Disclaimer: Neither I nor Butterfly Dreamer767 owns Power Rangers, Saban does. Only the characters, events, and places not found in Mystic Force or Samurai.

AN: Here is Butterfly Dreamer's newest Samurai chapter.

Chapter 9: What just happened?

Shiba House

"You're up rather early."

Emily gave a start. Whirling around, she noticed Mike had just come into the kitchen and was grabbing a glass from the cabinet. "I could say the same for you. Sensei gave us today off- and usually that means wake-up time for you is at least 11:30." She teased.

Mike snorted. "Ha-ha. I have something I really needed to do today, so I figured I might do it early. You never know, some Moogers might show up. I don't know if they get a day off."

"Wow, Mike, that's really… responsible of you." Emily was impressed.

"Don't think that this is going to be the norm." Mike jokingly warned. "So what's your reason for being up so early?"

"I've got to go take the ACT." At Mike's confused look, Emily smiled and pointed to herself. "Junior, remember? And just because I have to self-study because of Samurai duties doesn't mean I can skip out on state graduation requirements."

"Now you're the responsible one."

Emily laughed. "We all have to be. Responsible, I mean." She grabbed her bag and headed out the door. "See you later!"

Panorama East High School

"Do not open your books until told to do so."

Emily fiddled with the corner of the test booklet as the test administer explained the rules. She wasn't exactly nervous, but she did want to do well. While it didn't look like she would be done with being a Ranger any time soon, (hopefully) the day would come where they would finally beat Master Xandred. Emily knew it was important to perform well on this test, especially since she could get scholarship money if she scored high enough. Money was pretty tight right now and her parents had to pay for the various medicine and treatments that Serena needed. Emily didn't want to burden them with additional costs.

Her wrist felt strangely bare without her morpher on. Ji had let her leave it at home because of the "no electronics" rule. The morphers couldn't be turned off, and Emily had worried that it might go off in the middle of the test, resulting in her score being disqualified. Ji conceded that she made a valid point and allowed her to keep it at the Shiba house. He told her not to worry if there was an attack; the Samurai would be able to take care of it, and the Mystics could also help if needed.

"You may now open your books and begin section 1."

Emily jumped. She silently cursed herself for letting her mind wander and opened the book to begin working on the questions. The room was dead silent, except for the soft scraping of lead pencils against paper and the occasional rustle as a page was turned. Emily worked quickly, trying to finish all of the problems in the allotted time.

Suddenly a muffled scream was heard. All the heads in the room turned to look out of the windows. Below, a young girl ran past, looking terrified. A few more people followed her.

"Please ignore the disruption! Turn around in your seats," the teacher barked.

The students turned back to their tests, but Emily continued to watch outside the window. A few more people ran by, screaming. Emily wondered what on earth could be terrorizing the people so much when she saw a flash of purple. "Morlocks!" She quietly gasped. She watched as they began chasing down civilians.

Emily turned back in her seat and stared at her book, not really seeing the pages. "I should just wait and let the Mystic Rangers come," she told herself. "After all, they are better suited to fight the Morlock."

But as the minutes dragged on, there was no sign of the Ninjas. Emily tried to ignore the screams of terror, but finally she couldn't help it. Leaping out of her seat, she began running towards the classroom door.

"Hold on! Where do you think you're going, young lady," the test administrator screeched at her.

"I have to go! I'm so sorry!" Emily called back as she flung open the door and ran down the hall. She headed for the stairs. She raced down them and burst outside, reaching for her morpher. Her hand slapped down on her wrist.

"That's right. I left the morpher at home. Well, I can't do anything about that now, except hope that no one sees who I am."

Emily dashed towards the Morlock. "Hey! Leave them alone," she shouted as she began attacking the Morlock. Within minutes she was completely surrounded and outmatched. Just as she was beginning to get seriously worried, she spotted a streak of red out of the corner of her eye.

