Emma's eyes shot open as she took a deep gasp for air. The last thing she remembered was covering Gia up with her own body before the bomb exploded. Her hand instinctively went to her head, but couldn't bring herself to move it. She looked down and saw that her wrists were restrained to what seemed to be a cot, preventing her from going anywhere.

"Not again." Emma muttered. She looked to her side and noticed something slightly familiar about this place. "Wait a second," Emma paused as she got a better look at her surroundings. "I've been here before."A slight smile etched onto Emma's face when she realized that she was inside the command center's infirmary. She didn't want to question how or why she got into the command; she was just grateful that she was finally safe and sound.

Then, a sick feeling occurred inside Emma's stomach. If she remembered everything correctly, Gia was supposed to be by her side too. There was no logical explanation to why they would be separated unless…

"GIA!" Emma yelled as she started to pull on her restraints. Now that she was thinking about it, she didn't understand why she was cuffed to the cot either. Under normal circumstances, Emma should've been free to get up and move after waking up. She shook her head in an attempt to get rid of all the negative thoughts; however, that didn't stop them from coming at all.

What if Vrak had gotten Gia back while she was unconscious? What if the antidote failed and Gia went back to Vrak? A large lump appeared in Emma's throat as the last thought passed through her mind. What if Gia was dead? Had all of her attempts been for nothing? Did she fail?

Relief washed over Emma as she saw Tensou, Troy, Jake, Noah, and Gia walk in, or in Tensou's case, wheel in. She took a quick glance at Gia and saw that she was still bandaged and pretty banged up. That was when she realized how much her own body ached. Severe burns from the bomb covered almost her entire body while bruises covered the rest. Most of her injuries were already treated and bandaged, but she could still feel all the cuts on her body. She then noticed a large bandage on her right leg that went from her ankle to her knee which must have meant that there was a pretty nasty gash there. But none of that mattered to Emma as long as her friends were okay,

"You're okay!" Emma beamed with happiness. Gia rushed towards Emma to unlock the restraints, but was stopped by Troy's hand. He carried a deep frown as he shook his head. "We can't let her out yet."

"And why not?" Gia turned to Troy with a frown as she crossed her arms. Gia herself had only woken up a few hours ago and was extremely confused to what was happening at first. Jake and Noah had filled her in on some parts, but there were still a lot of unanswered questions. This one was just another question she had to add to her list.

"She's a filthy traitor." Troy growled.

"You don't know that!" Jake proclaimed. He thought that after his talk with Troy, he would keep a more open mind, but it seemed like Emma's presence set him off.

"Wait a second, traitor?" Gia asked with a shocked and puzzled look. She vaguely remembered Emma acting a bit weird considering she was supposed to be a "loyal" and ruthless soldier to Vrak. At the very last moment, Emma had jabbed her in the arm with the cure. It was that moment, before she blacked out, that made her realize that Emma was never under Vrak's control. Vrak would never order Emma to do something as stupid as that, it wouldn't make any sense. As she thought about it more, all the pieces fit together. But none of that explained why Troy would think that Emma is a traitor.

"Think about Gia, Emma took the only antidote we had and ran off to Vrak. Tensou already double checked to see if Emma had the chip in her, but he didn't find anything. That means she did it willingly. She brought the only cure we had to our enemy!"

"You know, I didn't hand it over to Vrak. He didn't even know that I had it." Emma stated. She was extremely confused to why Troy was acting like this and by the looks on the other boy's faces, they were just as confused too.

Troy turned to look down at Emma with an angry glare. "Then why didn't you tell us anything before you suddenly took off? You left me worried sick and clueless!"

"Me?" Noah pouted. Noah was with Troy the entire time and both of them had shared the same worry. Troy wasn't the only one who was concerned.

Troy seemed to ignore Noah's comment and continued with his rant. "You deceived us! You lied to us! And you fought against us when you didn't have to! If I can't trust you, then I sure as hell will not allow you to fight on this team with us."

"That's not your call to make!" Jake yelled. All they had to do was calmly talk about it and move on. This was getting out of hand and just downright ridiculous. Now that they were all back together on the same side, things were supposed to get better. But now it seems like everything got worse.

"I'm the red ranger, I'm the leader. I'll make the calls that I see fit." Troy growled quietly, but the venom in his voice was clear.

"Technically, only Gosei has the ability to make that call." Noah pointed out.

"Screw Gosei, he's never here when we need him anyways!" Troy pointed to the dim face on the wall. "Actually, if it weren't for me, then you two wouldn't even be alive. Gosei refused to for us to go out and get you guys. If I didn't sneak out to get you guys, then you probably would've been left for dead out there. You should be grateful right now."

"Yeah sure, whatever. You did the easy job of taking us back after we manage to get ourselves out." Gia mocked with an irritated tone in her voice." If I remember correctly, which I'm pretty sure I do, Emma was the one that got you guys to safety. I'm not doubting Noah's abilities, but I'm not sure if Noah had enough time to deactivate the bomb. I may have been under Vrak's control, but I wasn't stupid. She teleported the three of you back to the command center to ensure your safety. Then, while I was out cold, she picked me up and ran from the bomb while she was already tired and hurt. If anything, I should be grateful to Emma. Your little trip to us would've meant nothing if we were already dead."

"Shut up!" Emma screamed. Everyone, even Tensou, looked at her and saw her eyes starting to water. She knew there would be questions, but she didn't think that her actions would make things this bad. The friends that she fought so hard for to save were now fighting amongst themselves for what seemed like a pointless reason. It was time for a clear explanation.

