When Shampoo woke up, she was deep in the woods, it was dark out and the only light was from a small fire not far from her.
"Who is there?" asked Shampoo as she clenched her fist ready to fight off any unwanted company.
"It's only me, calm down," said Akane as she tossed another log on the flame.
"Akane, where are we?"
"I'm not sure. I only woke up a few hours ago. The communicators on the morphers aren't working either."
"Have anything to eat?"
"No"
The two girls decided to rest simply because it was too dark for them to look around and both of them were still pretty tired.
The next morning Shampoo and Akane began hiking around the area and were unable to find any path. Shampoo took to the trees, leaping from branch to branch while Akane followed from below. Even though Ranma had been training her, they weren't up to high jumps yet.
"Slow down," called Akane.
After several days, the girls only managed to get themselves deeper into the mountains. They wondered if this is how Ryoga felt on a daily basis
Meanwhile deep in an underground room, a man sat around working on his computer. He had the look of an average everyday nerd and he was about grab something to eat when an alarm sounded.
"Someone tripped the sensor," he said to himself.
He quickly used his computer to access some cameras he hid in the woods and saw two girls who were coming closer to where he was.
Another person joined him, "I heard the sensor. What's up Cam?"
Cam turned and gave an annoyed glance at Shane, a tall skateboarder, as he walked up.
"It's just some trespassers Shane. It's nothing to get excited about," said Cam.
Shane looked at the screen and saw the way Shampoo was jumping through the trees and even Akane was moving like a professional athlete through the brush, "Not your average trespassers."
"If their lost we should help them," said Tori who had blond hair and had a kind face.
"And what if they're here to cause trouble," said Shane.
"Then maybe they'll be a good cure for boredom," said Dustin, who was thumping through a comic book. He had dark hair and a skinny build.
As the three were leaving, Cam called, "Just see what they want and scare them off. We don't need them accidently discovering our location."
"Please, this is probably nothing but two lost hikers," said Tori.
"Two lost hikers who can move like professional athletes," commented Shane.
Shampoo and Akane stopped for a moment when they came across a stream.
"I could use a drink," Akane as she bent down to and let the water pool into her hands.
"Don't fall in, it would be too too tragic if Shampoo was not able to save you," said Shampoo
"Not funny."
"You see Shampoo laughing."
Akane was about to toss some water at Shampoo to turn her into a cat when they heard a rustling.
Akane got up and stood next to Shampoo who was standing on guard.
Then, three people only a little older than them walked up.
"Are you lost?" asked Shane
"We're in this area all the time, we can totally help you if you are," said Tori.
"I'm afraid I don't understand you," said Akane.
"What language was that?" asked Dustin to Shane.
"It's Japanese. Do you speak English?" asked Shane.
"What did he ask?" asked Shampoo.
"I don't know. All I really understood was the word English," said Akane
Meanwhile, out of sight, another pair of girls happened to be in the area. One of them wore a red sleeveless plastic shirt, a black skirt, knee high boots and a helmet that was decorated to look like it had insect eyes. Her name was Marah. The other was her sister Kapri. She wore a black leather top with bright purple spandex pants, and her hair was done in two pigtails and dyed hot pink.
"I can't believe we got kicked out of the ship again," said Marah
"It's your fault. You should have kept your mouth shut around uncle," said Kapri.
"How was I supposed to know he would be so sensitive about the way he dressed?"
Then they heard some voices coming not far from them. The voices spoke in a language that they didn't understand.
"Should we check it out?" asked Marah
The two followed the voices and found two girls resting by a stream. One had purple hair was standing guard and the other had dark blue hair was getting drink from the stream. As they spied, Kapri's eyes caught sight of something hidden under the sleeve of the girl with purple hair.
"More rangers," stated Kapri, instantly identifying the object as a morpher.
"Where did they come from?" asked Marah.
"Who cares? If they're here, you know who will be here soon."
Almost on cue, the girls saw Shane, Dustin, and Tori walk up in their street cloths.
Kapri smiled, "I have a plan Marah. You and I sneak behind those three and fire an energy blast at the new girls. If we make it look like they attack the girls, then the girls will fight back."
