Missing the first day wasn't the best way to start the school year but the Rangers had no choice. Emma hadn't turned up at school and she wasn't responding to any attempts her friends made at getting in touch with her. Worried something serious had happened, they needed to make sure she was okay. There was nothing more important than getting Emma back on the grid.
"This is the path she always takes," Gia said to the boys as she led them down a trail, "Especially when she comes biking alone. That way, if she's not home in time and something's wrong, we know where to find her."
"Smart, but it doesn't look like she's here," Noah pointed out as he had a quick look around. He then glanced down at his morpher, "It's weird. Her signal says she should be right here."
"Emma!" Troy called out and thought, hoped at this point, that maybe Emma had just taken a fall from her bike, and crashed somewhere off the trail and couldn't get up. He hoped that by calling out for her, she would call back.
"Emma!" Gia called as well and started to stray slightly from the path to have a better look around.
"Uh, Gia?" Jake said and Gia returned to the path only to find the black Ranger had wandered further along and was now focused on something that was out of sight for her. She, Troy, and Noah walked up to him and they saw what had Jake a little worried. "That's her bike, right?"
"She never leaves it," Gia nodded her head. "Not out of sight like this. She's got to be close. Emma!"
Noah started to examine the bike to see if maybe it was broken, forcing Emma to continue on foot. Not that he thought she would. He assumed that if her bike was broken or damaged she would walk it back home to be repaired. Still, Noah would leave nothing unchecked, and did as much investigating as he could on the bike. So far, it seemed to be in great condition, which was not exactly what he wanted to see.
Jake and Gia looked at the surroundings, checking behind trees and rocks to see if maybe Emma had taken cover from something. They also looked down drops and hoped she hadn't fallen, but they also hoped to find her. She didn't turn up.
Troy continued to search around the trail and he was looking for anything out of the ordinary. He spotted a little burst of pink that was too big to be a flower in the woods so he approached it. To his dismay, he saw it was Emma's backpack. Now this really wasn't good.
Before he could say anything, though, he felt something hit him hard over the head. The last thing he felt before blacking out was something catching him as he fell and dragging him away.
Over by Emma's bike, Noah, Jake, and Gia regrouped. Noah announced he found nothing wrong with Emma's bike, and that she had no reason to ditch it. In fact, it didn't look like she had taken a fall, which meant she had dismounted it intentionally. Her helmet placed carefully on the seat did confirm that suspicion from the beginning, but Noah wouldn't let the little details fool him.
"She can't just disappear," Jake stated and took Gia's hand to comfort her before looking around. "Find anything, Troy? Troy?"
"You mean we lost another one?" Noah had a quick look around for his leader. Jake and Gia searched and called out his name, but there was no answer from Troy. Jake got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He held Gia's hand tight and grabbed Noah's arm.
"Let's get out of here."
"But Troy and Emma…"
"We'll find them later, dude," Jake said. "Something weird is going on."
He dragged his best friend and girlfriend back to the opening of the woods where he then grabbed his morpher. The others did the same and they were teleported back to the command center.
"Gosei, what gives?" Gia called to their mentor while Noah rushed over to his console to start a search for Emma and Troy. Jake glanced over the blue Ranger's shoulder while he stood supportively behind Gia. "Emma disappears, you don't give us a call, and now Troy's gone."
"I've received no distress calls from them," Gosei announced. "They appeared to still be on Earth. Their vitals are fine."
"They're missing, Gosei," Gia shook her head. "Nothing's fine about that. You've got technology to fix Jake's head and my back, but you can't tell when one of us is in trouble?"
"Her mother's points," Tensou said to Jake. The black Ranger looked down at the little robot and shook his head. Tensou rolled over to a console, "I can begin a scan of the area they were last seen. I can bring up heat signatures as well as the signals from their morphers."
"You might want to get on it," Jake said. "Before she turns on you."
Tensou nodded his head. He quickly found the area where the Rangers had just been searching for Emma and replayed footage using their heat signatures to track them. Gia, Jake, and Noah knew where they had been so they focused their attention on Troy's movements. He seemed to walk off on his own just a little bit and then stopped for a moment.
"Looks like he's found something," Noah pointed out as Troy's signature folded over somewhat.
"What's that?" Gia pointed to a large, red, orange, and yellow mass on the screen. "That's got to be something, right?"
"Whatever it is, it's coming up right behind Troy," Jake said. "Now it's on top of him."
"It's taking him away," Noah said. "Well, I mean, Troy could be taking it away, but we know Troy wouldn't just leave like that."
