Author's Note: As of tomorrow I will be on vacation for five days. There will be absolutly no internet, so it will not be possible to update. This will be the last chapter before early next week.
Enjoy.
"MOM!" Summer yelled, running into the forest when she heard her mother returning from getting Hayden. "MOM! MOM!"
Summer jumped out in front of the two, bumping into her mother. Kira caught her and held her, seeing as the girl was freaking out.
"What happened? You okay?" she asked. "If you got hurt then I chose the wrong kid to save!"
"Aunt Kira!" Hayden groaned.
"It's not me!" Summer frowned. "It's-"
"Sam?" Kira asked fearfully.
"Mike!"
"Oh shit! Tori's gonna kill me!" Kira frowned, she sprinted ahead, running back to the camp. When she got there, she saw her daughter sitting next to an unconscious, or dead, Mike.
She tossed her walkie-talkie to Sam as she kneeled next to her nephew.
"Mike... Mike can you hear me?" she called, gently slapping his cheek. "Stinky?"
"Um... what..." Mike whispered as he slowly came too. He tried sitting up before pain shot up from his ribs, forcing him to collapse on the ground once again. He clutched his ribs with his arms as his face twisted in pain.
Kira ripped off his shirt, exposing his chest. She found cuts, scrapes and bruised, all outlined with blood, but nothing more. Finding this odd, she put her hands on his ribs and slowly pushed down.
"BITCH!" Mike yelled, pushing his Aunt away and clutching his ribs again.
"That's Aunt Bitch to you," Kira said. "Sammy, radio Leanne and tell her to get her ass here fast! Ronny fast!"
Sam nodded, turning on the walkie-talkie and calling her Aunt. Summer and Hayden came out from the forest, Hayden holding her older cousin close.
"What happened?" Kira asked her daughter when they were in earshot. She didn't have the courage to leave Mike's side, even for a moment.
"I don't know..." Summer frowned. "I was sleeping, then I heard his yell. I jumped down from my tree and he was lying like he is now. I didn't want to move him. Sam told me to go get you."
"I bet it was Alex again," Sam growled, squeezing the walkie-talkie with her hands, "That kid's bad news."
"There... all... bad..."
"SHH!" Kira snapped, putting her index finger to her mouth, shushing the only boy in the area. "You focus on breathing, not blabbling!"
"But..."
"SHH!"
"Aunt..."
"SHH!"
-----The-Rebellion-Begins-----
After Leanne arrived to the camp, she started working on Michael. She had taken him into Kira's tent to get a better look at his ribs and had to give him sedatives and painkillers.
The girls were sitting just outside the door, listening to every curse word Leanne spoke as she fixed up the eighteen year old.
Kira had called Kaylee via walkie-talkie and met up with her long time friend by the river, the middle point between the two camps.
"Samantha thinks Alex attacked Mike," Kira said, playing with a stick in the dirt. "But Alex was with you, right?"
"Of course he was," Kaylee sighed. "He and Chloe were playing cards by the fire they started."
"And Nathan was behind us when Hayden and I left..." Kira thought out loud. "Zack was the only one missing."
"He wouldn't do it... would he?" Kaylee asked. "Sure, my kids are all little shits... but they wouldn't attack Mike and the girls."
"There's a lot at stake for them," Kira reminded the blonde. "Maybe... and I do mean maybe.... they are behind the attacks."
"You and I checked both Billys, right?" Kaylee asked. Kira nodded, sure of her answer. They had spent a good ten minutes of each scarecrow, testing it to make sure it was safe for the kids. "And the knife was inside... I'm pretty sure something that sharp wouldn't have been overlooked."
"Sammy was attacked... then Mike... can you talk to them. Don't let them know we think it's them... but warn them that if they are behind the attacks, they lose the challenge."
"Power Rangers never escalate a fight," Kaylee smiled. "They should know that."
-----The-Rebellion-Begins-----
Hayden stood against the tree, looking over at the tent Mike was in as her aunt walked out.
"He should be fine," Leanne smiled. "Just let him rest, and he can't do any heavy lifting for a while... and neither should you, Sam."
"Great, the two oldest can't do any heavy lifting... or any at all really," Sam groaned. "So that leaves us with little Summer and daredevil Hayden?"
Leanne laughed as she nodded.
"I wanted the yellow suit..." Sam smirked, wiping away a fake tear. Summer frowned and punched her sister's arm. "Sorry... but... yeah."
"I know," Summer sighed.
"Hey," a voice whispered in Hayden's ear, causing her to look over her shoulder. She spotted Nathan behind her, smiling. "What happened?"
"Mike was attacked by a moron," Hayden smiled, disappearing into the forest. "He'll be fine."
"That's good," Nate said. "I saw your aunt and mom talking and figured something was up."
Hayden looked up at Nathan and smiled. "Do you... you know... do you know who did it?"
"Did what?" Nathan asked.
"Attacked my cousin..."
"I don't know," Nate frowned, only half lying. He knew it was one of his friends that did the attack, but he had no idea which one it was. "But I swear, if I ever find the person, I would personally kick his ass!"
Hayden smiled, leaning into Nate and kissing his cheek. "Thanks."
Nathan wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into another kiss, this time, on the lips. Hayden was about to deepen it, when Kaylee walked up behind her, clearing her throat.
"If I wanted to see that, I would have stayed home," she said.
Hayden blushed as she pulled away, happy her back was facing her mother so she could hide her blush.
"Nathanial, I'll take you back to camp, I have to talk to you and the others," Kaylee smiled.
Nathan nodded as his stomach turned. From the few days he had known Kaylee, he knew she could smile through anything. Afraid she might have figured out what he and his cousins were up too, he bolted.
