It had been months now since they had met each other, and each day their trust in each other was growing, even though at times Sky kept both Bridge and Syd at a distance. Whether it was because of the age difference or whether he was afraid to get close to them, only to lose them like he had lost Dru and everyone else who have come and on in his life, he didn't know. Maybe it was both. He just knew it seemed easier not to let them get too close.

But he couldn't help but like them both, even though Syd drove him crazy getting on his nerves and Bridge could be a little weird part of or sometimes all the time. Despite all that he could tell they were both working hard to keep up with him. With each day that passed he was seeing them growing stronger and more confident. He had a feeling it wouldn't be long before they would be moved up to B-squad. It was just one step closer to A-squad, and just maybe the day would come when he would be chosen as red Ranger, like his father. He just had to keep working hard, prove to Commander Cruger that he train and lead the two young cadets he put in his charge. Onice he had accomplished all that Sky knew it wouldn't be long until he would follow in his father's footsteps.

They were all sitting in the lounge room, after a long day of classes and work outs; it has been an exhausting day for all of them.

"Man, I feel like I could sleep for a week." Syd yawned as she stretched out her arms and legs.

"I know what you mean. One time I actually slept for a week," exclaimed Bridge, who both Syd and Sky could already see another Bridge Moment coming on. "You see I was real sick; I went to go to sleep and the next thing I remember I woke up and it was a week later."

Sky just rolled his eyes and turned back to his book. He half-thought about responding, but knew Bridge would only answer with some out of the world response that would only bring on more questions with elaborate answers and he really wasn't in the mood for any headaches.

"Hey guys, I've been thinking," Bridge pipped up again already shifting to a new topic, a topic that had been weighing on his mind for a while now. "Don't you think it's odd that we got paired up together? I mean with the big age difference and stuff. Sky's like three years older." It seemed odd that with Sky being so close to graduation that he would be paired with two cadets who still had a couple years left of the academy's schooling program.

Syd smiled knowing very well their esteemed leader was annoyed by all of Bridges thinking. Though she would have to agree with Sky, that sometimes Bridge thought way too much about things, but deep down she did have to side with Bridge on this one. Something did seem odd to it, especially with how both her and Bridge were assigned to C-squad right away. They were never on the D-squad like Sky had been when he enrolled into the academy. In fact as far as she knew now cadet had ever skipped over a squad in all of the academy's history. Generally D and C squads were for students of the academy, while B and A squads were reserved for those who graduated and were going to continue on to move up in the ranks of SPD. "Well, that's because Sky was just lucky to end up with us as his teammates," she exclaimed as she turned to Sky who pretended like he wasn't even listening and continued to read his book.

"Or maybe it's because Sky and I have these powers!" announced Bridge.

That did it. "Here we go again." Sky closed his book, knowing where this was headed. Ever since he had told Bridge about his powers Bridge kept insisting that somehow they might be connected in some way, especially when he learned that his grandfather had been CEO of Bio-Lab, a place where both Bridges parents had worked at for a time before Bridge was born. "Bridge, we've been over this-"

"Wait!" Syd looked at both of them with a surprised, shocked look on her face. "Wait, you guys have powers?"

"Yeah," replied Bridge.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Syd asked sounding hurt that they hadn't shared that with them in the months she has known them.

"Don't worry about it," Sky announced as he stood up and patted her on the shoulder letting her know everything was okay. "We didn't want you to freak out or anything."

"Freak out! You thought I would freak out," she exclaimed as she looked Sky right in the eyes, pretty sure he was the reason behind her not knowing. "Oh, I see, just because I'm a girl you thought I couldn't handle it."

"Well, actually he said-"

"Bridge!" yelled Sky wanting him to shut-up, before he got them into any more trouble with Syd. Sky sighed heavily. "Look, I really didn't think it was a big deal, and that there was no reason to tell you." It wasn't like he had made it a habit of going around the academy showing off his ability.

"Not a big deal?" she questioned him hard. Did he really think that little of her? "We're teammates, we're supposed to trust each other, and you can't even tell me this?" How we're they supposed to be able to work together? How would they ever work out on the field, if they couldn't confine in one another?

Sky sighed heavily looking down. She had a good point, but to tell the truth he was too tired to even continue arguing about the matter. "Okay. Okay. Sorry, we should have told you." He looked her right in the eyes. "Happy?"

Syd just shook her head. She couldn't believe how pig-headed Sky could be, okay she could believe it, but she thought that since he was her friend and teammate that that meant something, but maybe she was wrong. She began to feel that the only thing Sky cared about was becoming a Ranger and thst both her and Bridge were just an after thought. "If you would have told me right off the bat, I could have told you I have powers too!" With that said she stormed off, bumping right into his shoulder.

"So we all have powers. Interesting," exclaimed Bridge.

You, idiot Tate! Sky cursed himself under his breath and and started after Syd. "Syd, wait!"

"Why should I?" she exclaimd "You clearly didn't think enough of me to tell me that you have powers, that both you and Bridge have them."

