Note: This chapter happens during the 'Shane's Karma' episodes.
We see out in the earth's orbit near the moon, a shark shape like spaceship flew through space, chasing a white glowing orb of light. As it chased it, the ship was firing rainbow energy shots at it barely missing. The two flew over the moon, towards Earth and passed Lothor's ship.
"Zurgane!" Lothor called.
"Yes sir." the general answered as he went up to the space ninja.
"I'm bored. When will your new zord will be ready for battle?" asked the evil ninja.
"Very soon sir."
"Excellent!" appraised Lothor
Then the two annoying nieces of his appeared and his troubles started begin again. They were in some sort of dresses and stopped in front of their uncle and both twirled around a bit.
"What do you think?" asked both of the sisters.
"I think I'm gonna be sick." and Lothor rubbed his head a bit.
"Oh."
"What are you up to now?" commanded the space ninja.
"Well, remember you said that we could have our high school reunion on the ship?" Marah smiled all excited.
"I did?" Lothor lean towards them a bit.
"Yah!" both sisters said.
"I must have been having a senor moment."
The sensors beeped and Lothor went over to the viewing screens to see what going on.
He spotted the two flying crafts, flying pass his ship and wondered who were they and told Zurgane to keep an eye on them.
All the rangers except for Kaze walked into Ops in their ninja uniform, just coming back from their training. By the looks of it, they were all tired out from their training practice.
"Man, I'm worked." sighed Shane.
"No lie. Ten mile run, two fight simulations and a obstacle course." stated Blake.
"Don't forget two hours of hard meditation." added Hunter.
"Where was Kaze? How come he didn't have to go through training!" asked Cam to no one particular.
"Yeah, where is that boyfriend of yours bro?" Blake asked his brother.
"How should I know but good question, where is he anyways?" Hunter looked around.
"Even you look tired." commented Dustin as he pat Shane on the back, who was bent over tired.
"Training finally getting to ya?"
"I'm not getting a lot of sleep, keep having this weird dream." the red ninja shook his head and stood up.
"You should pay attention to them. Sensei says your dream can tell you a lot about yourself." Tori suggested.
"Speaking of dad, where is he?" wondered Cam as he looked around Ops.
"Dad!"
The other looked around as well and sensei was nowhere in sight, Tori though spotted something at sensei's podium stand.
"Look..." and the blue ranger walked over, followed by the others.
There was a small note attached to one of the wood poles that supports the roof of the podium and she took it off and started to read it out loud.
"Rangers, I have gone on a meditation retreat to reflect on and recharge my inner ninja. In my absence, enjoy awhile deserved day off."
"Aw, yeah!" everyone grasped hands with one another and celebrated a bit.
"No way! Is that what it says!" Shane who couldn't believe it.
"Yeah." said Tori.
"Well I'm thinking maybe ah, the track and a movie or...maybe a movie and then the track." the earth ninja who was uncertain and the others laughed a bit.
"What's so great, that you all are cheering about?" a voice cuts through the room.
Everyone turned towards the voice and Kaze walked out from behind one of the screens wearing his normal clothes.
"Kaze my man, where were you? How come you didn't train with us?" asked the yellow wind ninja.
"If you want to know, I have a mission tomorrow and I needed to be well rested for it." replied the white ninja.
Kaze walked over to the others and stood beside Hunter's left, as the crimson ninja wrapped his left arm around his shoulders and leaned in a bit.
"What kind of mission?" asked Shane.
"Lets just say its ranger business. My dad contacted me earlier and he wants it done tomorrow."
"By yourself!"
"It just a little thing, nothing big so there's nothing to worry about. So what were you guys all happy about anyways?" asked the storm student.
"Sensei left a note saying he's going to be away and gave us a day off." answered Hunter.
"Oh, that...Sensei told me before he left."
"And we were thinking of what to do, tomorrow." finished Dustin.
Blake noticed something was wrong with Tori. She had this bit of a sad expression on her face and the navy ninja wondered what was up.
