Author's Note: And here is today's. Day 9 is...Zayto!

"I've never been to a slumber party before," Ollie noted as he rolled out his sleeping bag.

"You don't say," Izzy replied sarcastically as she smoothed out her own sleeping bag with her hands. "I would've pegged you as being the life of the party."

"I've actually never been to a slumber party either," Amelia admitted as she rolled out her sleeping bag as well. "The other kids always thought I was kind of…weird for always talking about ghosts and bigfoot."

"I can confirm," Javi said, sitting on his sleeping bag. "Most of the other kids in our grade thought she was weird."

"What is a slumber party?" Zayto asked, walking into the room with his own sleeping bag.

"It's when you sleep over at a friends house," Izzy explained. "Except most of the time you don't sleep and you do things like watch movies, listen to music, tell spooky stories, you know, that kind of thing."

"Did you not have slumber parties on Rafkon?" Javi asked.

"I mean…maybe?" Zayto replied as he rolled out his sleeping bag. "But I spent most of my childhood and teen years in knight training. We didn't have time for things like slumber parties."

"Why are all of your lives so sad?" Javi threw his hands up a bit. "I loved having sleep overs with my friends and cousins as a kid."

"Well, I imagine most slumber parties aren't to prevent monsters from tracking you down to your house and killing your whole family," Ollie replied pointedly. "So this probably does't count."

"Ollie, don't be such a wet blanket," Amelia replied. "We need to make the best of a bad situation."

Zayto shook his head as he sat on his sleeping bag. A strange quirk of Void Knight's latest Sporix Beast allowed it to track the rangers anywhere. While fighting, this had extended to it always knowing where they were when fighting. Outside of fight though, his teammates had rightfully worried about the safety of their families. "You're both right," he told them. "If it helps you all to think of this as a…slumber party, then go ahead. But, we can't forget that the Sporix Beast could start tracking us at any time. Solon has us pretty well shielded in the base, but I say we shift sleep until morning. Just in case."

"Shift sleep?" Izzy asked.

"Oh right." Many times, he forgot these weren't his knights, so his team didn't always know what he was talking about right away. "Shift sleeping just means we sleep in shifts. One person stays up to keep watch while everyone else sleeps. After two hours, we switch. You wake up the next person, then go to sleep yourself."

"Makes sense," Javi nodded. "Well, I always stay up super late anyways, so I guess I volunteer for the first shift."

"I can go next, I'm used to being woken by Javi's sleep singing anyways," Izzy joked.

"I do not sleep sing!"

"I can go after Javi," Amelia said.

"I wake up before sunrise usually," Zayto said. "So, Ollie, you want to take the shift after Amelia, I can take the last one."

"Sounds good," Ollie nodded.

"Alright." Everyone started settling down for the night. Javi took a notebook out of his bag to work on a new song while everyone else climbed into their sleeping bags.

"Everyone, I need to power down and charge up for the night," Solon informed them. "So I'll be in the other room. But if there's any emergencies, I should power on immediately."

"Got it," Javi nodded. "Goodnight, Solon!"

"Night, Solon!" the other rangers chorused as she left the room, turning down the lights as she did.

Zayto laid down, only zipping his sleeping bag up halfway, in case he needed to get out of it quickly. While he usually slept on his cot, he wasn't going to let his team sleep on the floor alone. Plus, as a knight, he'd slept outside on the ground more times than he could count. A metal floor wasn't too different or uncomfortable for him. Tired from the long day, Zayto closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Unfortunately, sleep was easier in theory than in practice. The team wasn't as used to sleeping on the floor as he was, so they tossed and turned a lot, muttering to themselves as they tried to get comfortable. It was distracting to Zayto, who was used to the base being silent at night.

Eventually, though the team settled down and Zayto was able to try sleeping. However, even with the team asleep, his mind couldn't stop racing. 'I feel so bad they have to sleep here in the first place,' he thought. 'They have to lie to their families enough as it is, but now they have to lie about their location all night.' As the reason they were pulled into this mess, it made him feel guilty. 'Putting untrained civilians in danger fighting Sporix Beasts and Void Knight is one thing, but putting more civilians in danger with their families…if I'm not careful I'm going to get more people killed.' The thought made him tense. 'It won't happen though. I'll be careful. I know I will.'

Zayto turned over, having to readjust the end of sleeping bag by kicking out his feet. 'We need to find a way to defeat that Sporix Beast tomorrow. I don't want the team to have to lie to their families for a second day in a row.' He sighed and kept going over different battle strategies in his head, looking for way to win. By the time Javi was waking Izzy for her turn to stay up, he didn't have an answer, so he rolled over again, trying to sleep. However, his heart kept pounding his chest. He couldn't turn off the part of his brain that warned him his team was in danger. That he needed to be alert in case something happened.

