“We will do no such thing. We’re paying costumers. We have just as much a right to be here as the rest of these people do,” she stated. Behind her she could swear she heard Zack mutter something about having even more of a right to be there. She folded her arms over her chest, and continued to glare. The first woman suddenly brought her broom down, attempting to hit the smaller woman over the head with it. Kim just her arms threw up and caught the broom stick, holding it back with more strength than the two larger maids would have given her credit for. Both stared at her in shock as she pushed on the broom stick, releasing it and sending the large woman stumbling back ward into the pool. “You just should have accepted our apology; then you wouldn’t be all wet,” she stated sweetly. Aisha, Trini, and Jason just stared at her a mixture of amusement and surprise on their faces. The others looked at her like she was this incredibly large, immensely scary, monster.Once they were led to their table in the restaurant—well, three tables pushed together in the middle of the non-smoking section—Billy brought up his father again. Trini, who had considered Mr. Cranston as good as an uncle to her ever since she and Billy were first placed in advanced classes together in elementary school, immediately offered up her cell phone, but Billy decided to use Tommy’s instead, as Reefside’s area code was less recognizable.

Billy swallowed nervously. His father was very smart, and it would take some fast talking to cover his new occupation and residence; he’d had some near misses over the phone. He felt bad that he never got to see his father, but between the hours he worked, the difficulty of scheduling a properly-timed phone call to another planet, and the fact that it was hard to hide his life on Aquitar, it couldn’t be helped.“Silence you gnat eating wing nut.” Zedd barked, raising his staff and shaking it at her. “I am the one who will decide the right time to destroy the Rangers and no one else. For now, I choose to toy with them a little longer.”

“My lord,” Sirius crooned, throat bobbing. “The venom is short lived. The allergic reaction it produces in mammals is easily treated by the simplest technology. I thought only to show you what your genius is capable of, should you decide to no longer play with them.”

Zedd turned his gaze to the large viewing globe. “Let us see just how long it takes them to destroy your little toy.” He said gruffly. “One skirmish hardly wins a battle.”