"Hey Tor, what's the matter? Come on, don't tell me you can't deal with a day off?" Blake looked at her.
"No uh, a day off is great, especially tomorrow. I just thought that sensei would be around for...you know..." she smiled.
"What?" asked the crimson ninja, wondering what was up.
"Hey! Man, are we stupid?" Shane looked at everyone, "cause tomorrow...i-i-i-is your birthday." Shane said in a singing voice as he looked back at Tori.
"Ohhhh!" everyone was getting it now.
"How about a beach party?" suggested Dustin as he one arm hugged Tori.
"Yeaaah! Alright!" everyone called out except for Kaze.
"Tomorrow is your birthday? Sorry, that I won't be able to celebrated with you tomorrow." Kaze said sadly.
"But you have to come! Sensei's not here for it, I don't want one of my friends not here celebrating it with me." the blue ninja begged a bit.
"Yeah, bro. You have to come." said Shane.
"I want to but I can't. The assignment I'm going on tomorrow is very important. Sorry!" the white ninja apologized sadly.
"What's so important about this mission anyways?" asked Cam.
"Its just is."
Kaze looked at Tori and saw a miserable sad expression started to form and he started to feel bad about the whole situation.
"How about this, the assignment won't probably take the whole day. So I might be back before it gets late. I will still be able to celebrate your birthday with you and have some fun with you guys at the beach still." he suggested.
"Fine, I'm taking you up on that promise. So I expect you to be back and be there." said Tor.
"I promise, I'm still sorry."
"I think its not me that you have to say sorry to, it should be Hunter." and Tori turned Kaze around.
Hunter was looking down a bit, and the white ninja walked over him and took hold of his hands with his own.
"What's wrong?" asked the storm ninja as he cocked his head.
"I was thinking of spending the day with you at the beach and now..."
"I'm going to promise the same thing as I promised Tori. That be back before the end of the day and have some beach time with you, okay?"
After a minute of thinking, Hunter sighed and finally nodded in a yes. Kaze smiled and leaned up and kissed the crimson ninja, which made the other smiled back.
"Are you sure you don't want us to go with you?" asked the navy ranger.
"No, you guys have fun at the beach. I'll be back before you know it."
"Okay, so what you say? Tor?" asked Blake.
"Alright, sure. Sounds great to me." the water ninja agreed.
"Alright be at the beach, first thing in the morning." Hunter told her.
Everyone did high fives and started to leave.
"Just make sure you get a lot of sleep tonight. I think tomorrow will be something special after all." Tori referred to Shane and she left.
The next morning...
Cam, Tori, Dustin arrived at the beach in Tori's blue van with Cam driving. Blake and Hunter was already there waiting for them.
"Hey, there's Blake and Hunter." called out Cam as he pulled the van up to the sand and stopped.
Everyone got out of the van and Tori came around from the front passenger seat and wondered where Shane was, since he didn't showed up yet.
"Has anybody seen Shane?" asked the blue ranger as she looked around.
"Yeah, lets get the show on the road." exclaimed the navy ranger as he came up behind Tori.
"Hey, we can't leave without him. He's bringing the cake." stated Dustin as he started to unload things from the van.
"Guys!" the voice of the red ranger shouted.
Everyone looked to where the voice came from and they see Shane running with a large bakery box that holds Tori's birthday cake.
"Here Tori, Happy Birthday." greeted Shane as he ran up to the birthday girl.
"Hey, that doesn't look like beach wear bro." stated Hunter when he saw the red ranger's clothes and took the cake from Tori.
"Uh...yeah, about that..." started the red ninja.
"First Kaze and now you. Don't tell me you're bailing too." the blue ninja giving him an unbelievable look.
"Okay look, I had the same dream again last night. I think it starting to tell me something." said Shane.
"Like, how to ruin your friend's birthday?"
"It just that I have a weird sense that something isn't right." sighed the red ninja.
"Uh?"
"I gotta check out the woods."