'Nothing will happen,' Zayto thought. 'Nothing. We're in the base, we're safe.' Except monsters could still find their way into the base. Who knew what surprises Void Knight had up his sleeves. What if the Sporix Beast managed to get in and attack? Most of the team was asleep, they'd be defenseless. 'But we have people on lookout. That's why I suggested shift sleeping.' But the team didn't have experience with shift sleeping. What if the person who was supposed to be up fell asleep? What if that's just what Void Knight was waiting for?

That thought made Zayto open his eyes. In the darkness, he could see Izzy sitting on her sleeping bag. Although all he could really make out was her silhouette, he could tel she kept looking around. 'Izzy's awake,' he thought, closing his eyes and rolling over again, trying to relax. 'She's awake, so we have nothing to worry about.' But what about Ollie and Amelia? One of them could fall asleep. Plus they'd have their shifts during the middle of the night. When they'd all be dead asleep and an attack would be most opportune. 'But they probably won't.' Was he really willing to risk his team's safety over a probably?

Zayto's heart kept pounding as he turned over again. He took a deep breath. 'I'm making a big deal over nothing. We will be fine.' Unless he was just being over-confident. Being over-confident had gotten his first team killed, and it could get this one killed as well if he wasn't careful. 'Nothing will happen. I know it.' But did he? How could he really be sure? Zayto turned over again. On the other side of the room, he heard Izzy waking Ollie. The two of them talked in hushed whispers. He cracked his eyes open to see Izzy laying down and Ollie stretching a bit.

'Shift changing is going fine,' he thought. 'We're all going to be fine.' Zayto took a few deep breaths and tried to sleep. However, in the normally silent base, every sound seemed to set his nerves farther on edge. A quiet thunk caused his eyes to pop open. He didn't sit up, but did glance around. Ollie had gone back to sitting on his sleeping bag, his laptop was open on his lap with the light turned down low. Zayto closed his eyes again, but he couldn't relax. Every muscle in his body was tense, ready for action in a moment's notice. It was hardly the relaxed state of someone who was going to sleep. But he just couldn't force himself to relax.

'What was that?!' Zayto's eyes popped open again. They flickered around, but the only movement was Ollie shift every few seconds as he typed. 'I thought I heard footsteps.' He took a few deep breath's, trying to calm his opening heart as he closed his eyes again. Normally when he couldn't sleep, he walk around the base a bit, or outside at Dinohenge. But he didn't want to do that in case it woke up the team. 'Just relax,' he tried to tell himself. 'Just relax. Everything will be ok.'

But his body wouldn't get the message. no matter how hard Zayto tried, he couldn't relax and sleep. He tried to steer his thoughts clear of worries. Thinking about what could happen to the team if he fell asleep. Instead, he tried thinking of battle tactics again, but this inevitably circled him back around to worry about the team. He took another deep breath, flipping over to his other side. His eyes snapped open again, thinking he heard a noise. He closed his eyes again, but less than a minute later they opened again. 'Was that a noise this time?' He wanted to ignore it, but a voice in his head worried that if he did, that would be the noise of the Sporix Beast. Zayto nearly sighed in frustration as he rolled over again.

'I want to at least get up at check on things,' he thought. 'Maybe go outside for a bit and make sure there's nothing abnormal out there. But I don't want to disrupt the team. I'm already disrupting them by them having to be here at all. By having them be rangers.' Zayto flipped over onto his back and opened his eyes. He stared at the dark ceiling, anxiety creeping up spine. 'They're all here because of me. Because I said yes to the Sporix generator being turned on. Because I couldn't destroy them all.' All roads of destruction lead back to Zayto. He closed his eyes, wishing the anxiety would go away.

But it wouldn't go away. Zayto couldn't stop worrying about his team. What would happen if fell asleep and wasn't awake to protect them. He could hear Ollie's typing stop, then quiet whispering as he woke Amelia for her shift. 'See? The night's almost over and nothing's happened.' Yet. And who knew what could happen if he wasn't ready. Zayto bit his lip, trying to get at least a little bit of sleep. His anxiety kept creeping up though. He clenched his fists in his sleeping bag. 'Why can't I just relax? Why can't I sleep?' Another noise forced his eyes open yet again. His heart was pounding so hard he was surprised it didn't wake the others. 'I swear that was a noise. Maybe I should check… But I don't want to wake the others. They're all sleeping so peacefully. Especially since Amelia and Javi have to work. And Izzy has practice.'

Another noise, at least he thought it was a noise, caused Zayto's head to snap to the side. 'Was that a noise? Gah!' He put his hands over his eyes, digging the heel of his hands into his eyes. 'I- I just want to relax! To sleep!' But his thoughts kept racing and his body was too tense. Worry kept prying at his mind and he couldn't shake it off. He felt like he was almost shaking with anxiety. But he couldn't get up, too worried about waking the team. Zayto clenched his teeth in frustration.

How was it possible to sleep when every possible noise was potential threat to his team? How could he relax when they were all here, vulnerable because of him? Zayto wanted to scream. But he didn't. He couldn't even get up and move. All he could do was stare at the dark ceiling and hope for the best.