Emma ran up onto the deck, stumbling endlessly because her mind was focused more on finding her friends than on actually running. She called out for them and as they emerged from the bedrooms or the crow's nest, she stopped to catch her breath. The boys and Rebecca all looked to her with concern, fearing Tensou's results were not good for Gia.
"What happened?" Jake was the first to ask and the most concerned. Emma took another moment to pant and find her breath before she looked her friends dead in the eye, as serious as could be.
"I think we're invisible."
Her friends looked around at each other before they started to laugh. Emma knew they weren't going to believe her right away. Her claim was impossible. They could see each other. Rebecca knew they were around, and there was no way a human could be invisible. Aliens had attacked and caused some unusual occurrences for the Rangers, but the latest one had been destroyed, and with that his powers were negated.
"I think you've forgotten the meaning of the word invisible," Noah told her and shook her head. "I'm looking at you right now, Emma. I can see everyone. That's not invisibility."
"It makes sense, though," Emma argued. "Why else would Gia be acting this way?"
"Look, I'm doubtful something happened while we were out," Rebecca said with a shake of her head, "But I think it's more likely that something happened without me noticing than you guys being invisible. I can't actually see you, but I can hear you and touch you and my dolphin senses tell me exactly where you guys are."
"I can't explain it," Emma sighed, "But Gia woke up and I didn't say a word. She never even looked at me. Tensou kept insisting I was there and she refused to take his word for it."
"That doesn't mean we're the problem," Orion said. Noah nodded his head to agree.
"Tensou's looked us over. We're fine. And he can see us. Maybe we're invisible to Gia, but we're not..."
"How?" Emma asked. Noah shrugged his shoulders.
"That's why we're running tests."
Troy stood beside Emma and put his hand on her back. He looked at her, "I know you don't want to see anything happen to her, but we've got to look at the facts. Gia's... acting weird. We need to know why."
"But I..."
"Tensou's still running his tests," Troy said. "We'll know more once he's done."
Emma lowered her head and sighed in frustration. She wasn't getting anywhere with her friends and so decided to just storm off to her room to be alone. She had no proof that what she was saying was true, so she wanted to run over what she had seen again to be sure she hadn't missed anything.
While the others went back to what they were doing, Jake couldn't help but wonder about Emma's claim. She was usually pretty good at knowing what was going on with Gia and even if she wasn't right about him and the Rangers being invisible, there had to be some truth about it. After all, Gia's freaks outs always seemed to have her stating the others weren't around and they needed to come out of hiding.
So he walked below deck and stayed as quiet as he could. Gia was still restrained to the examination table while Tensou analysed her results on the computer. The little robot sighed, shook his head, and then walked over to Gia with another needle. He pricked her again, drew a little more blood, and then placed the sample in his computer. Jake looked to Gia, and saw his girlfriend staring up hopelessly at the ceiling. He could tell she had given up and that her trust had been shattered.
While Tensou's computer analyzed her blood, Tensou rolled back over to Gia and placed some kind of device on her chest. Jake had no idea what it was, but the way Tensou seemed to be moving it mostly around her left side, he figured the little robot was checking out her heart and making sure that the machine he had put in was still working. When he was done, he sighed again, shook his head and rolled back to his computer. He grabbed a bunch of wires and connected them to Gia's head. As he placed one on her forehead, Gia finally spoke.
"I'm not crazy."
"I'm sorry," Tensou answered. Gia rolled her eyes. Jake moved forward slightly, just to get a better look at what Tensou was doing. But by doing so, he stepped on a part of the floor that creaked. Tensou made nothing of it, likely because he knew Jake had walked into the room, but Gia jumped and looked around in a panic. Her eyes never settled on him, but moved constantly around the room.
"Who's there?" she asked. Jake opted not to make another sound. He wanted to see for himself what Emma had been talking about. "Stop it! Whatever you guys are doing, just stop! This isn't funny!"
Jake went to take a step back, but when he removed his foot from the creaky floor, it made another sound. Gia jumped again and nearly burst into tears.