"Getting rangers fighting each other, it's brilliant. Uncle will have to let us back on board the ship," said Marah.
The two groups were getting nowhere fast in communication.
"Do you think they're lost like us?" asked Akane.
"Don't know. They seem harmless," said Shampoo.
"Don't we know anyone who can speak Japanese?" asked Dustin.
"I don't think so," said Shane.
"Maybe we can at least show that we're friendly. Try shaking their hand or something," said Tori.
"Good idea," said Shane.
Shane held out his hand and slowly made his way toward Akane and Shampoo.
Suddenly, energy blast flew past Shane and struck Akane and Shampoo.
"What was that?" shouted Tori.
"I didn't see where it came from," said Dustin.
"Something's wrong," said Shane.
"They attacked us," said Akane, shocked.
"They attack us, we attack them,"said Shampoo.
"Agreed."
The two girls quickly got to their feet and reached for their morphers, "Sheng Xiao, Power up!"
As soon as the girls powered up, they attacked.
"They're rangers too," said Dustin as he dodged a kick from Shampoo.
"They must have though we attacked them," said Tori.
"We need to get them to calm down. But we can't do it like this," said Shane.
Shane blocked a punch from Akane and pushed her back.
Then Shane, Tori, and Dustin reached for their own morphers. They made several signals with their hands while shouting, "Ninja Storm, Ranger Form! HA!". As they pressed the button to morph, a whirlwind erupted from their morphers and surrounded them. When the winds dissipated, the three of them had transformed.
"They're like us. Only with different suits," said Akane.
"That make things interesting," said Shampoo.
The Ninja Storm rangers suites lived up to their name. They gave Shane, Tori, and Dustin the appearance of colorful Ninjas. Shane was red, Tori was blue, and Dustin was yellow. They each had an emblem on their chest, Shane's looked like a bird with its wings in the air, Dustin's looked like the head of a lion, and Tori's looked like the tail of dolphin.
"I'll end this quickly," said Dustin.
Dustin threw a smoke bomb and disappeared. Akane then saw a line of smoke coming towards her. Quickly, she summoned her hammer and pounded the ground in front of her, causing a fissure to head towards Dustin.
Dustin quickly aborted his attack since the ground was turning on him.
"This might not be as easy as I thought," said Dustin.
In an instant, Shampoo was gone.
Akane charged the other rangers.
"I got her," said Tori. But before the blue ranger could do anything, Shampoo attacked both her and Shane from behind with her chui.
As Shane recovered, "These two are good."
"That's stating the obvious," said Tori.
The three regrouped and drew the swords that were strapped on their backs. Then they moved like the wind, slashing at Akane and Shampoo, but careful as to not cause any serious harm.
"What are we going to do," said Akane as she blocked every few strikes.
"Shampoo have idea," said Shampoo. Then she threw her chui as hard as she could, hitting the trunk of a tree. The trunk shattered and the tree came falling down towards them.
"Move," shouted Dustin.
The five rangers darted off in different directions to avoid the tree.
Akane found herself facing off with Shane. She tossed her hammer at him with Shane barely avoiding it. The red ninja ranger summoned a gun he called the Hawk Blaster, which looked like a hawks head and began firing.
Akane flipped over the hawk blasters energy blast and once she got close enough, she kicked Shane in the chest. Shane quickly recovered and leaped in the air and into the trees.
Then he attacked Akane from behind with his ninja sword. When he came in for another attack, Akane dodged and leaped away.
Shampoo dodged a kick from Dustin and counted with a kick of her own which Dustin was able to duck under. Shampoo attempted to punch Dustin but he quickly moved behind her and attempted to grab her. However, Dustin forgot to factor in that the pink ranger was just as fast as him and easily avoided Dustin's attack by simply leaping forward.
Shampoo turned around to find Dustin gone. Then she felt a pair of hands grab her ankles and begin to pull her under the ground.
"Let go," shouted Shampoo.
Shampoo leaped up and managed to pull Dustin with her. The yellow ninja ranger quickly let go and moved away from Shampoo.
Tori easily cartwheeled over Akane's kicks. As Tori leaped behind Akane, she caught each of Akane's fists as they came at her. Tori leapt up, still holding Akane's hands and jumped over her, pinning Akane's arms behind her.
