==Palisade, North Carolina, United States==

It was late evening and the Rangers were morphed and were going hard on their training. Since Chase was easily the best fighter, he was the one teaching moves to the other Rangers.

Nick didn't seem to understand anything well. He had never been in a fight before and had only learned what a 'roundhouse kick' was, much to the others' surprise.

Chase was trying to teach Nick how to dodge and counter a punch. "Get low when the punch flies at you and try to spin kick the assailant's legs." Chase tried instructing him.

'Uhh...what?" Nick asked, zoning out.

Chase facepalmed and walked over to face Nick. "Okay, say I'm attacking you, right?"

Nick nodded his head. "Okay, so you're my opponent." he said.

Chase placed his fist in front of Nick's face. "Pretend I'm about to punch you. Now what do you do?" he asked.

Nick got low on the ground to dodge the hit. "I'm low, now how do I 'spin kick'?" he asked, crouching on the ground.

Chase facepalmed. "What does it sound like? You spin, and then you kick."

Nick was still confused. "Okay, I'll give it a try." he said, twirling his body with his leg sticking out.

Chase tripped and fell onto the ground. "Good job! Now you know how to counter a punch." he congratulated. "Sadly, there's still a lot that you're going to need to work on."

Nick groaned. "Ugh, I hate fighting. Why couldn't they have just made us control massive weapons or something?" he complained.

"They do make us control massive weapons. Those massive weapons are these suits we're wearing." Chase said.

Nick looked over at the rest of the Rangers. "Don't you guys need to train, too?" he asked them.

Jake shook his head. "I already get this stuff. I think the only other two here that could use some help are Kenzie and Alli." he said. They both glared at him. "What? Just kiddin'..." he joked, trying to play it off.

"All jokes aside, Kenzie and Alli do need some training." Chase agreed.

A brilliant idea popped up in Kenzie's head. "Chase, why don't you let Jake and Nick help me out while you help Alli out?" she suggested.

She was trying to get to the idea that Chase and Alli were destined to be. Over the past few days, she had found every way possible to get them together and watch how they interacted.

Chase shrugged his shoulders awkwardly. "Yeah, sure." he said.

Alli raised her eyebrows. "Uhh...well...okay..." she said, playing with hair.

Jake and Nick took Kenzie over to one part of the woods. "This is way too funny." Nick laughed. "How much do you wanna bet they'll start making out halfway through their training?" he asked.

Kenzie giggled. "Yeah, this is hilarious. Let's just see how things work out..."

Emma brought Casey over to Ryleigh's house so she could play with Alissa. Casey and Alissa were becoming quick friends as they were often with each other due to the friendship that their mothers shared.

Emma rang the doorbell and waited for Ryleigh to answer. She opened the door holding Alissa. "Hey, Emma!" she said, letting her friend in.

Emma walked around and took a seat on the couch. "Hey, Ryleigh." she said, putting her daughter down to play with Alissa. "So, how's the whole Ranger thing going for you?" she asked.

Ryleigh sighed. "It's all right. I'm not free that often so it's really hard to make time to help them out. Chase is a much better fighter than he, though, and I think he'll be able to help them more than I will." she said.

Emma chuckled. "Just like when we were Rangers; Raylan and Shane were the only ones who actually knew what they were doing." she added.

Johnny was in the kitchen washing dishes. "I heard that!" he shouted.

Emma laughed. "You know it's true!" she laughed.

"Whatever you say." Johnny squawked. When he was done with the dishes, he walked into the living room and took a seat.

"Anyways, let's get down to business." Emma urged. "I activated the base in Harwood."

Johnny and Ryleigh were both blank. "Why'd you do that?" they asked, in unison.

"I thought you knew since Gadget-X was over here, but I did it because Raylan told me to."

"What was his reasoning?" Ryleigh asked.

"He said that there was no way our two teams could fight off this menace."

Johnny was confused. "We're a team of eight Rangers plus another set of five. Why do we need five more?" he asked.

"I have no idea, ask Raylan." Emma replied. "He said these monsters are way too strong for the thirteen of us to take care of. I still don't exactly know what he was talking about but I'm just going with it."

Johnny shrugged his shoulders. "Well, he is the one that works for the government..."

"So, do you have any idea who the Rangers are?" Ryleigh asked.

Emma shrugged her shoulders. "I have no idea who the Rangers are. I was hoping that I could talk to Gadget-X and find out, but he's busy filtering his tanks or something."

Ryleigh chuckled. "Oh yeah, if you go down to the basement you can hear him cleaning them out, it sounds like a truck."

Emma looked at the baby girls play and babble together. While Casey could still only say 'ma-ma' and 'da-da', Alissa could say more complex words such as 'toy', 'tv', and 'dora'.

"How long did it take for Alissa to be able to speak?" Emma asked.

Ryleigh shrugged her shoulders. "I remember she said 'yes' a few weeks ago, but I can't remember the exact date." she said.

Emma couldn't take her eyes off the girls. "Gosh, our girls are so cute." she said.

Ryleigh smiled and looked at the girls, as well. "You couldn't have been more right." she agreed.

==Harwood County, California, United States==

Jake and Gia waited patiently at Ernie's BrainFreeze for the others to show up. While Jake wanted to talk to Gia so badly, he couldn't find any possible way to start a conversation with her. He was completely clueless about her interests and he was sure she wasn't interested in soccer; that left him with absolutely nothing to talk about. It didn't seem like she was willing to carry out a conversation, either.

