Life Behind the Mask

Favourites

Author's Note: These one shots are in no particular order.

Summary: Dustin is convinced that Kali has favourites, she denies it, of course. Can he guess who her favourites are one each of her three teams?

Despite the light breeze blowing through the trees, the air was quite warm. The sun shone over the Wind Ninja academy training grounds, which were surprisingly empty for the time of day. The three Sensei's and headteacher had given the students the day off, and come hell or high water, none of them could fathom has too why.

That being said, the academy wasn't entirely empty. The old Ninja Ops, where the Ninja Storm rangers used to hang out - when they weren't in town, anyway - was occupied again, despite the threat of Lothor having passed.

Nothing exciting was happening down there. The old team had just decided to get together, "for old time sakes" they had said. They were recounting past stories of their times as a Ranger, laughing at idiot schemes they had come up with, and wondering how things had turned out if they had done things differently.

"Personally, I think things would have been different if Kali had told us the truth from the beginning," said Shane, sipping his drink.

Sensei Watanabe had banned the drinking of alcohol on academy grounds years ago, and with good reason, but the group, now adults, had snuck it down anyway. Only a few were enjoying the liquor like Shane, Dustin, and Hunter. Others, like Blake, Tori, and Cam had waved it away when offered, and Kali had abstinence on the grounds that she was heavily pregnant.

Kali rolled her eyes at Shane's remark. "I wanted to tell you," she said. "But I couldn't. You would have done things differently, if you had."

"That was the point of the conversation."

"I know. But if we had done this one thing different then this conversation may not be happening," said Kali. "Tricking Lothor into locking himself away was crucial. You all being in the dark to my 'true nature' is what got Lothor to take the path he took."

Shane shrugged. "Guess we'll never know," he sniffed.

"Would you have fought him differently if I had told you the truth?" Kali asked. "Would your decisions on fighting his soldiers have changed? How would you have faced Zurgane, knowing that I had to lock Lothor away?"

"Maybe he wouldn't have stolen our megazord powers," Shane suggested. "That day was a let-down."

"You know how many days off I had when I was a mystic?" Kali asked. "Zero. Not even the long weekend was spent chilling. I was working, constantly."

"I thought Toby gave you the long weekend off?" Cam asked.

"Yeah, from the Rock Porium," said Kali. "But we still had to find Fireheart. I was at Rootcore the entirety of my weekend off, researching."

"Ouch."

Kali nodded and turned to Shane. "Be thankful you had a little bit of time camping," she said.

"Which we spent sleeping!"

Kali waved him off. "Bah. That's what camping is for," she said. She turned away, rubbing a hand over her stomach, which was protruding out from beneath her shirt.

Tori smiled and reached across the table. "Can I?" she asked, arm outstretched.

"Sure," Kali nodded. She smiled as her twins kicked at Tori's touch. "There's something I wanted to ask you, too," she added, before slapping Dustin's hand away.

Dustin winced and shook his hand. "You let her touch you," he whined, while pointing at Tori.

"She asked," Kali said.