"It's just Jake," Tensou told her and Jake almost wished the little robot hadn't said anything.
"No one's there!" Gia screamed at him. She pulled on her restraints. "There's nobody here but us. I'm not going crazy! I'm not losing it!"
"Gia..."
"Let me go!" she pulled on her restraints but Tensou had secured them well. Jake thought of letting her go, of allowing her to run off. He never liked it when she ran away. Not knowing where she was or if she was safe terrified him, but it was almost better to let her find her own safety than to keep her where she was obviously uncomfortable and scared.
However, Jake thought maybe Emma was onto something. Maybe the problem wasn't with Gia. At least, nothing internally. He walked back up to the deck and then into his room. Ryan was still down for her nap, but not for long. Jake turned on the light, waking the little girl. She seemed a little fussy to be pulled from her sleep but then set her sights on LT and suddenly wanted to play. She sat up in her crib, grabbed her beloved toy to cuddle it. Jake often saw her doing this in the morning. She was used to waiting for someone to pick her up from her crib and so often found a way to entertain herself.
While she played with LT, Jake walked up to the crib. He made sure not to sneak up on her and so always stayed within her line of sight, but keeping as quiet as possible. He walked all the way up to her without her even noticing him. He waved his hand in front of her face, but it was like he wasn't even there. He pressed his face up to the bars, but she didn't notice. He leaned in and made a funny face right in front of her. She didn't see him.
Then he called her name and she jumped, just like Gia had. She looked around for whoever could be in the room, but she saw no one. She seemed a little suspicious, but went back to playing with her toy. So Jake called her again. Ryan looked around, anxiously this time, and when she couldn't see anyone else in the room, she let out a cry. Jake knew he didn't have long before someone came to check up on her, but he was certain he had the proof he needed to argue for Emma's claim. He wanted everyone in the room. He wanted them to witness what he had seen. So he ran over to Noah's bed, picked up all the books the blue Ranger kept underneath and all at once he dropped them on the floor. They made a loud crashing sound that was sure to get the others thinking something had happened to Ryan.
And they had. The first person to run into the room was Troy, with Rebecca right behind him. They were panicked, but when they saw the books on the floor by his feet and Ryan safe, though crying, in her crib, they glared at him angrily.
"What the hell?" Troy asked. He started to walk towards the crib to grab his sister, but Jake stopped him. Noah and Orion came in at that point, followed by Emma.
"Don't touch her," Jake said as he stood between the red Ranger and the baby. Troy glared at him.
"You obviously scared her!"
"I know, but Emma's right."
"She is?" Rebecca asked.
"I am?" even Emma was sceptical, mostly about what would cause Jake to suddenly believe in her. Jake nodded his head and then turned around to Ryan. While a good cuddle was the most effective way of calming her down, funny faces and sounds sometimes worked just as well. Jake leaned in front of Ryan and started making the silliest faces he could come up with. Ryan didn't even look at him. She set her sights on Rebecca, and reached her arms out for her sister. Troy found this odd considering he was much closer to the crib than Rebecca was. Rebecca knew her sister was calling out for her and stepped in closer to pick her up, but Jake stopped her again. He stood right in front of the little girl to block her view of Rebecca, but somehow, Ryan seemed to be looking right at her sister. She started to scream louder and jump in her crib when Rebecca wouldn't comfort her.
"Jake, stop this," Troy said. He grabbed Ryan, but she wasn't calmed by his touch. Instead, it worked her up more. She screamed and protested in his arms, crying out still for Rebecca. Jake asked Rebecca to leave the room and she did so reluctantly. She hated to leave her sister, but if Jake was onto something, she didn't want to interfere. Rebecca walked out and Ryan's screamed grew louder.
"Put her down," Jake instructed Troy. The red Ranger was left with little choice. His sister wasn't happy to be in his arms so he did as he was asked. He put her down. Ryan screamed again as she ran to for the door. She hit it with her little hands and then tried to reach the door handle. She was just a little short, so her frustration grew. She screamed, stomped her feet and fell to the ground in a full blown tantrum. Troy rushed over to calm her down, but any time he touched her, she screamed and anytime he spoke to her, it only seemed to confuse and terrify her more. He was out of options, he didn't know what to do but believe Jake. He was invisible to his sister.