"We don't want to fight with you," said Tori.
"We just want to find our friends and get home. Why are you attacking us?" said Akane.
However the language barrier prevented any of their words from getting through. So to break out of the hold, Akane twisted around and hit Tori with a back kick.
As she recovered, Tori summoned a blue megaphone that she referred to as a sonic fin.
Akane leaped up into the air to hit Tori with a jump kick when Tori shouted into the sonic fin, "STOP."
Then powerful waves of sound stopped Akane in mid jump and held her in midair. Then Tori used the power of her weapon to toss Akane into the stream nearby.
Tori took a second to catch her breath when she noticed Akane thrashing around wildly in the stream.
"Why is she thrashing like that?" said Dustin.
"I don't think she can swim," said Shane.
"I'm on it," said Tori.
Akane was about to go under the water when she spotted Tori running towards her on the surface of the water.
Tori quickly grabbed Akane's hand and pulled her out. After she got to safety, Akane and the others demorphed.
Shampo quickly stood between Akane and the other three. Despite not always getting along, Shampoo knew that Akane would do the same for her.
"You no get near," said Shampoo.
"Shampoo, it's ok. If they wanted to destroy us, they'd have left me in the water," said Akane.
"Fine but Shampoo no let guard down."
This time, Tori extended her hand forward, "Please, let us help you." Tori then pointed to herself and recited her name and then she pointed to Shane and Dustin and introduced them.
Akane understood what Tori was trying to do and introduced herself and Shampoo.
Kapri pounded her fist against a tree.
"We were so close. Why do the rangers have to be so nice all the time?" said Kapri.
"Don't worry. All we have to do is sneak back onto the ship and get some reinforcements," said Marah.
"When your right your right,"
The two girls quickly ran off just in case the rangers found them.
Akane and Shampoo reluctantly followed Shane, Tori and Dustin back to Ninja Ops. Shane reached down to the ground and grabbed a handle.
He opened a heavy door that lead to a stairway, leading down to an underground dojo.
"It's not much, but its home," said Dustin.
"At least we can train while we're stuck here," said Akane while looking around the dojo.
"Akane should practice swimming," teased Shampoo.
"Cam, we're home," called Tori.
Cam came walking up, "Why did you bring strangers here?" he said.
"They're rangers like us," said Shane.
"So were the thunder rangers and look how that turned out."
"There are best friends," interrupted Dustin.
"Where did they even come from," said Cam while pointing towards Shampoo and Akane.
Akane walked up to him with her arms crossed. She couldn't understand what he was saying but by his tone and body language, she knew it had something to do with her and Shampoo.
"Is there a problem with us being here?" said Akane.
Cam sighed, "I guess not. I'm just not used to unexpected guest".
"You speak Japanese," said Shampoo.
"My father taught me" said Cam.
"Can you help us find our friends and a way home," said Akane.
"I'll see what I can do"
"Does anyone else feel out of the loop?" asked Dustin
Cam went to sit at his computer and he was joined by another.
"I see we have guest."
Cam nodded to the voice, "Yes father. Head's up they only seem to speak Japanese."
"Where is that voice coming from?" asked Akane.
The she looked down to find a guinea pig dressed in traditional Japanese clothing. The guinea pig waved at her and smiled. Akane simply picked him up and smiled back.
"Hello. Nice to meet you. My name is Akane and she is Shampoo" said Akane.
"Hello Miss Akane. You can just call me Sensei," said the guinea pig.
"Ok, who are these girls? Anyone else would be freaked out by a talking guinea pig," commented Shane.
Then to the ninja rangers' confusion, Shampoo pulled out a kettle of hot water and poured it on the Sensei.
"He no change," said Shampoo
The Sensei simply laughed, "This form is not a result of Jusenkyo, young one."
"How do you know about Jusenkyo?" asked Akane.
"I've traveled a lot and seen many things in my years. But how would you young ones know of such a place?" asked the Sensei.
"We know several people with curses, including Shampoo," said Shampoo
"So, how did you come to wind up here?"
"An enemy of ours transported us and three of our other friends here," said Akane.
