disclaimer! still don't own ninja storm. what a shame that is, indeed, don't you think? i could have put some slash in it. i could have put more angst in it. more violence. more dustin getting hurt. ohh what i could have done with my poor, lovely dustin.

author's note! well i'm back. this chapter's a little longer than the rest (yay!) and i was going to make it even longer, but decided i would let you sit in torture for a little while longer. anyway i hope you enjoy, as always. i'm pretty happy with this chapter, but it's up to you guys to let me know whether or not i should be. soo review!

Hunter walked back into Ninja Ops with a feeling of dread filling him. Something just didn't feel right. Something told him that he shouldn't have left Dustin alone. It just didn't seem right. He should have gone in with the yellow ranger, spent a little time with him. Walking to his house, there was some sort of anxiousness that filled Hunter. And when they walked up the stairs and he left his friend at the door, it just tripled in size. He'd watched Dustin go in the door, waited a little while, nothing seemed to happen – no screaming, no sounds of anything breaking, all was calm. And so he'd left, headed back to Ninja Ops. It seemed safe to do so, but the entire way back he couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

He had a frown on his face and was ruffling the back of his hair in despair as he walked down to meet the rest of his ranger friends in Ninja Ops.

"You alright, Hunter?" Blake asked as soon as he caught sight of his brother. Something always seemed to be troubling Hunter, especially as of late. But then again, if there was nothing on Hunter's mind, then there was probably something wrong with him. The guy was totally secretive. He was always keeping things from other people, including Blake from time to time.

The crimson ranger looked up at his brother, biting his right thumbnail. "Hm?" he asked, acting as if he hadn't heard him, then shook his head as the question clicked. "Oh, yeah, I'm good. Don't worry about me."

A look on the navy ranger's face, as well as the blue, red, and green who had turned to listen in, told Hunter that no one bought his story. Sighing, he ran a hand through his blonde hair again and sat down. "I'm just worried about Dustin is all," he admitted finally. "I got this weird feeling that something wasn't right when I left him at his house." He shook his head again. "I don't know, it's probably nothing."

The other rangers all had mixed looks of confusion and worry etched on their faces.

"It wouldn't hurt to check up on it, though," Sensei chimed in. "Cam," he added, turning to his son, who nodded in return and set to work.

"Hello Dustin."

"Who the hell are you?" His voice cracked. His accursed voice cracked. His hand clenched the doorknob behind him as he hovered in the doorway.

The man sitting on his bed laughed at his reaction, his demeanor, and waved him over. "Come on, Dust, take a seat," he said, gesturing to the spot on the bed next to him. Dustin didn't move. How this man, the man, made it into his home he'd never know. The doors had been locked. None of the windows even dared to budge. Nothing had seemed broken or out of place when he'd entered the house. It was as if the man had teleported himself into Dustin's room. Last year's yearbook was sitting open on the bed, the opposite side the man had gestured to, next to him.

"How did you get in here?" Dustin questioned his thoughts out loud, ready to pounce out the door on a second's notice. His eyes were narrowed as he tried to keep his voice steady this time.

The man shrugged and stood up, approaching the yellow ranger. Dustin's grip on the doorknob tightened. He remembered the last time he'd encountered this man very clearly and he didn't want a rerun of that. "Don't worry, Dustin," the man said, holding up his hands as if he was approaching a jumper. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to help you."

Dustin snorted before he could help himself.

The man smiled slightly. "I know that might sound a little odd, considering our previous encounter, but it's the truth."

The yellow ranger rolled his eyes and his grip tightened on the door knob again, this time out of anger instead of fear. A low growl sounded from deep in his throat as the stranger lifted a hand and brushed Dustin's cheek gently, right where the bruise was still purple and black. The man laughed lightly and withdrew his hand, moving it from Dustin's cheek to his hand on the doorknob. He grasped the ranger's wrist and pulled it roughly from its position, shutting the door afterwards.

Dustin drew in a breath unconsciously and mentally kicked himself for showing his fear so obviously. The smirk on the stranger's face made him want to hurl. "What do you want?" He growled out, his eyes narrowing.

"You," the man replied simply, suddenly gripping the sides of Dustin's head with his palms. Dustin gasped in shock and then in pain as a feeling of fire burned through his head. The next thing he knew was total darkness.

"Anything?" Hunter asked as he nervously paced behind Cam. It was probably the sixtieth time the crimson ranger had repeated the question. It was really starting to get on Cam's nerves.

The rest of the rangers had been sent home. Hunter had opted to stay behind at Ninja Ops, in worry for Dustin.

Cam sighed. "No, Hunter. Nothing seems to be out of place. You're probably just overreacting." The samurai ranger turned around in the chair. "You should go home and get some rest." Hunter shook his head angrily.

