The switch was successful. Well, almost successful. The Samurai arrived at the farm, and when Serena and Emily came out of the car, Jack flipped out. While all the Rangers were still recovering from when the Shiba House had nearly crushed them and their doubles attacked, Serena and Emily looked the worst. Serena had a brace on her foot and was moving around on crutches, and Emily's face especially was black and blue. While everyone had a few cuts and a few visible bruises (Mike's were all hiding under his shirt), that was normal for the Samurai.

Fortunately for the Rangers, Jack seemed content to blame Ji. Unfortunately for Ji, the Rangers found it funny watching a Samurai Master trying to defend himself and explain himself to a common man. They refused to help him. Ji did manage to explain what happened and earned himself a couple of threats as he did. Eventually, Jack and Ellie packed up and said goodbye.

Kevin looked around the farm in awe as the other Rangers stepped into the house to get settled – though like him, most were distracted by the farm. There was a lot of space, which Serena had already explained was owned by them. To Kevin, that was a lot of space for him to get to work. The closest place anyone could go for help wasn't even in sight. This was perfect.

Inside the house, Serena made it to the kitchen and took it all in. It had been a while since she had truly been home, and seeing the house was just as she had left it felt good. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see Emily holding out a note. She took it and read it, sighing heavily.

"It's a list of chores."

"Man…" Emily groaned, "Barely through the door and we're already being put to work."

"Just the usual, Em," Serena chuckled and ruffled her sister's hair, "You watch the animals, I'll look after the crops."

"Me watch the animals?" Emily gulped. "Uh, my fiancé is the plant guy, maybe…"

"You and Mike aren't joined at the hip," Serena smirked, "I'm sure he'll help me with the plants. Besides, you love the animals."

"Yeah… the problem is, some of them don't like me."

"Even the animals used to pick on you?" Mia asked as she joined the girls in the kitchen, "Wow, Emy, tough life."

"Just the rooster," Emily frowned and looked out the window, where the chicken coop was in sight, "Roosters hate me."

"She's scared of roosters," Serena explained.

"You're scared of a chicken?" Mike chuckled as he came in, "Em, seriously."

"Chickens are deadly!" Emily huffed. "You guys suck."

"What exactly do you have on this farm?" Jayden asked.

"Chickens," Serena smirked as Emily pouted, "Horses, a few cows, and goats…"

Storm's barking could suddenly be heard from inside the house, as well as a few upset horses and scared chickens. Emily immediately rushed out to grab the dog before Storm hurt any of the livestock.

"And now a dog," Serena shook her head and sighed, "Great. We brought a small prey hunting dog onto a farm with chickens. I knew we should have gotten the border collie."

"Where do we settle in?" Antonio asked. The Rangers didn't have much with them. Everything they owned had been crushed and flooded. They had picked up a few supplies that they were going to need on the way up and were now going to need a spot to put them, as well as sleeping arrangements.

Serena gestured upstairs, "Emily, Mike, James, Terran, and I can share Emily's room. It's the first door upstairs. Right next to that is my old room. Mia and Kevin can take that one. Across from that: the guest bedroom. Antonio and Jayden, you can have that and you can either share with Ji, or he can take my parents' room."

"I will have a room to myself," Ji said, knowing that was the best arrangement. It gave Jayden and Antonio a little privacy, and he would be able to work late at night helping his friends get the Shiba House all set up, as well as restoring whatever documents he could based on memory. Fortunately, all the books he had at the Shiba House were copies of the originals, held at the Tengen gate. All was not completely lost, but Ji couldn't ship an entire library over the ocean.

"Let's get settled in, then," Mia grabbed her little backpack and started up the stairs with Kevin and the boys. They split off into their rooms.

Mia walked into Serena's old bedroom and dropped her bag on the bed. Kevin looked around very curiously, hoping to find something of interest, but the room was bare, "Uh, this is… kind of boring."

"Coming from you," Mia chuckled. She walked to the table beside the bed and saw it was covered in bottles of pills, most of which she had no idea what they were. "Emily did say she and Serena shared a room until her parents moved Serena out because she was too sick. They must not have had time to decorate."

"Sick?" Kevin asked. Mia gave him a bit of a strange look.

"And to think, I was the one in the coma," she said. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Uh, yeah; perfectly fine. I just… She's pretty strong now; sometimes I forget she was sick."

Mia picked up one of the bottles, "There's a lot of medication here. Emily always said Serena needed a lot of help staying alive, but there's got to be twenty or thirty different bottles here."

Kevin nodded. He set his bag down on the bed and then looked to Mia with a smile, "We get a room to ourselves, though."

Mia saw the look in his eye. That look. It was the one that meant he wanted her. She gave him another funny look, but didn't back away at his approach. He wrapped his arms around her waist. He wanted to see just how far she would let him go. He wanted to know what exactly he was working with. If Mia trusted him completely, that would make this game, as he saw it, a lot more interesting.

"Kevin, are you sure?" she asked him, "After what happened between Mike and me, you said…"

"I know what I said," Kevin smirked. Truth be told, he had no idea, but he didn't care. He leaned down to kiss her and then fell onto the bed.

