And why do you want me to care?"

"Because I'm falling for you and as corny as it may sound there's no one else I would want to spend the rest of my life with, but you." Tori's lips slightly parted as Hunter sighs in relieve. "Whoo! I'm glad I got that out of my chest."

She crosses her arms. "You say that now, but it's not gonna mean anything 16 years from now in our time."

"Do you want to know what I found out on your file?"

"Not really." Tori brushes her hair back in frustration. "And you know what? It wouldn't matter what it says, Hunter. All I know about my future is that I wasn't going to tell you how I feel because I knew it would hurt me in the end. And I was right..." She trails off. "Unexpectedly you married Kira. Kira of all people. I sure didn't see that one coming."

"So you do like me." He grins.

She rolls her eyes at him again. "Alright, I do like you. But that doesn't change anything."

"Sure it does. Don't you see? If you didn't know that I was going to marry Kira in the future, you wouldn't tell me how you felt and that changes everything because now we both know the truth."

Tori searches his eyes carefully while thinking it over in her head. "So?"

"So. There's no reason for you to be jealous." He winks.

At the record store Z stood at a corner listening to a few songs on the headphones, off to her own world with the music as she begins swaying her hips side to side. Sky, who was through checking out CDs, catches Delgado doing her little dance from behind, which brought a smile on his face. He stood still with his hands in his pockets as he watches on in amusement.

"Dooda dee la la doo. Yeah, baby." Z sings softy to herself when suddenly Sky snuck up from behind, tickling the sides of her stomach. A cry of laughter escape from her lips as she quickly turns around and smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "Sky!" She took out the headphones. "Don't do that." Her giggles gradually subsided.

He chuckles. "Has anyone ever told you how adorable you look when you dance?"

"No. But I'll hurt you if you mention the word adorable once again." She says seriously.

Sky plasters a mischievous smile. "You look even cuter when you try to be mad at me." Z shot him a look. He laughs. "I'm only kidding."

"You know, I like this side of you." She studies her male companion carefully. "You should smile and laugh more often. It really looks good on you."

Sky looks down in pleased embarrassment. "Are you trying to flirt with me, Z?"

Her eyes widens. "With you?" She scoffs playfully. "Oh man. You are cockier than I thought."

"It runs in the family."

She smiles. "Unbelievable."

He furrowed his eyebrows "What?"

"One minute you were going crazy about how the former ninja rangers might take our place, and here we are." Z stops in mid-sentence. "Laughing and smiling away. It's rare to see that coming from you."

"And I have you to thank for that."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you." He smirks. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't know how to relax and have fun for a change, and not have to always take the job seriously. I'm just so caught up in following my father's footsteps and becoming a red ranger, but you know...it's not all about being the best anymore." He tells her. "We all have our strengths and weaknesses. No one is the best."

Z smiles impressively. She was beginning to learn that there is more to him than being a ranger. Despite his ego that may slip from time to time, she could see a more softer, and gentler side of him. It made her realize they have a lot more in common than she could ever imagine. "I'm glad you finally see that." She says. "It's about time." Z looks up. "Speaking of time, shouldn't we be heading back now?"

"I don't know." He shrugged his shoulders. "Do you want to go?"

She cringes her nose at the thought. "Not really. You?"

"Nah. Want to go get a bite to eat? I didn't have breakfast this morning."

Z smiles, realizing how hungry she was at the moment. No one had time to eat breakfast that day and she could feel her stomach grumbling in hunger. "I like how you think, Sky." He smiles as the two exit the room arm in arm.

"Which color should I use for my nails?" Syd holds up two bottles in front of Jack as she interrupts his reading. "Pink or red?"

He places his comic book down. "Red."

"Red?" She thinks about it for a brief moment. "Nah. "I'll use pink."

Jack rolls his eyes. "You asked for my opinion." He groans crossly.

"I know. I just wanted to see if you had good taste or not." She sticks her tongue out and smirks.

"Whatever." After being rudely interrupted by the princess, he felt there was no reason to continue as he places his reading material down. "What time is it?" He scratches the top of his head and yawns.

"I don't know...8 something." Syd guesses.

"What? Already?"

Meanwhile, Bridge and Dustin continues playing a game that involves an image of the Blue Senturion battling some kind of monster. Shane watches on amusingly and waits patiently for his turn. "Dude, you so cheated." The goofball snaps after losing the game. He looks on as Bridge celebrates his victory in triumph. "I want a rematch."

"Oh no." Shane pushes him off the couch. "It's my turn now."

"Dude!"

"Guys!" Syd yells out loud as the room fell silent. They stopped and shift their gazes over to her. "I'm trying to do my nails here!"

"You know, Syd. Paining your nails doesn't involve a lot of thinking." Sky and Z made their unexpected entrance, followed by Tori and Hunter.

"Sure it does. You have to worry about staying inside."

They all exchange odd looks and chuckled. "Whatever you say."

"It's late." Jack tells them seriously. "Where have you been?"

Tori looks up at Hunter. "We didn't go too far. We just stayed outside and had a really long talk." Shane and Dustin glance at each other and smirk.

"What about you two?" Jack turns to his teammates. "I thought you were just going to the record store."

"Yeah, but then we got hungry so we went out to eat." Z explains.

"For half the day?"

Sky wrinkled his forehead due to Jack's strange behavior. "Relax, man. We went bowling afterwards."

"Bowling?"

"Yeah. Why? Is there something wrong?" Z asks curiously.

Jack shrugs. "No, I mean...it just never occurred to me that you would skip our plans just so you could go to the record store, and then go bowling afterwards without telling me."

"I already told you I had plans with Sky."

"Yeah, but you never told me you were going anywhere else." His voice increased in volume. "I was here, waiting for you guys to show up, worried that something bad happened. But none of you took the time to contact me, or anyone else for that matter and state where you were."

"Okay, I'm sorry." Z simply apologizes without a fuss. "It won't happen again."

"Damn right it won't." Jack's angered tone ring through everyone's ears, as his serious side astonished them. "From now on, the both of you will no longer go out without my consent, and everyone will be limited to when and where they can leave the headquarters."

"What!"

"That's not fair!" Syd frowns.

Sky nods his head in dismay. "You can't be serious."

"Oh, I'm dead serious about this."

Z scoffs. "You are not entitled to make that decision, Jack!"

"I'm the one wearing the red suit here! You can't stop me. None of you can!"

"I don't have to take orders from you!" Z snaps angrily in frustration. "And as far as I know, you don't deserve to wear that red suit with that attitude of yours!"

"Well, I'm sorry you feel that way."

She narrows his eyes at him as tension builds up in the room. Emotions were running high and thoughts of confusion brought cold silence. Z couldn't believe the person Jack has become over a short amount of time, and no one knew who he was anymore. The thought of him being a whole different person was scaring her and she didn't know what to do, or how to fix it. It was as though she just lost her best friend and made an enemy out of him.

"I hate you." The words easily escaped from her lips and brought shock to everyone's faces, especially Jack's whose heart dropped like a bomb. With that, she turned around and simply just walked away.

A/N: Let me know what you think! More coming soon.