"I know something's wrong, Cam," he repeated, but he turned on his heel and headed towards the exit anyway. "I can feel it," he muttered under his breath as he walked away.

The green samurai ranger shook his head as he watched the crimson ranger walk away. He would never understand the emotional imbalance of Hunter Bradley. One minute he was hating on Dustin, the next he was worried sick about the kid. Sighing again, he turned back to his computer and continued looking for any signs that something was up with the yellow ranger. As he'd been for the past half an hour, he was getting nothing. Whatever Hunter was worrying about had to be nothing.

Hunter didn't go home. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was up. It was bothering him immensely. He wanted to swing by Dustin's house, just to see if he was okay, but he forced himself not to. It was probably nothing, he tried to reassure himself. If Cam said everything was okay, everything had to be okay. Instead, he stopped by the track. Blake was there and some company would probably do Hunter well to get his mind off a certain yellow ranger.

Hunter and Dustin usually got along pretty well, but lately he'd been finding the other boy to be slightly infuriating. There was just something about him that was driving the crimson ranger insane. Whether it was his dorky, goofy, air-headed personality or his hair and eyes, Hunter couldn't tell, but he really was hoping for the former. Dustin just seemed to get on every one of the blonde boy's nerves. He was too trusting; got the rangers into spots of trouble too often. He was too air-headed; couldn't pay attention long enough to get anything done. He was too attractive.

No, scratch that last one. Hunter Bradley was anything but gay.

He spent about two hours on the track, before it started to get dark, then he headed off towards his house, Blake right at his side. He was lost in his thoughts as the two boys packed their stuff together and left the track.

"I'm going to stop by Storm Chargers real fast," Blake said suddenly, breaking Hunter out of his reverie. "I left a few things there earlier today." Hunter nodded absent-mindedly and the two parted to go their separate ways.

Without thinking about it, Hunter had somehow managed to make his way to Dustin's house instead of his own apartment he shared with his brother. He hadn't realized that he'd even been headed in that direction until he was standing outside the front door, ringing the doorbell.

He waited a few moments. No one answered. He tried it again, but still was responded by the sounds of nothing. To keep himself from panicking, he reassured himself that Dustin was in the shower, or sleeping, or had his music up too loud to hear the doorbell. He knocked on the door loudly, in hopes that maybe he would hear it that time. No such luck.

Hunter stayed there for a few more minutes, knocking the door and ringing the doorbell occasionally, before walking around the back. Nothing seemed to be out of place. He could see the light on in Dustin's room, but the blinds were shut, so it was impossible to see inside the house. He tapped on the window loudly, but got no response. Sighing in frustration, he headed back around to the front, knocking the door loudly again in vain.

He was about to leave when the sound of gravel crunching and the flash of headlights (for it had gotten late while Hunter was at the track and then waiting for Dustin to answer the door) stopped him in the tracks. A car was pulling into the driveway and Hunter forced a smile as he waved to Mrs. Brooks.

"Hey honey," the woman greeted as she turned the car off and got out.

"Hey, Mrs. Brooks. How are you?" Hunter responded out of politeness, instead of what would usually be curiosity. He had only met Dustin's mom a few times, but he really liked her. She was sincere and one of the coolest moms he'd ever met.

"Dustin not answering?" She asked, her brow furrowing in confusion as she glanced at her watch. "I didn't think he was working today."

Hunter shrugged his shoulders. "He's probably just sleeping or something. I haven't been here that long," he fibbed, but he didn't want to sound like some sort of obsessed freak, or a worry wart.

Mrs. Brooks clicked her tongue in aggravation as she searched through her purse frantically for her house key, which had somehow fallen to the bottomless pit of the bag. She really needed to start connecting it to her car keys. It would be so much easier. "Aha," she finally cried out in victory as she held them up, walking towards the front door to unlock the door. "Well, come on in, hon," she said as she held the now-unlocked door open for the two of them.

Hunter thought about protesting but figured the safety of his friend was of greater interest. So he followed Dustin's mom inside, where she called out her son's name loudly and shut the door behind him. "So are you guys going out or something?" She asked over her shoulder as she set her purse down on the kitchen counter and walked the short distance to Dustin's room, to knock on the door. "Dustin!" She called out loudly again.

The crimson ranger shook his head. "No, I was just checking up on him. He didn't feel so good earlier today," he responded. It wasn't exactly the truth, but it was close enough to it. Besides, it wasn't like he could tell her the full truth – oh, he got attacked by some strange man, got the shit beaten out of him, then was put on a leave of absence by our sensei, who's been training him the art of the ninja for a while now, oh and by the way, he's a power ranger. That didn't seem like it would go over too well with her.