"Shane, for the first person to say duty before pleasure, I left Cyber Cam online at Ninja Ops. If anything weird shows up, he'll let us know." interrupted Cam.
"Yeah!" Tori agreed.
"I'll catch up okay? I promise." and the red ranger started to leave.
"Alright, but you better!" called out Tori as she watched her friend leave.
Then from behind her, Dustin hit her in the head with the beach ball they brought with them. She turned around and grabbed her stuff and followed the others towards the beach.
Way over on the other side of the forest that Shane was in now, near the edges of the grass high hills...
A streak of white bounced among the trees and eventually stopped near the bottom of the grass hills. We see Kaze wearing a white t-shirt with some sort of cartoon character on it, blue shorts with runners. He looked around the entire area looking for something. With his right hand he grabbed hold of his left shoulder's shirt and quickly pulled his clothes off, revealing his ninja uniform.
"According to my research, the entrance should be around here somewhere." Kaze muttered to himself.
The storm ninja started to look around and walked around the place, moving things out of the way with his hands seeing if there were something behind them. Eventually he came across a rocky side area of the hill and there were tons of large tall plants growing everywhere. He walked right into the thick growing shrubs, pushing leaves out of the way and finally ending up near the wall side. Kaze then noticed something was behind the last layer of plants and he pushed them out of the way. There right in front of him was a door size cave entrance with stone stairs leading downwards.
"Well finally." and he headed down the steps.
While back in the forest with Shane...
The red wind ranger had met the new alien in town, Vexacus and met the focus of his weird dreams lately...Skyla. The two had manage to get away from the shark like alien with the mysterious girl's teleporting power. Now the two is safe in another part of the forest, away from the bounty hunter for now.
Back at the beach...
"You guys, do you think we did the right thing? I mean, maybe we should gone with Shane." asked Tori.
"What? Because he had a nightmare?" stated Hunter whom now just taken off his shirt.
"If it was Kaze, you would do the same thing wouldn't you?"
"Uh..."
"She does have a point there dude. I don't know, maybe she's right. He did seem pretty tweaked." said Dustin.
"Aww, come on you guys. We're here now, its a party...right?" putted Blake.
"Yeah!" Dustin and Hunter shouted.
"Last one in the water is a little girl." the crimson ninja commented.
"Uh oh!" called out the earth ninja when he heard the comment and laughed a bit.
"You are so gonna pay for that!" Tori turned to Hunter.
"Whoa!" and Hunter quickly ran away from the birthday girl who in turn, chased after him.
Once he reached the bottom the stone staircase, Kaze ended up in a long tunnel like cave with a very dim light near the end. Kaze took a deep breath and started to walked down the tunnel towards the end.
Finally the storm ninja came out of the dark tunnel and looked back behind him and saw nothing but darkness and a bit of light at the other end. Turning around and decided to move on, Kaze saw before him was a small thick forest of old trees. There were still leaves on the trees that were still green and they were evenly split to both sides making a long pathway across to another cave door entrance. The cave ceiling above him was broke open everywhere, letting light in at various places making the place more than creepier.
The shogun ranger started to walked down the open path towards the exit. After only walked a third way through, something stopped him. The trees around him suddenly started to move about, sliding through the ground and blocking Kaze's way. The white ninja took a couple of steps back getting ready for anything, when suddenly...
Back Ninja Ops...
Cam was back at Ops in his ninja uniform because of a spaceship that Cyber Cam found.
"We got a problem, as long as that ship remains cloaked..." started Cam.
"I have no way to track it." ended Cyber Cam as the two Cams were talking to Hunter on the computer screen.
"Any word from Shane?" asked the crimson ranger.
"His frequency is still jammed..." Cam started.
"He must be close to the source of the disturbance." Cyber Cam finished.
Getting annoyed, Cam turned Cyber Cam off.
"Is Kaze back yet?" Hunter asked hopefully.
"No, he's not. Don't worry, he said he'll be back in time then he will."
"Alright, let us know if anything changes." and Hunter ended the contact.
