A/N: If you haven't noticed, I am going a bit out of order from the normal series. Please bear with me. I like having Emma's interactions not just limited to Gavin and Gia, so I'm bending the storyline a bit. Hope it's still enjoyable :)
It had been weeks since the incident and Emma was finally almost back to full function and health. Tensou still recommended she wait another week before getting into any battles, and maybe just limiting her activity to training to get back into the swing of things. He told her to keep the cast for today, and that he'd remove it for her the following morning, at which point she could begin sparring again.
While she had been inactive, Vrak had luckily been inactive too. He sent down a couple monsters here and there, but it was still significantly less than usual. It appeared he was still recovering from having his plans foiled in the hospital, or he was taking extra time to plan his next move.
Today, Ernie watched as the entire group of friends rolled into the Brainfreeze to chat with Emma and catch up on some work. She had notified Ernie that her cast would come off tomorrow and she could return to walking, but for now, it appeared she would still be stuck at the register for the day. They had been inside for about an hour when he heard Emma's special ringtone go off.
He was about to let her run off to help Gavin, but saw she made no move to stand up, while all the rest of her friends left in a hurry. Emma looked longingly at her bag.
"Doesn't that sound mean Gavin needs your help?"
Emma started in surprise. She didn't think Ernie had been listening. "The... others are going to handle it. Not much I can do with this." She pointed helplessly at her leg cast, inwardly hoping Ernie would buy the lie. It seemed he did, so he returned his focus to the radio he had been fiddling with for weeks.
Finally, it crackled to life and immediately the news began playing. The panicked screams of people running and the news anchors ripped through the speakers. Ernie jumped in shock, and Emma stared at the radio, willing it to shut off. She did not want to hear about the helplessness of a situation that she couldn't fix. The screams of the people she couldn't save.
Somehow, the gods answered her prayers and the radio cut out. Ernie then decided to turn the TV to the news channel. The entire store watched, fixated, as four rangers attacked a monster that sent unstoppable swords flying at them. The anchors were discussing how the pink ranger hadn't shown up to the fight, and as the live footage rolled, they both speculated as to what the cause was.
"Well, she hasn't been seen in a battle for around five weeks. If you think about it, we haven't heard anything about her since then."
It was at that moment that Ernie turned skeptically to the pink ranger, sitting nervously at the register trying to ignore the TV. He thought back to the day, about five weeks ago, when Emma had hobbled in with crutches. Everything else fell into place for him.
The strange sounds and her running off. Her friends always wearing ranger colors. Them leaving so abruptly as soon as that weird noise came out of their bags. Now that he knew what was going on, he wondered how he hadn't figured it out sooner. Most of all, he worried for the poor girl sitting at the register, knowing that on top of school and her brother, she also had to balance ranger duties and work. She had always seemed exhausted and over-stressed, but she persisted in her need to work, so Ernie couldn't do anything to stop her. He wanted to help, and he knew this job was the best thing he could do for her.
He had always thought about trying to support her financially without her working ungodly hours, but he knew she wouldn't accept money she didn't earn. The teens were a great group. They had always been kind and respectful to him and other customers, and were loyal regulars. He had gotten to know all of them and even grown fond of them. But that meant he knew them well. And he knew Emma was not the kind of person who would accept his help without earning it.
Ernie had even considered calling Child Protective Services multiple times when he saw how rough Emma looked on sleepless weeks, scrounging for every dollar trying to feed herself and her brother. She had fed him some story about why her parents were working constantly just like her, so they couldn't be around. Something had caused Ernie to hesitate on calling them, and now that he had figured out she was a ranger, he knew he couldn't.
The girl was suffering, and he knew it. But he couldn't do anything to help her.
Emma looked miserable, trying her best not to watch the fight. But she could still hear the anchors announcing a play-by-play, and knew it was not looking good for her friends. Ernie took pity, and pulled the morpher out of Emma's bag. He called her over and handed it to her.
"I think you should go."
Emma saw the morpher in his hand, and was just about to deny it when Ernie interrupted her.
"Pink Ranger."
She sighed, and took the morpher. "I'll explain later. Please. I'm sorry I lied, it was just too dangerous for you to know."
Ernie waved her concerns aside. "No need."
Emma glanced at the TV, and the last thing she saw before she teleported to the Command Center was the blue ranger taking a nasty shot and falling to the floor. At that point, the camera crew became too nervous and began fleeing the scene.
By the time she had arrived at the Command Center and summoned Tensou to take her cast off so she could go help, the battle was over. For that reason, Tensou told her that he would still refrain from removing it. There wasn't going to be another attack the rest of the day, and he was already cutting it close by trying to remove it a week earlier than it should be. Emma had been promised removal on the following day, so he figured keeping the cast on the last couple of hours could only help. The rest of the rangers hobbled into the main room, nursing numerous injuries and cuts that they sustained in the battle.
Emma looked sadly at her friends. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there."
Troy laughed humorlessly. "This is no insult to your prowess as a ranger, but I'm not sure you being there would have helped much."
Jake nodded along in agreement.
Emma pulled out one of the first aid kits and began cleaning Gia up. After she finished, she helped the rest of the rangers disinfect and bandage their cuts. When Noah's turn finally came, he was nowhere to be found. The rest of the rangers had laid down to rest and recover, so she broached the subject.
"Do you guys know where Noah went?"
When she got no response, she looked around and found that all of her friends had already passed out. She sighed inwardly.
"Tensou, could you pull up Noah's morpher signal?"