-Samurai-

Storm was running wild as she got used to the great big outdoors. She had a lot of room to run around inside the gates at the Shiba House, but this new home was so much bigger. Storm felt like the entire world belonged to her, and she wanted to explore every inch of it.

But Emily was running after her, trying to bring her back in. Emily knew that once Storm got loose and found herself on the hunt, there was no calling her back. Emily would have to be quick on her feet if she wanted to get her dog back. If Storm got lost, there would be no getting her back.

"Gotcha!" Storm's free run was cut short when someone grabbed her collar and held her back. Emily grabbed her dog's collar as well, and then looked up to see who had saved her precious dog.

"Brian?"

The boy nodded his head. He was Emily's age, and had been in all her classes from kindergarten until the day she dropped out of school in eleventh grade. If Abby had been the queen bee, Brian had been the king. He wouldn't bully or harass her as much as Abby had, but he wasn't exactly innocent of the crime, either. Most of the times Emily found herself with a bruise, or stuffed into a locker or another confined space; Brian was the man behind the plan.

"Emily," Brian smiled and he let go of the dog's collar, "Well, well, what brings you back here? We were all pretty sure you'd run off for good. What happened to your face?"

"Broke my nose," Emily whispered and backed off. She pulled on Storm's collar so the dog would know it was time to head home. Brian grabbed her arm.

"Still clumsy, I see. I hear you moved out to the city."

"There was something I needed to do. I'm just home for a while."

Brian crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a friendly smile, "Well, welcome back. I'm meeting up with the others later tonight for dinner by the big lake. Do you want to join us? They'd love to see you."

"I'm sure they would," Emily muttered and shook her head, "Sorry, Brian. I brought some friends back with me…"

"Emily, relax," Brian chuckled. He could tell she was eager to leave, "I know I was a jerk to you all those years. I've changed, trust me."

"Just like that?"

"You've been gone for a while," Brian reminded her, "I'm eighteen now. I'm not a kid anymore. My dad's getting me ready for the day I take over the shop, and it's taught me to be more responsible. Ask anyone around. I'm not the same person. None of us are."

"It's my first night back…"

"After dinner, then?" Brian suggested, "Just meet us after dinner by the big lake, even if it's just for five minutes. We all want to apologize."

"Are you sure?" Emily asked, thinking this was just a little strange. She had just gotten home. No one in town knew she was home, yet Brian was speaking for pretty much everyone in her class.

"We know we were jerks," Brian nodded. "What do you say? Eight o'clock by the big lake?"

"Alright, fine," Emily finally agreed, "I'll see you then."

"Awesome," Brian smiled and then walked off, pulling out his cell phone as he did. Emily watched him go and then looked down at Storm. The dog was giving her a funny look.

"What?" she asked, "I've changed a lot since I've last seen him. There's nothing to say he hasn't changed either. Come on, let's go home. And no chasing chickens. As much as I would love you for scaring them, dad would kill me if you hurt them."

-Samurai-

The smell of dinner cooking reached Kevin's nose. He smiled and looked down at Mia wrapped tightly in his arms. She trusted him completely. This would work nicely for him.

As Mia looked up at him lovingly, he peeled himself away from her and climbed out of bed. He put his pants back on and Mia looked a little hurt.

"Kevin…"

"Dinner should be ready soon," he said, "I can smell it. We're guests, we should offer to help."

"Let someone else help tonight. We'll be here for a while," Mia told him, "We just took a huge step, Kevin. You and I haven't really done anything near… that since… you know."

"Well, we did it. Obviously we're over what happened."

"We should talk…"

"It's fine, Mia," Kevin brushed her off. He pulled his shirt over his head and then left the room. Mia got off the bed and reached for her own clothes. As she put them back on, she tried to hold back the tears. Kevin had his way with her, and as soon as it was over he ran out like it meant nothing – like she meant nothing. She knew she had betrayed him, regardless of whether she was under the spell or not, and he had a right to still be hurt over it. In fact, aside from quick kisses and cuddling, they never really took the bigger steps since that day. Suddenly they had, and it seemed Kevin wanted to show her just how much he was still hurting, by hurting her.

When she was dressed, she picked out her brush from her bag and started to run it through her hair. At this point, she was working very hard to hold back her sobs.

"Mia?" there was a knock on the door. Antonio had been walking by, wanting to call her for dinner, when he noticed she seemed upset. Mia turned to face him and tried to hide how she was feeling, but she couldn't. Antonio walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. "What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you sure? I'm a good listener, I promise."

"It's fine," Mia shook her head and tried to recompose herself. She would have to go downstairs soon, and unless she wanted Antonio to interrogate her, she had to pretend like there was nothing really wrong, "It's just all coming back to me. How we lost everything."

"Really?" Antonio didn't seem too convinced, "I saw Kevin leave the room. If it's something he did…"

Mia shook her head. She wouldn't get Kevin into trouble. She could talk to him about it later, or she hoped she could, "It's fine, Antonio. I'll be fine."

"Okay," Antonio gave her a loving squeeze, "Well… if it happens again, you know… my door's always open."

"Yeah," Mia nodded and forced a smile for Antonio, "I know."