Chapter 13
Today at the Shiba household, everyone had gathered in the living room for Antonio to present a little someone to his friends "Behold! This is our new and improved friend, the Clawzord!" they took a look at the zord which happened to be in a wooden basin filled with water, just soaking itself. "Where did you get this?" asked Jayden "The Clawzord was battle damage years ago so I hid it away." answered Ji "Mentor asked me to perform a bit of my tech wiz magic." told Antonio, both Jayden and Nariko looked at each other before turning their attention to Ji who replied "I wanted to see if he could actually do it." the gold ranger then pulled out his samurai morpher and began pressing some buttons "It's pretty simple, if I text over some samurai power symbols to reprogram him Clawzord will be back in business." Antonio then put his morpher away while the others continued to observe their new zord. "So you've been using electronic symbols?" asked Mia "Welcome to the 21st century." declared Antonio "Impressive…But this is the work of a computer nerd not a samurai." told Kevin, his words hurting Antonio's feelings a bit also causing the others to look at the blue ranger wondering why he's acting this way. "Look I know I wasn't born into the samurai life like you guys but I'm trying to help in my own way!" told the gold ranger, Nariko sternly looked at the blue ranger "Kevin you've already accepted Antonio into this team." he abruptly stood up from his seat "I said I'd give him a chance Nariko, but being a true samurai involves much more than pressing some buttons!" Kevin then stormed out of the room, Antonio sadly replied "Yes…Being a true samurai is what's in your heart." "It's up to you to change his mind Antonio." told Jayden
Later that night while everyone was in their room asleep, Antonio snuck out of his room and cautiously looked around. Seeing that no one was roaming the hall, the gold ranger tip toed over to a empty suit of Japanese armor and placed a small camera inside "These little cameras will let me see everything Kevin does." he pressed a button on the camera which started to record, Antonio then quietly entered the dojo and placed a camera behind a plant, along with another inside the practice dummy's helmet "I'm gonna learn to eat, drink, sleep being a samurai." "What are you doing?" the gold ranger jumped and quickly turned around to find Nariko standing right behind him, arms crossed over her chest. "N-Nariko!" whispered Antonio "You still haven't answered my question Antonio." "If I tell you…Promise you won't tell anyone about this?" "I promise." "Well…I'm placing my cameras around the place so I can watch Kevin and lean how to be a true samurai." "Antonio…You're already a samurai." "Yeah…But not a true samurai in Kevin's eyes." "There's no need to prove yourself to anyone anymore." "Yes there is…And that person happens to be Kevin…" Nariko sighed a bit in frustration, having Antonio gently grab her shoulders "Please let me do this Nariko, I promise you this won't take long." "Oh…All right…Just don't go overboard on this." "No worries and thanks Nariko." the gold ranger gave a quick kiss to the princess's forehead, who chuckled a bit "Well I'm heading back to bed and you better head back also." "Don't worry I will." Nariko lightly patted Antonio's cheek before making her way back to her room to get some rest.
The next morning at exactly 8 o' clock, Kevin came into the dojo dressed in his training uniform and began his work out. While doing this Antonio was in the another room secretly watching the blue ranger, thanks to his cameras that he place last night. This continued on to the night and currently at 11:30, Kevin had moved to the living and began reading a book about the samurai life, Antonio started to doze off but quickly shook his head to keep him awake a bit longer. Minutes passed and Kevin finally went back to his room to rest. Once in bed Kevin immediately fell asleep just as the clock struck midnight and in the room across from the blue ranger's was Antonio who also had fallen asleep at this time. The following morning Kevin once again woke up early and decided to leave the household for a run, Antonio woke up just in time to see him leave. The gold ranger quickly got up and hurried after the blue ranger to observe him more.
Later that morning Nariko had woken up before anyone else and headed into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. While she was cutting up some fruit and putting the pieces into a big bowl Emily and Mia soon entered the kitchen. "Morning Nariko!" greeted Emily "Morning you two." Mia went over to her side to see what the princess is doing "What are you making Nariko?" "I thought we would have a simple breakfast today, you girls don't mind have mixed fruit for breakfast?" "Not at all." "That sounds yummy to me!" said Emily, Nariko smiled and grabbed a banana and began to peel it before cutting it "Great, I'm almost done here but could you help set out some dishes in the living room for the others?" "No problem, come on Emily." said Mia, the girls gathered up some bowls and other things before heading out to the living room. Minutes later Mike, Emily, Mia and Nariko were having breakfast in the living room. While they were enjoying their food Jayden soon arrived and took a seat next to his fiancé. He then noticed that the blue ranger is missing and looked at the others "Where's Kevin?" "He's usually back from his morning jog by now." said Mia "Usually? More like always you could say I watched the guy." said Mike, Jayden chuckled a bit and started to put some fruit in to his bowl, but soon stop and once again looked at the others "I've got a bad feeling about this…"
Minutes passed and the group was anxiously waiting for Kevin to return from his morning jog. Nariko began pacing back and forth a bit in the room while Mia, Emily and Mike patiently sat there and Jayden simply just stared at the clock before him. Soon it was 8 o' clock and still no signs of the blue ranger. "Kevin would never be this late from his morning run, he's always here by 8 A.M. sharp for his morning practice he would have at least called." said Jayden who continued to stare at the clock and once a minute had passed he stood up from his seat "Ok enough waiting it's time to take action." as Mia, Emily and Mike stood up and left the living room, Jayden walked over to Nariko cupping her cheeks "We'll be back…In the meantime try and contact Antonio, see where he's at." "All right be careful out there." "Always am." the red ranger gave his fiancé a quick peck on the lips and took his leave with the other rangers.
Later Jayden and the others managed to find Antonio and Kevin who were trying to defend themselves against some Moogers and a Nighlok by the name of Antberry. Though once they defeated the Nighlok, he of course came back again as a giant. Though thanks to their Megazord and the Octozord, the rangers got pass Antberry's slime and successfully defeated the Nighlok for good. Back at the household the rangers had brought toys that the Moogers have stolen from little children. In the dojo Nariko was putting the toys in a big container with the help of Mike, Kevin and Antonio, the green ranger picked up a toy and looked at it "Stealing toys from kids, now that's low even for a Nighlok." "But we get to make things right, that's a great thing about being a samurai, right Antonio?" said Kevin, seeing how the blue ranger finally accepted Antonio brought a smile upon Nariko's face and she continued on putting the toys into the container. Soon Jayden, Mia and Emily entered the room "It's best that we return these anonymously, we don't want to bring attention to ourselves." told Jayden "It'll be fun to play Santa!" said Emily, Mia smiled and couldn't help but say "Ho, ho, ho!" this made the others laugh a bit and Antonio turned to Kevin "She's right, let's do this." the two fist bump each other and quickly finished up putting the toys into the container. The rangers then took their leave from the household again to return the toys to energetic children to play with once again.