Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers Megaforce. This story is fan-made.
Author's Note: This is not where the Megaforce series starts. If you want to read the series without getting lost, I suggest you read my stories in the order they appear:
No To Date Nights - The Party Night - Project Partners - Megaforce: Lives Behind The Masks - Prom Night - A Trip To Remember - First Meetings - Something She Loves – Protective Morans
Emma carried a stack of wood in her arms. She had gathered logs and sticks from the forest to bring back to camp so she and the Rangers would have a fire to keep warm. It was the summer, but at night the temperate did drop quite a bit, making the air cool. Plus, it was fun to have a campfire.
The idea was Troy's. Now that it was summer time, the Rangers were off school. They had more time to train and were taking advantage of that, but even with the extra hours of training they still had plenty of time and nothing to fill it with. Troy thought a Ranger camping weekend would be fun.
Emma was all for it. She remembered camping with the Morans as a child. As long as she could bring her camera and her bike with her she was completely at home in the woods. The smell of pine brought back memories from her childhood that were fun and warm.
Jake was into the idea as well. He and his dad were looking for places to live so they could get out of the hotel room they were staying in and his father was also filing for a divorce. Though Jake did try to stay out of his parents' affair as much as possible, it was obvious he was siding with his father. This angered his mother, who was already upset she was losing her husband. She made it very clear she would fight to the bitter end to get sole custody of Jake. In other words, his home life was pretty messy, so Jake was glad to be able to get away for a weekend. And even though his father had reminded him many times not to forget his cell phone, Jake had purposely left it in his nightstand drawer. He didn't want anything to ruin this weekend away.
Gia wasn't as interested in camping as Emma, and didn't have a real reason to get out of the house like Jake, but she was glad Troy had suggested the camping idea. She knew home for Jake wasn't a fun place and so seeing him happy as he tried to pitch the tent made the trip worth it. She also didn't have anything against camping. Her memories from camping as a child were the same as Emma's. They had always had a good time back then. Surely this would be no different.
Jordan would go anywhere Emma went. He was glued to her hip as he tried desperately to make up for lost time. He had promised to spend as much time with her as possible over the summer, and had dedicated every hour he wasn't sleeping or in his art class to being with his girlfriend. Emma was happy for it, too. Her spirits had been lifted since Jordan had come home.
Noah was the only one completely out of his element. While Gia and Emma worked on getting a fire started, and Troy, Jordan, and Jake got the tent set up before nightfall, Noah sat on a log with his computer.
"There's absolutely no wifi out here," Noah complained and looked up to the sky. "How am I supposed to get any work done?"
Jake simply rolled his eyes. He was used to hearing Noah complain whenever there was no internet. Noah was only interested in the great outdoors if he was working on a science project or if he was outdoors inside a video game. Any other case made Noah a little crabby.
"Work?" Emma looked up from the fire pit and chuckled, "Noah, we're camping. You don't need your laptop. If you want to work, there's plenty you can do to help set up."
"No thank you," Noah muttered and then he slapped the back of his neck. Right after that, he smacked his arm, "Damn bugs!"
"Don't kill them!" Emma rolled her eyes. "Besides, you're wearing the wrong colour. Insects are attracted to the colour blue."
"If they don't want to be killed, they should stay away from me," Noah muttered and slapped his arm one more time. He got the kill and showed it off to Emma. He knew it would bother her, but he was too crabby to care.
Emma smacked his arm away, "I've got some bug repellent you can borrow in my bag."
Noah reached over and took Emma's bag. He dug around inside until he found a bottle. He pulled it out and took a sniff, "Citrus?"
"Bugs hate the smell. It'll keep them away. And there's no chemicals."
"I've got real bug repellent in my bag if that doesn't work," Gia said. Emma shot her a glare. She turned back to the fire pit, "But uh… try Emma's first…"
"No wifi and the bugs are getting at me," Noah muttered. He set the bottle of lemon juice down beside him and then looked back at his laptop, "Aw man, and my battery is about to die. Is there anywhere I can plug in my laptop, I…"
"Do you see an outlet?" Jake asked with a laugh before he turned to the rest of his teammates, "This is why I never go camping with him. He's impossible."
"Noah, why don't you help me collect some more wood for the fire?" Gia suggested. Emma knew what she was doing with the fire, and didn't need any help to get a flame started. Once the fire was ready to go the Rangers were going to need enough wood to keep it burning until they wanted to go to sleep and no one wanted to walk around in the dark.