"Hm," Mrs. Brooks muttered out in confusion as she pounded on the door again. "I don't hear the shower running, but that kid is the heaviest sleeper I know." She twisted the doorknob, finding it unlocked, and swung the door open.

The room was empty.

Dustin woke up for the third time in the past two days with a pounding headache. This was really getting old really fast. Sitting up, he looked around him, his eyes blinking open. He wasn't quite sure where he was, but he knew, wherever it was, it wasn't someplace he'd like to be. He was sitting in the grass, in what looked to be a forest. It was getting pretty dark outside and it was eerily quiet. He was really beginning to hate the silence. He was never one for silence in the first place and after all that's happened recently, he knew his dislike for it had to be justified. Every time it got quiet, something bad happened.

Pushing himself to his feet, he began walking in a direction, hoping it would take him out of the woods and back into civilization. He really had no idea where he was going, but hoped that his natural ability to connect with the earth was taking him in the right direction.

Looking down as he realized how bare his arm felt, he noticed that his morpher wasn't on. He didn't remember taking it off. Shit, he thought to himself and suddenly began to panic. If he didn't have his morpher on, then Cam couldn't locate him if he got lost. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, He thought again as he remembered the stranger in his room and suddenly blacking out. What if the man took his morpher? "Shit!" He screamed out in his head, before realizing he really did it out loud – birds squawking and flying out of the treetops gave that away.

Gripping the sides of head, Dustin cried out in aggravation. Why was this all happening to him? What had he done – except trusting the enemy and almost getting his fellow rangers into big trouble – to deserve this? Why him? What did this strange man want with him? He wasn't anything important. He had no special abilities. He was just a regular kid, or less than that even.

He walked for what seemed like hours, but was probably only fifteen minutes or so, before collapsing against a tree, sliding his back down the trunk until he was sitting in the grass again. He groaned loudly and put his head into the palms of his hands. He was aggravated and ready to just give up. He gripped a handful of hair in each palm tightly, as if pulling his hair would somehow decrease the pounding pain in his head.

The sky was completely dark, the sun having gone down and it being a starless night, by the time he lifted his head up again. What he was going to do with himself, he didn't know. There was no way he was going to be able to get out of the woods tonight, but he definitely didn't want to spend the night there. Despite being the earth wind ninja, Dustin didn't really go for the whole camping scene, at least not without his television and generator. No, he was definitely not the camping type – especially not in the middle of the forest, all alone, in the dark, with absolutely no camping gear.

He could get eaten by a bear or something.

"Dustin?" Mrs. Brooks called out frantically throughout every room of the house, despite the fact that she and Hunter both knew that the dark haired boy was nowhere in the vicinity. Hunter, on the other hand, had gone outside to contact Cam on the morpher. He'd located Dustin's morpher sitting on his bed before Mrs. Brooks had gotten the chance to find it and had kept it with him.

"What is it, Hunter?" Cam's voice sounded through the morpher.

"Dustin's missing," the crimson ranger responded grimly, knowing he'd been right all along, but also knowing not to rub it in everyone's faces. It wasn't appropriate, not with the yellow ranger's mom running around like crazy inside, worried for her only child. "I stopped by to check up on him and he wasn't here. His morpher was on his bed and he… wasn't," he choked up involuntarily on the last word.

He could hear the panic in Cam's voice, although the other boy tried to suppress it. "Okay, get back to Ninja Ops. I'll see what I can do."

"His mom's here," Hunter responded before Cam could sign off. "She's really worried."

Cam sighed on the other line. "Alright, just tell her that you just caught hold of Dustin and that he's just out for a walk. We'll find him," Cam said, knowing that it would do little to calm Mrs. Brooks down and that there was little chance of finding Dustin without his morpher on him.

Hunter sighed this time as Cam disconnected their conversation and he walked back inside the house, where Dustin's mom had given up searching the house inch by inch and had sunken down at the table. Coming up behind her quietly, Hunter put a soothing hand on the distressed woman's shoulder. She let out a great sob at that moment and grasped his hand with one of her own. It wasn't as if Dustin hadn't often disappeared out of the blue. In fact, it did happen quite frequently. But when his own friends didn't know where he was, that was when she had to worry. And clearly, since Hunter had no idea where he was, there was reason to worry.

"I just got a hold of Tori, who said she and Dustin went out for a walk," Hunter said, his voice tight as he lied. It didn't seem convincing, but Mrs. Brooks let out a laugh nonetheless and wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

"Oh heavens," she muttered out loud. "I'm sitting here worrying for nothing, then, aren't I?" She asked, even though she hardly believed her son's friend. It was just the desire for his words to be true that kept her hanging out to the hope that he really was out for a walk with that pretty blonde girl he always hung around with that made her believe it.