"So..." Jake said, trying to start something. He was rather looking at the text on his half-drank milkshake cup than at her.

"So what?" she asked, coldly, looking at her milkshake cup as well.

"This project..." he muttered, finally glancing up at her. She gave him a confused look. "As in, do you know what to do?" he asked, trying to clarify his previous statement.

"Of course I know what to do. You should know what to do, tool. Mr. Burley literally gave us the instructions a few hours ago." she barked. "So I suggest you do your part of the project rather than talk to me about nonsense. Understand?" she asked.

Jake held his hands up defensively. "Sorry, Gia..." he apologized, sipping on his milkshake.

When things couldn't have gotten more awkward, Emma finally walked into the BrainFreeze. "Oh my gosh, I couldn't wait any longer..." Gia whispered.

Emma took a seat by Gia. "Hey, Gia!" she said, giving her friend a hug. Then, she gave Jake a weird look. "Oh, hey..." she mumbled.

Jake was as enthusiastic as she was. "Yeah...hey..." he mumbled, as well.

"Oh my gosh! You're not going to believe what happened today!" Emma exclaimed.

Gia smiled. "What happened?" she asked.

Jake groaned as he listened to Emma and Gia gossip about boys and other non-school related nonsense. When Noah walked in, Jake let out a huge sigh of relief, earning him glares from Emma and Gia.

Gia rolled her eyes. "Listen, if you didn't want to work with us, why didn't you just tell us?" she asked.

Jake shook his head. "It's not that...it's just..."

"It's just what?"

"Gia, stop it..."

When Noah took a seat, he could tell things were getting tense. "Where's Troy?" he asked, trying to lighten the mood. When nobody answered, he asked again. "So, where's Troy at?"

"Not here..." Emma mumbled.

Noah raised his eyebrows. "So, should we start working?" he suggested, getting out some writing utensils.

Emma pulled out her laptop from her backpack. "I'll do some research. It's called a brachiosaurus, right?" she asked, opening up Google.

Gia nodded her head and took a sip out of her milkshake. "Yeah..." she said, staring off.

Jake sighed. "Gia, I'm sorry..." he apologized. She didn't respond. He looked to Noah. "Do you have Troy's number?" he asked.

Noah shook his head. "No, I don't. One of you should, right?" he asked around the table.

The rest of them shook their heads. "I don't think he'd vouch to give anyone his number." Emma said. "He's kind of a loner."

Noah looked over at Emma's computer screen. "It says here that the brachiosaurus had nostrils above its head." Noah read straight off of a website Emma was on.

Emma nodded. "Wow, that's incredible." she admired.

Noah continued reading. "It also says that an average brachiosaurus was about 40-50 feet tall!" he exclaimed.

Troy finally walked into the BrainFreeze and took a seat. "So, what kind of progress are we making, here?" he asked.

Noah looked up at Troy. "Well, we're just getting the basic information down. Emma found a great website here." he said, turning the computer to face Troy.

"I was talking about friendship building." Troy corrected. "Is everyone getting along all right?" he asked.

Emma nodded. "Yeah, we're getting along super."

Noah nodded as well. "Yeah, I agree."

Jake and Gia slowly nodded. "Sure..." they both groaned.

Troy raised his eyebrows. "Are they all right?" he asked.

"Never been better." Jake replied.

"Great." Gia replied.

Troy shrugged their responses off. "So, this project is due tomorrow. What are we going to present?" he asked.

Emma looked at the computer screen. "Well, they're herbivores who can reach plants up to 50-feet tall. They breathe from nostrils on the top of their heads. They had a giraffe-like neck." she answered.

"Fun fact: the first fossils were discovered in Colorado." Noah added. "Isn't that cool."

Troy nodded. "Yeah, that is pretty cool." he agreed, reading along with Emma and Noah.

Jake and Gia were still sitting awkwardly, sipping their milkshakes. Neither one of them had any input on the project. While Gia was easily one of the smartest kids in the class, she didn't want to open her mouth in fear that Jake would sexualize her every word.

Jake didn't want to say anything to make Gia think anything worse of him. Since they were grouped up, she already had a bad opinion of him, and he didn't want it to get any worse.

==Moscow, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation==

Moscow was a madhouse. Since Sutekh had appeared, he brought nothing but destruction to the city. Buildings were on fire and small structures such as streetlights were knocked down.

Raylan ran through the city in his Ranger Suit, trying to chase the serpentine pest around. The Russian army even showed up to help, but Sutekh's hard skin-armour held them to a standstill.

Eventually, Raylan was able to catch up to him and halt him. "Sutekh!" he called out. "Come over here!"

The serpent floated down to Raylan. "What do you want, human?" he asked.

"Tell me what you're doing!" Raylan demanded.

"Or what?"

"Or I'll kill the shit out of you!" he shouted.

Sutekh thought for a few seconds. "Well, it wouldn't hurt to tell you where I'm headed, since you won't be able to stop me, anyways. I'm headed to Zone C of Novaya Zemlya." Sutekh said, flying off.

Raylan tried chasing after it. "Wait! Why!?" he shouted, trying to get an answer.

When the beast left, Raylan turned around to face the destroyed section of Moscow. There were firetrucks and helicopters everywhere, trying to cover the scene. The media was already there, doing their job.

"Wait! Why?" Raylan's words echoed in his head. Things were starting to come together.

It was way too sketchy.

AS ALWAYS, DROPPIN' A REVIEW NEVER HURT :)