Tori interrupted, "Sorry to interrupt Sensei but what exactly is going on?"
Sensei looked over at Tori and repeated what Akane had told him.
Cam took hold of Shampoo's wrist and placed it near a camera on the computer screen. A small beam of light shot out of the camera and scanned Shampoo's morpher.
"What you do?" asked Shampoo.
"I used your morpher to access the morphing grid. The grid will find all other's with the same type of morpher. If your friends are here, we'll find them," said Cam.
"What did he say?" asked Dustin.
Cam sighed, really not wanting to repeat himself.
After a few minutes, the computer began making noise and results popped up on the screen.
"It seems the only morphers like yours in the area or even the country belong to you two. Sorry but your friends aren't here," said Cam.
"So what we supposed to do?" asked Shampoo.
"For now, you'll have to be patient," said Sensei.
"Hey take a look at this," said Cam.
Cam was reviewing footage from earlier, to find out what caused Akane and Shampoo to attack the Shane, Dustin and Tori.
"What's up?" asked Tori.
"I think I found the cause of the fight," said Cam.
Cam played the video which clearly showed Marah and Kapri firing energy blast and making the ninja rangers look bad.
"Who are they?" asked Shampoo.
"Unfortunately, they're my cousins," said Cam.
"Why would they do that?" asked Dustin.
"Why do you think?" said Shane
Akane lowered her head, "Sorry for attacking you."
"No apologies necessary. It wasn't your fault," said Sensei.
Just then another two people entered the room. One was of Asian descent with short spiky black hair. The other was American, slightly taller and had shaggy blond hair. Both of them were wearing motocross armor
Tori pointed to the two and introduced them as "Blake and Hunter," respectively.
"Sorry we're late," said Hunter.
"What did we miss?" asked Blake
"Nothing much. Just Marah and Kapri tricking these girls who are also rangers into attacking us," said Shane.
"So, just a normal day so far," said Blake.
Cam interrupted, "Sorry to cut the greeting short but it looks like our day's about to get better," said Cam.
Cam directed the others to the computer screen, "Marah and Kapri are back and they brought friends."
"That's a lot of kelzacks," said Hunter.
Akane and Shampoo looked at the screen and saw many figures dressed in all black with no faces. They were all running around and terrorizing a shopping mall while Marah and Kapri stole designer clothes from various stores.
"I think it's time for a little payback," said Akane.
"No one attack Shampoo and get away with it," said Shampoo
The eight rangers stood together.
Shane, Dustin and Tori took out their morphers and shouted, "Ninja Storm, Ranger Form!"
Hunter and Blake took out their morphers which looked like beetles and shouted, "Thunder Storm, Ranger Form!" Then Blake and Hunter were each struck by a bright flash of lightning. When the flash faded, their rangers suits were on. Then their morphers flew into the air and transformed into their ranger helmets which automatically attached themselves, completing the transformation.
Cam took out his morpher which looked like a simple green sphere and shouted, "Samurai Storm, Ranger Form!" Cam knelt down and a large gold vest dropped down onto his shoulders and the rest of his ranger suit appeared in a single flash. His helmet appeared materialized soon after.
Akane and Shampoo noticed that each of the other rangers' suits looked different. Blake and Hunters suits were crimson and navy in color respectively. Their pants were black, they had gold shoulder and knee pads and their helmets had beetle horns on the foreheads. Lastly, they each had a thick staff attached to their back
Cam's suit was green, and the two sheng xiao rangers could easily tell the gold vest he wore had to weigh many pounds. Lastly, the visor on Cam's helmet was in the shape of a four point star and a katana appeared in his hands.
Once they were done morphing, Shane shouted, "Power of air."
"Power of water," shouted Tori.
"Power of earth," shouted Dustin.
"Power of thunder," shouted Hunter and Blake.
"Green samurai power" shouted Cam.
Once they were done gawking Akane and Shampoo took out their morphers and shouted, "Sheng Xiao, Power UP!"
Not wanting to be left out, Akane shouted, "Power of the ox".
"Power of the tiger," Shouted Shampoo.
Marah and Kapri walked through the mall, holding many shopping bags full of cloths, while kelzacks ran around destroying anything in sight.