Out of nowhere a tree root shot out from a tree that was in front of Kaze, which flew right at him like a sword. Quickly twisted his body in a twirl to the side, barely dodging the now alive tree root. The tree root manages to slice his right arm sleeve open showing the skin underneath, with a cut and a bit of blood came out. Then more tree roots started to fly out attacking the ninja and quickly he jumped out of the way and onto the ground.
Kaze stood up again and held his arm a bit where the injury was and wiped off the small excess blood. Then tree vines and branches started to attack him from the trees around him and quickly did a few back flips to get away from them. The trees started to move and begin attacking again and Kaze tries his best to dodge them as he moved forward.
Suddenly a tree branch took a swing at him and with fast thinking, Kaze quickly jumped into the air, flipped and landed on the branch. Then he quickly ran across it but other branches started to attack him and he quickly jumped off and did a back flip and landed on his feet.
Looking around seeing that there was no way he could beat this, the storm student looked around him then up and got an idea. Quickly with a leap he launched himself into the air and a branch went to attack him. With a quick move, Kaze managed to use the incoming branch and use it as a step and launched himself higher.
Eventually he managed to get pass high above the trees and landed on top of them, high above the tallest point. With his ninja skills, he ran across the treetops, leaping from one to another as he went along them.
He finally got to the end of the cave room and jumped flipped off the last sight of trees and landed near the exit.
"That wasn't too hard." the ninja breathed out and headed toward the exit.
The storm ninja walked through and ended up in another cave tunnel and started to walked down one again.
Back at Ops...
The rangers were back from their battle, which they lost badly against Zurgane and his new zord, in their ninja uniforms except Shane.
"The Storm and the Samurai Star megazord are badly damaged. It'll takes hours or maybe even days to make the repairs." Cam told Hunter as they walked in.
"What about the Thunder zords?" asked the crimson ranger.
"No luck accessing them yet." the samurai ranger answered.
"What about Kaze? Can you contact him?"
"I've tried but where ever he is, I can't contact him or locate him.. It's like something blocking his frequency and I can't get through."
"I hope he's okay." the crimson ninja said worried.
"Yeah, I hope so too. We definitively need his help right about now."
"Some day huh?" said Blake as he followed Cam and Hunter in and looked back at Tori.
"This must be the worst birthday ever." stated Dustin as he came in with Tori with his arm around her.
"I can't even think about that right now. I just kind of have this really bad feeling that Shane and maybe Kaze is in trouble." putted Tori as she kept walking with Dustin.
After walking through another cave tunnel, Kaze finally reached the exit again and ended up in another large cave room. This time through was totally different.
There were stone pillars set up on each side of the room that stretched across the place to the other end of the room. On the opposite wall was another cave door exit as well as entrance to the next room.
In this room were also giant stone blocks with carvings on them that were scattered around the room itself. They had giant bowl shape holes in them with pieces of some sort of wood and ashes mixed in.
Kaze walked forward taking a couple of steps and then suddenly the entire room light up with light. The giant stone blocks burst into flames within the bowl and the wood and ash pieces started to glow a fiery red.
The storm student took a look around and saw things that were a bit confusing. Scattered among the room was a dozen wood dolls. They were human size, made from blocks of wood, bind into the shapes of humans and they were hanging in different positions, on stone stands.
"Okay, this is getting creepy." the white ninja said to himself.
"Its time like these, that I wish I was at the beach with Hunter and the others playing." sighed the ninja.
The white shogun ranger looked around the place, have a eerie feeling coming about the place and slowly started to move. As he took another couple of steps a creaking sound noise can be heard and the ninja stopped in his track. Looking around him again once more and seeing nothing, he keeps on walking.
Then suddenly the wooden block dolls started to move and they manage to break off from their stands and looked around. The wooden block dolls spotted Kaze and quickly all of them went into a fighting stance.
"Here we go again." and Kaze went into a fighting stance as well and got ready to fight again.
Done another chapter and I wonder what Kaze is doing in this secretly place forest? As before read and review please!