"If you would just let me explain…"

"I don't wanna hear it." Troy abruptly stomped out of the room, not wanting to hear Emma's excuses. Before leaving the room, Troy paused at the doorway to turn around briefly. "I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"What?"

"You're a backstabbing, deceitful person, just like your father," he spat. And with that, Troy left, leaving the room that was now absolutely silent.

After getting over the shock of Troy's comment, Gia quickly undid Emma's restraints and pulled her in for a loving hug. "I'm so sorry." she whispered.

"It's fine; you didn't really do anything anyways." Emma spoke barely beyond a whisper, her eyes still focused on the door where Troy left from.

Gia touched Emma's hand. "No, I'm sorry for what that jerk just did." Then, Gia turned to look at the others, mainly Noah since she fought against him, with a sincere look on her face. "Also, I'm sorry for whatever I did or if I said anything wrong. I swear it wasn't me."

"If we're doing apologies, then I'm sorry too." Jake slightly raised his hand nervously. "I said and did some pretty nasty stuff too."

"Don't sweat about it guys." Noah said. "We know it wasn't really you. If anything, all of this was Vrak's fault. Man, he is really starting to become more trouble than we thought."

Now that the apologies were over with, Gia focused her attention on Emma. Part of her wanted to scold Emma for risking her life to save her own. In Gia's eyes, it was completely unnecessary, but to Emma, it was everything. Gia had a feeling that Emma had a fear of loneliness due to all her loved ones leaving her one way or another. She didn't admit it, but Gia knew. After all, her mom had died, her dad was in jail, she had no siblings, and none of her other relatives seemed to want her. Emma's actions seemed to be one out of pure love for her friends, but also one out of desperation.

Thinking about all of this made Gia want to cry, but then, Gia saw the sorrowful look in her friend's eyes. Troy's outburst was the last thing that the team needed, especially Emma. His last comment had been completely uncalled for. Bringing Mr. Goodall into this and even trying to compare him to Emma was beyond low. Mr. Goodall was a selfish man while Emma had been nothing but selfless. Mr. Goodall pushed all his loved ones away while Emma desperately held onto them. Mr. Goodall's intentions were spiteful while Emma's actions were noble and pure. Troy had no right to say those things about Emma.

Gia wrapped her arms around her best friend tightly in an attempt to comfort her. Gia wanted to punch a hole through Troy's face, but had to resist the strong urge to do so. Right now, her best friend needed her more. Plus, she would eventually need an explanation from the others to what had happened. If she was going to confront Troy later, then she was going to need all the sides of the story.

"Alright," Gia spoke. "Somebody tell me what the hell is going on."

"All I can say is that I think Troy felt betrayed." Jake said. Gia cocked her eyebrow, waiting for him to explain further, but Jake shook his head. "Sorry, that's really all I can say. The rest needs to come from him."

"Okay… whatever that means."

"I think I can do a little better." Noah spoke. "Long story short, after the first fight between you and Jake, Emma went missing. At first, we thought Vrak had gotten to her because no one seemed to know where she was. The next time we saw Emma, she was on your side fighting us. But then Tensou said that Emma had been in the command center, but suddenly left after completing the cure to counteract Vrak's chip. When Tensou ran the scan to see if Emma was infected, it came up as negative. It made it seem like Emma was working for Vrak willingly."

"Okay, I guess that kinda explains Troy's accusations." Gia looked down at Emma, who was still in her arms. She gently helped her get up and kept a steady hand on her back as support. "Your turn."

Emma quickly wiped the tears that were threatening to fall and started her side of the story. "Okay, yeah I sorta did run off with the antidote, but that was only because I had a plan. I found out that you guys were being controlled through those weird chips so I asked Tensou to make a cure."

"But didn't we capture you? I'm pretty sure Vrak planted a chip on you too."

"Well, he did, but I had already injected myself with the cure to build up immunity to it. I had to find a way to make Vrak think that I was on his side, so I played the role. I figured that if Vrak knew we had a cure, then he would never allow for us to get the opportunity to cure you."

"Why didn't you just tell us?" Noah asked.

Emma shook her head. "If Vrak managed to get you or Troy, then you probably would've blurted out that I wasn't really on Vrak's side. I didn't want to run that risk. There was no time to come up with any other solutions so I just went with it. I was nervous throughout this whole thing, but I did think this plan through. Whenever we did fight, I tried my best to pull my punches and hit non vital areas."

Noah thought back to the previous fights and realized that she was right. He remembered getting shot in the chest, but barely receiving anything more than a bruise. There was also that one time when Emma completely missed a shot that would've taken out Troy in an instant.

"The only thing I didn't anticipate was the bomb." Emma sighed. "I didn't expect that at all. Originally, I was going to wait for a time when Vrak wasn't paying attention to inject the cure into them. However, he was watching us like a hawk. The only time he wasn't spying on us was when the bomb was close to exploding. That was when I teleported you guys back to the command center and ran away with Gia."

"Look, I'm not trying to be rude, but how can we be absolutely positive that you're telling the truth?"

"I believe her." Gia spoke.

"How can you be so…"

"I believe her."

"But…"

"I. Believe. Her." Gia emphasized.

Jake smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder. "Relax Noah, it'll be okay. If what Emma is saying is true,"

"It is true." Gia said in a slightly annoyed tone.

"Then we really do owe her a lot." Jake finished with a slight chuckle. He flashed his goofy smile to Emma. "Thanks for everything, Emma. We need to hurry up and unite as a team, or else we'll never stand a chance against the aliens. All this fighting useless. Just please never do something that reckless ever again."

"I'll say." Gia said with a shake of her head. "It's not worth it."

"Was all of this worth it?" Emma thought as she continued to stare at the door.