"Well, if there's nothing else to do," Noah said. He put his laptop away in his bag and then got up. He felt lighter as he walked and left his bag at the campsite. On this trip, his computer was going to be useless to him.
"You think techno-geek would know there's no internet in the woods," Jordan chuckled as he finally got his part of the tent to stand up straight. Now all he needed was a way to keep it up. As he struggled to reach for a pole, he looked over at Emma, "I'm sure you'll show him there's more to the great outdoors than what he can see from a laptop screen."
"We have an exciting day planned for tomorrow," Emma nodded her head and smiled. "You guys are going to love it."
"I can't wait," Jordan said. He looked over and saw Troy already had his section of the tent standing and he was now helping Jake. He frowned. "Dude, how did you do that?"
-Megaforce-
Out in the woods, Gia was showing Noah the best kinds of sticks to gather for the campfire. The smaller ones she told him were great for getting a fire started and helping the wood to burn, while the bigger logs were used to keep the fire going for a long time. Because the smaller sticks would burn a lot faster than the bigger logs, they needed a lot more of them.
"Don't break the branches off the trees," Gia advised Noah when she saw he was reaching up into the trees to snap off a branch, "There's plenty that have fallen to the ground already. Use those."
"Emma, right?" Noah looked up with a little chuckle. Gia sighed and nodded her head.
"Great, now she's got me doing it too."
"So, what is there really to do out here?" Noah asked as he picked up a few sticks and had a look around. Gia shrugged her shoulders.
"Anything, really. When Emma and I were younger, we used to climb the trees. She would get some pretty cool pictures. I just loved to climb."
"I don't really have the upper body strength to climb trees," Noah looked at his arms with a little frown.
"You've bulked up a bit since this Ranger thing started," Gia smirked.
"Not enough to enjoy climbing trees. What else is there to do?"
"There's a good fishing stream not too far from here. As long as we release the fish we catch, it should be okay."
"Fishing? I've done that before."
"Really?"
"Yeah, on my Wii. My dad bought a fishing game so we could… what?" Noah asked when he saw Gia was shaking her head. "Did I say something?"
"Your Wii is nothing like real life. Have you ever played any real sport?"
"Sometimes Jake makes me be goalie when he practices. Besides, Wii can be exhausting. That counts as a sport, right?"
"No."
"But…"
"Have you ever gone hiking?"
"Gia, if I wanted to see the view, I'd Google images on my laptop."
"You're hopeless," Gia shook her head. She bent over to pick up a stick but noticed something red on the ground. She furrowed her brows and called Noah over. When she pointed to the red liquid, Noah knelt to get a closer look.
"This is odd."
"It looks like blood to me," Gia said. She used the stick she was going to take back for firewood and put it in the puddle. To her surprise, the stick began to burn. She dropped it, jumped back, and looked at Noah.
"Blood doesn't do that," Noah said. He picked up the stick, which hadn't burned all the way, and stirred the liquid to see what would happen. Gia approached the puddle again. She grabbed a new stick – a long one – and stuck it into the puddle.
"Wait," she grabbed Noah's arm, "I recognize this stuff. A couple years ago Emma did a project Panorama City and how the way against the monsters was affecting the environment. Almost every one of the articles she read mentioned this freaky red water. They called it hell water because if you touch it, it burns."
"Hell water? Do you think it's got anything to do with the monsters the Samurai Rangers fought?" Noah asked. Gia shrugged her shoulders as she reached into her jacket pocket to grab her phone.
"Serena would know. I can give her a… what?" Gia asked when she saw Noah's face turn pale. He started to fumble as he searched his pockets for his morpher, only to remember he kept it in his laptop bag. Gia looked over her shoulder to see what Noah saw. She rolled her eyes. It seemed like a mutant had decided to crash the camping trip.
"Why am I not surprised the toxic waste has gotten into the ocean?" she grumbled and reached for her pocket, but made the same mistake as Noah. She too kept her morpher inside her bag, which she had left at the campsite. She looked back at Noah, "Alright, so what do you know about squid?"
"That's not a mutant," Noah whispered to Gia as he stood up straight. "That's one of the Samurai Ranger's monsters. Troy's mentioned something about squid in his dreams."
"Moogers!"
Suddenly, hundreds of Moogers surrounded the unmorphed blue and yellow Rangers which made it impossible for the two of them to run to the others for help.
"We're going to have to fight," Gia said.
"But they have swords!"
"Yeah, avoid the pointy ends!"