"And why didn't you tell us? Trust is a two way street," answered Sky firmly. He knew that perhaps he was wrong for not sharing that bit of information with her, but he wasn't the only one keeping secrets. She was too.

Syd turned around and faced him. "Do you have any idea how it feels to tell someone your deepest, darkest secret?" she asked him as it took every ounce of strength she had not to break down in front of him. "Most of the kids at my old school were only my friends because of my family's money. If it wasn't for that, I would be freak-girl to them." She paused for a moment needing a few breaths. "This is not just something you say out of the blue, not something you can just spring on someone you just met."

And again she was right. He had only told Bridge after Bridge had told him why he wore gloves on his hands all the time. Syd was right, say you have a power, an ability wasn't just something you could say to anyone. You had to feel like you could, feel that you could trust them to understand. And that was all Syd was looking for, that they were all looking for. He sighed heavily. "You're right." He walked up to her and put out his hand fulling will to own up to when he made a mistake. "Friends?"

Although she was fully sure that Sky didn't quite know the full meaning of friendship, she could tell he was trying. She smiled faintly at him. "Friends."

"How 'bout I walk you back to your room and you can tell me all about your powers?"

"I'd like that."

"Hey, wait for me!" called out Bridge as he ran after them.

Few Week Later...

"Man, did you see that?" exclaimed Bridge as he, Syd, Sky and other cadets watched the TV of the new A squad rangers' last battle. They had saved the city once again from an attack, for what seemed like the hundredth time. "I hope that someday I'm just as good as they are."

"Yeah. And those uniforms aren't too shabby either," replied Syd. "What do you think, Sky?" asked Syd as she turned around, only to find that Sky was no longer behind her. "Where'd he go?" She looked around and then looked straight ahead, seeing Sky walk out of the lobby.

"Where do you suppose he's going?" asked Bridge.

"I have an idea, come on."

Just watching the battle footage made it the all more clear that that was what he wanted someday. To be a Ranger, the red Ranger preferably, like his father had been. He wanted to fight battles, stop criminals, and save the city from destruction. He wanted to carry on the tradition of being a Power Ranger and helping people, saving lives.. "Someday, Dad, that'll be me, fighting out there. And I promise, I'll be everything you were." Sky sat down on the bench, looking up at his father's picture that hung on the wall, surrounded by medals of honor.

Bridge and Syd stood outside the SPD Academy's Memorial Chamber, watching as Sky vowed that he would become the ranger his father had been, that he would work hard each day for the rest of his life to make his father proud.

"So Sky's dad was the Ranger who died all those years ago? I kind of remember my parents talking about it." It was a very vague memory, he had been so young back then. But he did recall them talking about someone who they once worked with, who had been a Ranger and that he died saving the city from a dangerous criminal.

"Me too," replied Syd softly, trying to keep her voice down so that Sky wouldn't know that they were watching him. Bridge started to remove his glove from his hand. "What are you doing?"

Bridge waved his hand around and saw flashes of different colors and then began to feel what they meant. It opened a door into just who Sky Tate really was deep down inside. "He's lonely."

Syd saw Sky start to get up. She quickly grabbed Bridge by the arm and dragged him back into a corner. They watched as Sky stepped out of the room, and almost as if he sensed he wasn't alone, he looked around but saw no one. Believing no one was there he continued on his way.

Once Sky was far enough down the hall, Syd and Bridge came out of hiding. "Did you feel anything else?" Syd asked very curious, because Sky was a hard guy to read and you never really knew what he was thinking or his true intentions.

"I felt that deep down he really is a good guy and that he likes us," answered Bridge. He felt sorry for Sky in that moment, never had he felt such loneliness from someone.

"Has a hell of a way showing it!"

"You're going to like it here, Sam. And we're just a couple of hours away from your dad." Samantha was a single mother as she knelt down in front of her five year old son. They had just moved to New Tech City, after her marriage of ten years had failed. She had decided that she and her son needed a new start. "He'll visit."

The little boy looked up at his mother sadly, already knowing the real truth. "No, he won't." He looked down at his feet. "He thinks I'm a freak. I heard him say that he doesn't think of me as his son."

That had been one of the reasons why she had divorced her husband. Things were great in the beginning of their marriage, but after Sam was born was when things started a turn for the worse. Sam had been born different, but he appeared to be fine; he looked just as normal as any other baby. But as he got older, they soon began to see that Sam was no ordinary baby. Somehow he had developed a power to make things disappear from where they were and appear elsewhere and on a few occasion he had made himself appear from one place to another place; that was how he had learned the truth about how his father really felt about him.

She wrapped her arms tightly around her son. She hated that the man she had once, and still partly loved, could be so cruel. How could anyone say that about their own child, their own flesh and blood? She didn't care if her son was different, if he would never be normal, she loved him more than anything and would do everything in her power to give him the most normal life she possibly could. "I love you, Sam. You know that, right, no matter what happens I will always love you."