"We got this! You go!" Kyle shouted as he took down some Morlock with a series of blinding kicks and punches. Emily quickly nodded and turned around.

"Your team needs you at the rock quarry." Makoto told her. "We'll handle the Morlock problem."

Emily sprinted away, glad that the Mystics had finally shown up. "Although I wonder what took them so long… better late than never, I suppose."

Rawlings Theater, Downtown Panorama

Mia frowned as she glanced down at her wrist. Her morpher had just gone off. "Hey Nate?" she turned to the drummer in Terry's new band. "I really have to go. It's an emergency." The band had just finished one of their new songs, for which Mia was singing lead.

Nate scowled. "Mia, this is like the fifth time this week that you've ditched us during band practice! I'm beginning to think you don't want to perform with us."

"I do," Mia protested. "But I've really got to go!"

"Terry, your sister's ditching again." Nate turned to the young man who had just returned from getting some water.

"Terry…" Mia turned to look at her brother, a pleading expression on her face.

Terry understood immediately. "Let her go, guys. Mia's super responsible. If there's something she needs to take care of, we need to let her take care of it."

Mia shot her brother a look of gratitude and hurried off the stage. As she left, she could hear Nate and Terry arguing. She felt bad for leaving again, but Ranger duties came first. That didn't stop a pang of sadness from rushing through her when she heard what Nate said next.

"Whatever, dude. All I'm saying is that the next time Mia ditches us, she's out of the band."

Rock Quarry

"Ah, the infamous rock quarry!" Mike announced as the male Samurai arrived to a scene of Moogers causing general chaos. "I'm beginning to think this place is on the 'Top Ten Places for Evil To Attack' list."

"You'd think they realize that they've never actually won a battle here." Antonio added. "But their stupidity is our quick victory."

The boys ran into the rock quarry and began attacking the Moogers. Emily and Mia soon appeared.

"Emily! I thought you were taking your test! You know, the one where you're not allowed to leave the room until it's over?" Mike asked.

"Yeah, well, change of plans." Emily performed a back roundhouse followed by two quick punches to a Mooger's chest. "There were Morlock attacking civilians downtown. I couldn't just sit there and not do anything."

"So what's going to happen to your test?" Kevin asked as he shot at a group of Moogers.

Jayden tossed Emily's morpher to her. "We'll deal with that when we need to. Right now, let's take care of these freaks."

Emily started to morph, then stopped. "Wait. Why do you have my morpher?"

"I brought it along in case we needed to use our Zords. You can make a configuration with Zords even if the ranger who pilots one of the Zords is not fighting." Jayden explained. "And it looks like we'll have to use them." He indicated two giant Moogers. "Let's call the Zords."

"Lion foldingzord!"

"Dragon foldingzord!"

"Turtle foldingzord!"

"Bear foldingzord!"

"Ape foldingzord!"

"Claw Zord!"

Having called the Zords, the Samurai rangers dialed the combination for the Claw Megazord. It took awhile (and a lot of power) but eventually the Samurai were able to subdue the giant Moogers. They quickly de-morphed and headed back to the Shiba House.

Shiba House

"So much for our day off." Mike grumbled as he collapsed on the couch.

"Such is the life of a Samurai ranger." Kevin reminded him. "There really is no such thing as a day off. Sure, we may not have to train or fight, but we must always be on guard."

"Did you at least finish what you needed to do this morning?" Emily asked.

"Yeah." Mike nodded.

The doorbell suddenly rang. "I'll go get it." Mia offered.

Ji walked in. "Thank you, Mia. How did the battle go?" He asked Jayden.

Jayden shrugged. "As well as could be expected, I guess. We had to use the Zords to take care of some giant Moogers, but there wasn't any problems."

Mia walked back into the room. "Uh, Ji? There are some people here to see you…"

A stern looking older woman and two men dressed in suits pushed past Mia. They carried themselves with an air of importance, as if they had a lot of power and knew it. "Mr. Ji?" the woman said with a condescending tone.