"Well, our plan may not have worked but at least we got to go shopping," said Marah.
"What store shall we go to next," asked Kapri.
The two eyed a jewelry store when the eight rangers appeared before them.
"Shampoo make you pay for attacking us," shouted Shampoo while she pointed at them.
"Yeah, what she said," yelled Dustin.
"Do you even know what she said," said Tori.
"Focus," said Hunter.
Then the kelzacks all gathered around Marah and Kapri who both shouted, "Attack."
"Here they come," said Blake as he readied his staff.
The first few kelzacks started the battle with a jump kick aimed at Akane. Hunter and Blake quickly moved in front of her and held out their staffs. The staffs then split and folded into a cross.
The thunder rangers then tossed the staffs like ninja stars at the kelzacks, taking several of them out.
"It's not nice to pick on girls," said Blake.
The celebration was short lived as more kelzacks joined the fight. As they came towards the rangers, Akane and Dustin stood together. Akane summoned her hammer and Dustin summoned one of his own.
"It must be a yellow thing," said Akane in regards to Dustin's weapon.
"I'll toss them up, you burry them," said Dustin.
Dustin then pounded his hammer on the ground. The resulting shock wave knocked the kelzacks into the air. Then Akane pounded her hammer, causing a fissure to open up, which the kelzacks fell into.
Shane and Tori knocked the kelzacks away with combined blast of wind and water. Then each drew their ninja swords. Tori then held her swords sheath and combined it with her blade to form a laser blaster.
"Let's cut em down," said Shane.
"I'll cover you," said Tori.
Shane leaped up and began to run in midair, cutting down kelzacks with his sword. The kelzacks that tried to get back up and knock Shane out of the air were taken down once more with by Tori's laser blaster.
The kelzacks began to regroup for a counter attack on the rangers when Shampoo and Cam stood forward.
Cam drew his katana and called out, "Super Samurai Mode!" Cam then unbuckled his vest and tossed off his shoulders. The vest fell and embedded itself in the ground. Then the top half of Cam's helmet turned around and his visor changed to look like a pair of wings spread out.
The green ranger charged the kelzacks at inhuman speeds, slashing wildly. For every kelzack that got up, two more were cut down. Cam looked ahead and was about to charge into another group of kelzacks. He readied his blade but before he could get to them, the kelzacks dropped like flies. Once they fell, Cam noticed Shampoo standing there, holding her chui.
"What take you so long," said Shampoo.
Marah and Kapri took a look at the number of kelzacks that had been defeated.
"Time for reinforcements," said Kapri.
Marah took out a device and pressed a button. Then a portal opened up and more kelzacks came through.
Akane and Shampoo got ready to battle the new kelzacks when Cam shouted, "We'll handle them, you two stop Marah and Kapri."
"Time to go," said Kapri.
"Right behind you," said Marah
As they turned to leave, Marah and Kapri were confronted by Akane and Shampoo.
"Going somewhere?" said Akane.
"It not nice to steal," said Shampoo.
Kapri quickly drew her weapon, a small katana while Marah held out her hands and two blades popped out of her sleeves.
Kapri charged at Akane who easily moved out of the way. Akane countered by slamming Kapri in the back with her hammer. As Kapri recovered, she tossed her sword at Akane. Akane easily dodged the sword and it embedded itself in the ground behind her. Then Kapri snapped her fingers and the sword unleashed a blast of lightning that Akane wasn't able to dodge. As Akane recovered from the attack, Kapri snapped her fingers again and the sword came flying out the ground and back into Kapri's hands. Akane threw her hammer at Kapri. Kapri countered by holding out her hand and summoning a freezing blast of wind, knocking the hammer away.
Marah fired several energy blasts at Shampoo. The pink ranger simply flipped over the blast and attempted to smack Marah with her chui but Marah easily moved out of the way. As Shampoo brought her chui down once more, Marah knocked it away with one of her blades. Then Marah swung one of her blades in wide arc. Shampoo moved out the way and saw her opening. Shampoo slammed Marah in the chest with one of her chui, sending Marah staggering back. Shampoo moved to attack Marah again but as soon as she got near, Marah disappeared. Then Shampoo was slashed many times as Marah moved around her at inhuman speeds.