"I love you too," he answered. It was only when he was with her that he felt safe, she was his everything, his best friend, his only love, she was his mother.

Sam sighed heavily as he sat in the office of social services, listening as a woman spoke on the phone to his father, a man he had not seen for the last four years. It had been two weeks since his mother had died. It had been a train accident, it had derailed, hundreds had died. But he still couldn't believe it; life had been going good for them. She had been saving money so that they could buy a house and move out of their rundown apartment building, and now he felt his life falling to pieces. He didn't know what would happen to him. All he wanted to do was go home and pretend that none of this had ever happened, but he couldn't go home, to his old room, his mother was gone and she wasn't coming back. He sighed heavily as he listened to the conversation the lady was having on the phone with his father. It had taken them over a week to track down the whereabouts of his father. He had tried to tell the lady that his father didn't want him and that there was no point in calling him, but she had assured him that everything would be fine. If only it were true…

"But sir, you are the boy's father. He needs you," exclaimed the woman over the phone.

"Let me make this clear to you, lady. I have no son. I don't know what you have in your office, but it sure as hell is not my son!"

The woman heard the line go dead. "Sir?" But there was no answer. She gently placed the phone down and turned to Sam, now realizing the boy was right; his father didn't want him. What would happen now? Sam was a nine-year-old boy, it was difficult finding a family that would take in an older child. Most people wanted babies. This was the part when she hated her job, having to move a child from one group home to another. What kind of life was that? A child shouldn't be moved around like it was a piece of mail. "Come on Sam, we've got to go." She held out her hand to him and led him out of the room, just hoping that someone out there would care enough to take the sweet red-haired boy in.

"Okay," he answered softly.

Commander Cruger woke up in a fright. His heart was racing, but as he looked around the command base he realized it had only been a dream, he was safe and sound on Earth, at the SPD Academy. Every night when he closed his eyes he felt the scars of his past return to him.

He pulled a torn photo out of his jacket. It was of his wife, Andros, Ashley and their little girl Mora. He gently ran his finger over his wife's face. He still couldn't believe after all these years that she was gone. His eyes then fell on the baby, who had been once so pure, who now had turned imto a darkened pawn and was in the hands of Gruumm. He had tried to track down the child, but Gruumm always kept hiding her and changing her. He could no longer feel her presence.

"You can't keep blaming yourself. It isn't healthy," announced Kat as she walked into the command base, like she did so many nights, to check up on Cruger.

"Do you know she would be eleven today?" Cruger stared down at the photo, trying to picture what Mora would look like today. "I bet she would look just like her mother."

"Doggie," started Kat; she had become concerned. She had thought the guilt would go away after a few years, but it still remained. He had not yet been able to forgive himself for what had happened.

He looked up and sighed. "I know, Kat, it's been years."

"You want to talk about it?" she asked.

"No. I'm fine." He smiled faintly. "You go on back to bed. Get some rest."

"All right." She smiled.

Once she was gone he looked back at the photo. No one else knew the truth - that Mora was very much alive and in the hands of Gruumm. Cruger had carried that ever since Kinwon had died three years before, taking with him the knowledge of what became of the child of Andros and Ashley, the red and yellow Space Rangers.

There were days when Cruger wondered if he should tell the grandparents of Mora. It would be hard to tell them the truth, that their granddaughter was no longer innocent, that her pureness had been stripped from her, that she now was in the hands of a monster using her for his own game. That she had been responsible for the deaths of Zhane and Karone, and so many others. It would be a hard thing to put on anyone. Part of him believed it would be better if they didn't know the truth, because the truth would hurt more than the lie.

Little Mora, the little girl who had once been the daughter of Andros and Ashley, no longer carried the memories of her past. She didn't even know she was human. All she had been told was that humans had killed her parents and all she had left was a doll that was falling to pieces, a doll she called Susie Sunshine. Her true age was unknown to her, she had been changed so much, but no matter what age they changed her to she still would have the mind of a child.

She used to ask Gruumm about her parents, asking what they looked like, whether she looked like them, but he would never tell her anything, only would say that she had been found alone. But there were times at night when she would dream and she would see faces that she couldn't quite make out, but believed that they were faces that she had known, that just maybe these faces might be her parents, but she would never know for sure.

She had been with Gruumm for years now. He had raised her and showed her how to develop the powers she held. Whatever she drew would come to life, and Gruumm promised her that one day she would be able to use her creations to destroy the ones responsible for killing her parents.

"Someday, Susie Sunshine will make all those bad humans pay for what they did to Mommy and Daddy," announced Mora as she danced around in her room, not even aware that ever since she had met Gruumm she had been fed lies about her life, who she was, where she came from, and even the greater lie, that the very people she had been raised to hate were the very thing that was a part of her.

Only if she knew the truth about her past, but Gruumm would never speak of it and the other had no way of telling her, frozen in time, showing the scars of the past, she could not speak, only stare at the little girl with the one button eye.