Hunter smiled grimly. "I should get going. Are you going to be alright?" He asked sincerely, really not wanting to leave the woman alone in such a moment of distress, especially if someone had already broken into the house and taken Dustin, but he also really wanted to get out there and find his friend.

'Cause Dustin always was one of his closest friends. Next to Blake, the yellow ranger was probably the closest thing he had to a best friend. As much as he infuriated Hunter, he was without a doubt the person he trusted the most, beside Blake.

Mrs. Brooks scoffed. "Oh, I'll be fine. Just had a brief episode of unnecessary motherly worry. It happens all the time, with a son like Dustin," she said, letting out a light laugh to make light of the situation. "Don't you worry about me."

Hunter squeezed her shoulder once more before leaving the house. As soon as he was out of sight, he ninja streaked his way to Ninja Ops. He stormed in, mostly in anger and distress, and ignored the stares he was receiving from his fellow rangers.

"Hunter," Tori greeted shortly, worry evident in her voice. She cared deeply about Dustin. They'd

known each other since they were kids. To see him hurt would hurt her equally as bad. He nodded briefly without turning towards her then came to a stop before Cam, who was seated in front of the computer, typing frantically on the keyboard, no doubt trying to locate the yellow ranger.

"Any luck?" Hunter asked, even though he knew the answer to the question.

Cam shook his head, then turned to stare at the crimson ranger. "Okay, so tell us exactly what happened since you left Dustin's house this afternoon," he demanded.

Hunter sighed before going into a full-detail account of his departure with Dustin, all the way up to when he found his morpher on the boy's bed.

"Do you think maybe he left on purpose?" Shane asked quietly. He was sitting at the table, his face in his hands, clearly distressed. There was no doubt about it that the red ranger blamed himself for all of this. He was the leader. He was supposed to look after his team. It seemed as if he was completely overlooking Dustin's safety. This was twice this week he'd gone MIA. The first time he'd ended up hurt, and they'd found him in less than a half an hour. This time, who knew how long he's been missing and how hurt he could possibly be.

Hunter narrowed his eyes. "Why would he do that?" He growled out. To assume that Dustin would abandon the team for good seemed traitorous. That wasn't Dustin's game. It was Hunter and Blake's, more so on Hunter's part.

Shane shook his head. "Maybe he's scared," he mumbled out. "I don't know." He stood up, facing Hunter's angry glare. "I don't know how Dustin's mind works. No one does," he said, a bit of dry humor in his voice. "But he's been going through a bit lately. What with Marah and this man. He could have just felt overwhelmed."

Hunter's eyes narrowed even deeper. "That's ridiculous. Dustin doesn't back off that easily."

Shane looked ready to retort, but Sensei cut them off. "Boys, this is no time to be arguing with one another. We don't know what happened with Dustin, but right now our main priority should be finding him, making sure he's safe." The two red rangers clamped their mouths shut and nodded begrudgingly. "Now, Cam," Sensei started again when he was satisfied the two would stop bickering. "Is there anything we can do about Dustin?"

Cam shook his head. "I'm not sure. Hunter," he turned to the crimson ranger. "Let me see Dustin's morpher," he held out his hand expectantly until the other boy complied. "I might be able to locate previous activity from when Dustin was wearing this. It's take a while, so you all should get some rest. It'll probably take me until tomorrow if I can get anything done."

Sensei nodded his small head. "Go home, rangers. Get some sleep. You'll be more use to Dustin if you're not all slugging around."

Shane and Hunter animatedly shook their heads. "I don't think so," Shane sounded. "What if he's in trouble? What if he's hurt? We'll be better for him if we're out there looking for him."

Hunter nodded his head in agreement, as did Tori and Blake in the background.

"We could check places he might be," Tori chimed in. The track, Storm Chargers —"

"I was just at Storm Chargers the same time Hunter was at Dustin's house," Blake interrupted, shaking his head. "And before that, we were both at the track."

"We'll check again," Hunter said eagerly. "And everywhere else. The skate park, the woods, everywhere."

The rest of the rangers didn't hesitate to agree and Sensei and Cam knew they would be fighting a losing battle if they tried to stop them. "Alright," the guinea pig said. "But don't split up, go in pairs. We cannot afford to lose anyone else."

The wind and thunder rangers nodded before heading out of Ninja Ops to look for their lost friend.

author's note! so? how was it? what'd you think? i started writing it as soon as i finished chapter three until i fell asleep, computer on my lap, tv on, lights on, fully clothed, the whole deal. anyway. i sat down at work today and just typed away. so i hope you like it 'cause i spent all freaking day on it. haha. thanks to all my reviewers. you guys are the shit.

peace.