"They strong," said Shampoo as she regrouped with Akane.
"We can do this," said Akane.
Marah and Kapri leaped up into the air for a jump kick.
"An opening," called Akane.
Akane quickly grabbed her hammer, slammed it on the ground causing the concrete to crack into many pieces. Then she and Shampoo collected as many pieces as possible and tossed them at Marah and Kapri, knocking them out of the air.
"That wasn't nice," said Marah.
"It was only a few stolen cloths," said Kapri.
Akane and Shampoo looked around to see that the ninja rangers had defeated all of the kelzacks. The eight of them stood around Marah and Kapri.
"This is so not fair," said Kapri.
"We can still run for it," said Marah.
Tori walked up, "Tell you what, I'm in a good mood today, so we'll give you a five minute head start."
The two girls quickly took off.
"Should we go after them?" asked Hunter.
"No, they'll come back on their own," said Shane.
"Preferably not anytime soon," said Blake.
Back at ninja ops, Cam continued to work on his computer to find some way of transporting Akane and Shampoo home but so far had found nothing. After a while, he decided to take a break and decided to help his father help Tori to converse with Akane.
"Trust me, you'd love surfing ," said Tori/Cam.
"It's kind of hard to love water sports when you can't swim," said Akane/Sensei.
"That is a problem. Tell you what, you can have this. I don't need it anymore," said Tori/Cam.
Tori then grabbed her purse and pulled out a small scroll. Akane opened it to see that it listed some basic ninja techniques for running on water.
"I can't take this," said Akane/Sensei.
"Call it a gift from one tomboy to another," said Tori/Cam.
Akane got a little angry, "Don't call me tomboy."
Tori smiled a little, "It's nothing to get mad over. If it's who you are then why be ashamed. And if people can't accept that then forget them."
Akane considered Tori/Cam's words, placed the scroll in her pocket and smiled, "Thank you."
Shampoo held a bo staff and spared with Hunter and Blake. Despite being trained ninjas, Hunter and Blake had to admit that the amazon was making them sweat. The two of them thrust their bo staffs at Shampoo who jumped up and landed behind them.
"You boys too slow," taunted Shampoo.
"You guys are getting your butts kicked by girl," laughed Dustin.
"That's it," said Blake.
"Let's get him," said Hunter.
Hunter and Blake then turned on Dustin and began to chase him around the dojo.
"I should break them up," said Shane.
A minute passed and Shane simply stood where he was.
"Weren't you going to break them up?" asked Cam
"I'm in no rush," said Shane.
When the rangers sat to have dinner, Dustin sporting two new lumps on his head, a portal opened in front of them. On the other side stood Cologne, Tofu, Ryoga and Mousse.
"Ryoga, Dr. Tofu" said Akane
"Mousse, Grandmother," said Shampoo.
"Looks like that's your ride," said Shane. "See you again sometime."
Dustin bowed his head, "Take care."
Hunter smiled, "Sorry you couldn't stay longer."
Blake nodded towards Shampoo, "We should have a rematch next time."
"Remember to write," said Cam.
"It was very nice meeting you," said Sensei.
Shampoo quickly jumped through the portal but Akane stayed to say goodbye to Tori personally.
"Remember what I said. You're perfect just the way you are," said Tori/Cam.
"I will. Thank you for everything," said Akane/Sensei.
Then Tori and Akane gave each other a goodbye hug before Akane waved goodbye to everyone and stepped through the portal.
When Akane came through the portal, she noticed Shampoo giving a quick hug to Mousse before pushing him away. She also noticed Mousse and Ryoga holding cloaks.
"What happened to you guys," asked Akane.
"It's a long story," said Ryoga.
"How about you guys?" asked Mousse.
"It is long story," said Shampoo.
"You guys can exchange stories later, we still need to get Ranma," said Tofu.
"You can all help me in the restaurant in the meantime. We still have customers," said Cologne.
The teens all sighed as they went to work.
(Authors note)
Only one more chapter to go in the Lost in Time arc. Then after that, I'm going to do a chapter that reveals what Ukyo, Konatsu, and Kodachi were up to in the days that the rangers were gone.