So he opened the door, let the anxious Rebecca back inside the room to comfort Ryan. Meanwhile, Jake and Emma hurried out and then below deck to find Gia. While Jake ripped away the wires from Gia's head, Emma undid the restraints. Tensou looked to them in shock.
"You're skewing with the results!" he cried out. When Gia saw she was free, she didn't hesitate to take off. Jake and Emma stayed with Tensou to explain themselves.
"There's nothing wrong with her."
"Not yet," Tensou muttered, "But my latest scan was just about to..."
"Come up empty," Emma shook her head. "Gia's right. You were both right, actually."
"Huh?"
"Tensou, how do you see?" Jake asked him. Tensou sighed.
"It's a complicated process. My optic sensors can detect light, heat, movements in the air..."
"Are your eyes like ours?"
"Similar," Tensou nodded, "But more sophisticated."
"So can you see things we can't?"
"Often times," Tensou nodded. "Why?"
Emma turned to Jake, "Tensou can see what's invisible to us, and Rebecca doesn't see. That explains it. Ryan and Gia would have been the only ones to know we were invisible."
Jake ran his hand through his hair and sighed loudly, "We're dead."
"But we beat the alien," Emma said. "If we beat him, doesn't that mean his powers wear off? If he struck us with anything, it shouldn't still be affecting us."
"So, wait, we're like, ghosts, right?" Jake asked. Emma frowned.
"We're invisible."
"Like ghosts?"
"We can't walk through walls."
"Have you tried?"
"We're not falling through the floor."
"I'm going to try," Jake said. He walked up to the closest wall and closed his eyes. He took a step forward and then bam! He walked straight into the wall. "Ow..." he whimpered as he rubbed his nose. Emma rolled her eyes.
"Are you done?"
"Okay, we can't walk through walls," he said. "But still, we're ghostly enough, right?"
"To Gia," Emma nodded. "And she hates ghosts, spirits, all that."
"He was kind of ghostly."
"Who?"
"The alien. Remember, he was white, kind of had those ghoulish chains, really emphasized his 'oo' sounds."
"I just thought he was a whack job like the others."
"Maybe we didn't destroy him," Jake pointed out. "I mean, we didn't have a Megazord battle..."
"We don't always," Emma shrugged.
"And there was no big explosion. Troy just sort of cut him down and he disappeared."
"Do you think he's invisible?"
"I think he pulled a fast one," Jake nodded his head. Emma groaned.
"Well, he accomplished one thing. After this, Gia's going to be real pissed off at all of us."
"What if we apologize and give her the pleading, innocent, sorry face?"
"She can't see our faces, Jake. We're invisible."
"Right..."
"We can't talk to Gia. We've got to keep our distance," Emma said. "If not, Gia surely going to lose it and Ryan's probably going to be scared of ghosts for life."
"So we wait for the alien ghost to come back, if he ever decides to, and in the meantime we don't talk to Gia?"
"We've freaked her out and she's pissed. Being invisible isn't going to help us out with any talk."
"What do we do then?" Jake asked. "Sit and twirl our thumbs?"
"We... find something," Emma shrugged.
Jake groaned and rolled his eyes, but then a thought occurred to him. He was invisible. With the naked eye, it seemed, no one could see him. And as long as he stayed quiet, no one would even know he was around. He smirked to Emma and then walked back up to the deck. She frowned.
"What? Where are you going? Don't you dare try to patch things up with Gia while you're still..."
"I'm not going to Gia," Jake shook his head. "Unlike you, some of us haven't seen our parents in months."
"Your mother was just..."
"Yeah, we all know how I feel about my mother," Jake said. "I'm going to find Noah. This invisibility thing might just have its perks."
"Just... be careful," Emma sighed. "Gia might be pissed, but if anything happens..."
"Em, I'm invisible," Jake chuckled. "No one's even going to know I'm around."
"That's what worries me," Emma said.