Ji stood up. "How can I help you?"

"Are you aware that…" the woman trailed off when she saw Emily. "There you are!"

The Samurai looked at each other, confused. One of the men who had accompanied the women stood up. "We're from the ACT test administration board. We were picking up tests this afternoon when we heard that a young lady had caused a disturbance during testing. This disturbance may have ruined hundreds of tests scores." He glared at Emily.

"So, why are they here? As in, how did they find the Shiba house," Jayden whispered to Emily.

"I had to put down a place of residence when I registered. This is my place of residence," Emily replied.

"So how may I help you?" Ji repeated.

"For starters, you can explain why Ms. Fields ran screaming from the test room," the older woman said icily. "And then explain why she felt she should return home… and what even is this place?" She fixed her stony stare on Ji.

Ji stared back, unblinking. "Emily sometimes experiences… panic attacks. When she becomes very nervous, she flees from the situation. She returned here because she lives here. You see, here we help troubled youth prepare for the outside world."

At this moment the Mystic Rangers entered the dojo. The ACT trio turned around and viewed the new group with incredulous expressions. Jayden quickly shot the Ninjas a look that said, "Play along."

"Ah, Sensei Hatari! How was the nature walk?" Ji greeted.

Sensei Hatari, being a very intelligent man (and having seen Jayden's look) replied, "It went very well. The young people learned a lot from Claire on our walk today."

"Excuse me, but why on earth do you have punching bags and weapons," one of the ACT men interrupted.

"We are teaching the ones with anger management how to effectively control their anger by showing them many forms of martial arts," Ji lied smoothly. "Now that I've answered your questions, will you please tell me why you came here?"

The woman frowned. "Well, the stunt Ms. Fields pulled today is quite serious. We don't take disruptions lightly. I'm thinking some form of punishment, perhaps monetary in nature, is called for…"

"And you had to come here instead of making a phone call why?" Mike interrupted.

The lady sputtered. She obviously wasn't used to being interrupted. "I'll have you know young man…"

"Alright." Ji cut in. "Thank you for making me aware of the problem you had today. I will talk to Emily and call your organization later to discuss this in more detail. But I'm afraid you need to leave now. Good day."

He and Sensei Hatari escorted the group to the door.

"So what's going on here?" Kyle turned to the Samurai with a raised eyebrow.

"Let's call it, 'What Happens When Civilians Enter the Dojo,'" Mike suggested. "I guess Emily left when she was taking her exam, and your not supposed to do that less you incur the wrath of Ms. 'Financial Punishment.'"

"Hey wait a minute…" Antonio stood up and walked over to the briefing table. He began searching through the computer systems.

"How did your battle go," Kevin asked the Ninjas. They began recounting their battle. It too went fine, with only Morlock showing up. Ji and Sensei Hatari entered the room and joined the discussion.

Antonio stood up and motioned to Ji and Jayden. They hurried over to the briefing table. "What is the matter, Antonio," Ji asked.

"You know how civilians aren't supposed to be able to enter the dojo because of that safety spell you told me you cast?" Antonio asked is a hushed tone.

"That's true." Jayden nodded. "At the very least, we're supposed to get a warning when civilians are a certain distance away. That way we can lock the gates if necessary."

"Well, get this. I was looking at the system that monitors the spell and I noticed that it was down." Antonio said. "Which either means the spell ran out, or someone hacked our system."

"But who would do that?" Jayden asked. "And more importantly, who can do that? The system is supposed to be virtually impenetrable."

"That, Jayden," Ji spoke up, looking grave, "is the million dollar question."

AN 1: This is MF 22. I realize the prequel to this story, Ninja Storm: The Lost Elements, hasn't been updated in some time. I have neither forgotten nor abandoned it. I am writing the next chapter, after having gotten past the brick wall I ran into. It should be up by Wednesday, Thursday at the latest.