Finding this odd, Kaylee quickly ran after him. She caught up too him as he reached his camp and frowned. "The hell? No racing me unless I know we're racing!"
Nathan decided not to run anymore. He was home, with Chloe and Alex. Worst case scenario, they could all come up with a lie.
"Guys, we need to talk," Kaylee said. She looked around, as Alex and Chloe put down their cards, and noticed that Zack was still missing. "Where's the dork?"
"Up here!" Zack called, jumping down from a tree. "Must have dozed off."
Kaylee nodded as the teens formed a circle around her. Nathan's stomach started to hurt as he thought of what she was going to say.
"You guys know it's illegal to knock out the opponent, right?" Kaylee started. The four teens nodded. "A Ranger never escalates a fight. If you guys were behind the attacks, which I don't think you are... you would be disqualified."
"We know," all four teens smiled, hoping Kaylee didn't see through it. Though she was suspicious of the teens, she accepted it, promising herself to keep an eye on all of them.
-----The-Rebellion-Begins-----
Back at the other camp, Summer, Hayden and Samantha were sitting around the fire their mother made. She had been forced by Leanne to give up her tent for the night for Mike and Sam, seeing as she had a mat instead of hard ground. Needless to say, the challenges had been postponed until further notice.
"You've been dealing better with this robot thing," Sam smiled to her sister when she noticed Summer had her back exposed to the dark forest. Something she had not done since she was attacked by the robot.
"I can blow them up now," Summer said. "I just scream and they overload. It's pretty funny."
"You tested it out?" Sam smiled. "When? How? Why didn't I know? How did I not know?"
"I didn't test it out," Summer laughed. "There's a reason why your laptop was mysteriously not working."
Sam growled at her sister. "You broke it?"
"Yeah..." Summer laughed. "I realised that the robots don't stand a chance against me... so I'm trying not to be scared."
As the twins talked, Hayden kept looking from one to the other. Even after sixteen years with them, she was still left in shock whenever they had conversations, just the two of them. "How is this not like talking to yourselves?" she asked.
"Because we know that the other person isn't us," Summer laughed.
"I still find it weird," Hayden smiled. She sat down on a log next to Summer.
"Talk to Nate at all?" Samantha asked, a little bitterly.
"Yes," Hayden answered, using the same tone. "He and I went into the forest, and guess what."
"He has no idea who attacked Mike, right?" Sam frowned. "I know. Of course he would say that!"
"Sam, be fair," Summer scolded. "He could be telling the truth."
"I don't trust his as far as I can throw him!" Sam yelled. "And at the moment, that's not far."
"I never understood that expression," Hayden sighed. "Why would you want to throw him?"
"Many reasons," Sam smirked, rubbing her hands together.
"Sam!" Summer frowned.
"What?" Sam asked. "Until I know for sure he's not behind the attacks, he's my little football."
"You're a bitch, you know that," Hayden frowned. "You don't give the guy a chance!"
"He hasn't given me a reason to trust him!"
"Oh, and Jeremy did?" Summer frowned, taking Hayden's side. As much as she didn't trust Nate, she still found it unfair that Sam wanted to kill him. Unlike her older sister, she didn't want to hurt him, just watch him carefully.
"Jeremy was a mistake," Sam said, through clenched teeth. "He was a bastard and I should have seen it."
"Why can't you just admit that you liked him just as much as I did?"
"He hurt you!" Sam yelled. "He made a fist, and punched you with it! I should have known he was a bastard from the moment you brought him home."
"You spent five minutes with the guy," Summer frowned. "There was nothing you can do!"
"I should have been looking out for you..." Sam sighed. "It's my job..."
"Stop," Summer cut her off as she jumped up. "You're fifteen minutes older, not fifteen years. I'm not the defenceless sister that needs protection day in and day out!"
"You can't look out for yourself!" Sam yelled back.
Hayden rolled her eyes as her hand found her forehead. "Not again... Sam, drop it before you piss someone else off!"
Kira, who had been trying to sleep not too far away, heard Hayden and grabbed her notepad. She flipped through the pages as realisation hit. If the fight with Summer continued, then Samantha would have argued with all her team-mates in the few days she had been in the forest. Between the bickering she always did with Mike, the fight she had with Hayden, and the one going on with Summer... maybe Sam wasn't ready to work on a team. At least, not with family.
She wrote her thoughts on paper before going back to bed.
"I..." Summer stopped. She glared at her sister, trying to hold in her scream. "I can't look out for myself? Next you're gonna say I don't deserve to be a Ranger!"
"Maybe you don't!" Sam spat. "You're innocent, Sum! Not everything is in black and white."
"Then why is Nathan?" Summer asked. "Why is he bad? Why isn't he's just trouble? What if you have him all wrong?"
"Why do you care?" Sam asked, almost as if begging for the fighting to stop. "He's just a random kid, who's not going to be RPM Green anyways! He's just in our lives for a few days!"
"I like him!" Hayden yelled, standing up. Summer put her hand on her shoulder and pushed her cousin back down onto the log, silently telling her this wasn't her fight.
"You're impossible to work with!" Summer yelled. "IMPOSSIBLE!"
"Better impossible than naive! At least I can spot evil."
"The hell is that supposed to mean?" Summer asked.
"Oh no, that monster destroying the town is probably just confused. Maybe we should help him out," Sam said, using a high-pitched voice to let her sister know she was mocking her.
"I don't sound like that!"
"I know, you sound like me!" Sam frowned. "But if I used my voice you wouldn't know I was making fun of you!"
"I don't know how I put up with you," Summer sighed. "But I do know that I'm not putting up with this anymore. As soon as we leave this forest, I'm gone."
Summer walked over to her tree and climbed up. Sam watched her sister before turning her back.
"And she thinks I'm impossible," Sam mumbled. "She's the one hiding in a tree."