"So he's in trouble," Gia said and glanced over to Gosei. "Troy's in trouble, and that means Emma's probably in a lot of trouble."
"Be very careful, Rangers," Gosei stated and morphed the teens right then and there. "In case it has been forgotten, the mutants roam these forests. Perhaps they have come out of hiding and decided to strike again. Do not underestimate their power, for their mutation has made them much…"
"Gosei, if you could please can it," Gia snapped. "We've made it this far without your help. Unless you can tell us something we don't know, you're wasting our time."
"Stick together, Rangers," Gosei said. Gia rolled her eyes and looked to the boys.
"It's up to us."
-Megaforce-
When Troy woke up, he found himself lying in the dirt. As his vision cleared and the room stopped spinning, he recognized the mutant's hideout. The cave tunnels and the technology were a dead giveaway. It was the mutants who had caught him off guard and they had brought him back for something.
He slowly got to his feet. He was surprised he wasn't restrained in some way, but figured the mutants had left him like that intentionally. While their intelligence, he doubted, matched Vrak's, they weren't stupid in the least. They wouldn't have overlooked locking him up so he couldn't escape.
And then it dawned on him that Emma was missing. The mutants had caught him by surprise right near where it appeared Emma had gone missing. It couldn't have been a coincidence. They must have had her as well. He wouldn't leave, not without her. He found his footing and started to make his way out of the room he had been dumped in and further into the tunnels. She had to be nearby.
Suddenly, he heard voices. He pressed himself up against a wall and slowed his breathing. He was completely silent and motionless as Bluefur and Bigs walked past. Troy couldn't catch everything they were saying, but they mentioned Emma. Either they were going to check up on her, or had just been with her. Troy decided he would avoid them until he felt a little stronger and went in the opposite direction.
The mutants had just been with Emma. Troy walked into the room they came from and found what appeared to be their lab. They had a few pieces of technology, nothing like Troy had seen in Vrak's lab in the future, but for a bunch of mutated animals it was quite impressive. There was a computer on one end of the room that seemed to be running, a table in the middle of the room, which looked strangely enough like a surgical table, and on the other end Troy found Emma. She was floating in a tube of liquid, unconscious and motionless. He ran over to the tube containing her and knocked on it, hoping to arouse her and get her attention but she didn't respond at all. Troy stepped back, checked out the tube one more time and saw it was connected back to the computer on the other side of the room.
"Man, I wish Noah were here," he said as he hurried over to the computer and did his best to figure out what it was doing and how to stop it. He couldn't understand anything that came up on the screen except the very basic information: Emma's height, her weight, her approximate age, gender, and the fact that she was human. "Why couldn't there just be a release button?"
Troy looked at the keyboard for the computer but he didn't know what to do and was too scared of hurting Emma to try anything at random. His eyes strayed over to the escape key, but he couldn't take the risk. He walked back over to the tube and touched the glass, "I'll find a way to get you out of here."
"Or, you could join her," Bluefur announced and Troy turned around. He had a massive headache from being hit over the head, and was sore from being dragged down into the tunnels, but seeing Emma helpless now he was ready to fight.
Only he didn't have his morpher on him. When he reached for his bag he felt his back was empty. Of course they wouldn't risk him bringing along his morpher with him. They likely dumped the bag when they kidnapped him.
He was a skilled martial artist. He had been training since he was a young boy, and he had trained with some of the best. For several months, though he hadn't known it at the time, he had been taught by a former red Ranger – from the Samurai team, no less. He had skills that surpassed most, if not everyone in his age range, and possibly most with more experience in the art.
But he wasn't an idiot. Bluefur wasn't a regular opponent. He didn't fight with honour or respect. Given the chance, he would do to Troy what he had done to Emma, or worse. Troy didn't want to leave, especially with Emma so vulnerable, but if he tried to fight Bluefur he knew he was going to lose. His best shot, and Emma's best shot, was if he ran. Troy waited for Bluefur to charge him, and then jumped out of his path. The big monster's momentum pushed him forward while Troy ran the other way, to the door.
"Bigs!"
Troy knew he had a way out now. Bigs was dangerous, but he was a little too big to be fast enough to catch him. Troy followed the biggest tunnel until he reached the surface and then he continued to run. He didn't know where he was going exactly but as long as he made it back into the city and to a phone he could reach his friends. They could help him.
He glanced over his shoulder as he ran. This was part of being a leader that he hated. He never wanted to put his teammates in danger, but he knew he had to make the right decision and save himself. He had a better chance at getting out alive and he had a better chance of helping Emma.
He just hoped she would be alive and alright by the time he came back with help.
