Hayley followed Kody through the woods, searching for the missing Redbot. They all knew that he went out every now and again, it was one of the few places he could really explore without people asking too many questions, so when he left the Ranger Base, it wasn't really much of a surprise that Kody immediately started to track his scent here.
She knew it was a long shot logically getting Kody to track a scent. Dogs could track a scent from another animal or human relatively simply because the oils and perspiration from the skin were unique. From machines though...well...perhaps it was possible that they could track individual TYPES of things like oils and suchlike but since most machines used the same lubricants and fuels, logically they would smell more or less the same, with perhaps only small variations from different brands. She had heard a rumour that during World War Two, the German military had trained dogs to run and hide underneath tanks, the intent being to strap explosives to them to turn them into anti-tank weapons. According to the rumours the programme was scrapped when it was discovered that the dogs would only hide under their OWN tanks because that was what they were trained on and so that was what they were familiar with. The whole story horrified Hayley because of the thought of turning dogs into unwitting suicide bombers, but she was pleased to hear that the project was scrapped.
It did, however, give her hope that perhaps whatever Redbot ran on would be unique enough for him to be able to track him. She imagined that eventually whatever lubricants he was using would run out and he would have to start using generic earth based oils, but fortunately it seemed his lubricants were still working weeks after he arrived on Earth.
"Over here!" Hayley heard the voice calling out again. She looked around and saw Kody sitting by a patch of mud, his head raised, and looking up as he called out to his mistress to inform her he had found something. He raised his head again, though where Hayley was expecting him to howl, she heard the voice. "Hayley, over here! I've found something!"
Hayley made her way over to his side, and knelt down, finding that it was a patch of soft mud, into which a very distinctive shape was pressed. It was KIND of like a footprint, with a tread and suchlike, but it was distinctly rectangular in shape, not much like a human foot at all.
"Good work boy." She said, stroking him.
"Hey, always here to help." She heard the voice saying as Kody nuzzled into her contentedly. She furrowed her brows. It wasn't possible, was it?
"Kody...are you talking to me?" She asked. The dog just looked back to her.
"Of course I am! I've talked to you for years!" He said in response. "It's not my fault you only just started talking back!"
Hayley fell away from him, landing on her backside and scooting away. She stared at Kody in shock. Her eyes were wide, she had been hearing this voice for weeks, this and others, but this voice had been around her constantly.
"K...K...Kody?" She asked.
"What?" He asked her.
"Kody...dogs don't talk!" She responded. "This...this is crazy, how is this...?"
That was when the thought occurred to her. Brody was able to learn ninjitsu to a level far beyond what should be possible for someone who hadn't received any training. Calvin had advanced his ability with engines by leaps and bounds, and Preston...Preston had once pulled a full-grown PANTHER out of a top hat!
"The Ninja Steel!" She gasped, looking to Kody and smiling. She loved Kody immensely, and while she understood him and could tell what he wanted, and she knew he could do the same, it wasn't like they could talk. She would often talk to Kody, but he couldn't answer back, and she knew that realistically he could only vaguely understand simple one-or-two word commands. He certainly never had any trouble understanding when she called 'dinner.' "This has to be the Ninja Steel!"
"Hayley...there's something coming, something that...really STINKS!" Kody warned her. Hayley looked up in time to see a monster appearing in front of her. He was a horrible combination of a bird and a set of bagpipes, and he seemed to be carrying a set of bagpipes under his left arm.
"So, you know where the Ninja Steel is eh? Well, I guess you can show me where that is little lass, once you've handed over yer Power Star!" He declared as he reached out his hand.
"No way!" Hayley declared, pulling out her Morpher, preparing to defend herself. "You can take your awful accent and go back to...to..."
Hayley's words tailed off as Badpipes began playing. Her mind just seemed to go blank, and she was only dimly aware of anything around her. She started to shuffle slowly towards Badpipes, her hand outstretched with the White Power Star in her grasp, offering it up to him. Badpipes started to cackle.
"Like taking candy from a baby!" He chuckled. "In fact, that sounds like fun, I think I might give that a try while I'm here!"
"BACK OFF!" Redbot called out as he entered the fray, hitting him with a flying kick. Badpipes flew back, his pipes landing some way from him.
"What did you do to my hornpipes you metal monstrosity?" Badpipes whined as he started trying to get back to his feet.
"Redbot...Redbot...you saved me!" Hayley said, but Redbot didn't respond. She moved around in front of him. "Redbot? How are you...?"
"I don't know if his music will affect me so I switched off my auditory processors." He told her, beginning to move his hands around. "I can't hear anything right now."
"Redbot, you saved me!" Hayley replied. "His music almost made me give him my Ninja Power Star!"
"Hayley, look out!" Redbot warned her. Hayley turned to face Badpipes, who was just about on his feet by this time.
"Time to pay the piper!" Badpipes declared, looking around for his hornpipes. He knew that without them, he couldn't cast his spell. Hayley caught onto this, and could see his hornpipes on the ground a little way off. If she could keep them away from him, then she knew that would give him one less weapon he could use against her.
"If anyone's going to pay, it's YOU!" She yelled, morphing into the White Ranger and leaping over, grabbing the hornpipes and rolling back to her feet. "I'll take these!"
"NO ONE TOUCHES MY PIPES!" He screamed in response, firing some blasts at Hayley. The White Ranger only dodged a couple of them, before being taken down. Redbot threw himself in the way, trying to protect her and taking some shots as well. He unfortunately couldn't stop him from retrieving his hornpipes though.
"Oh no, he's got his bagpipes back!" Redbot declared.
"They're HORNPIPES!" Badpipes declared. "Not that it'll matter once I hypnotise the White Ranger into taking care of you for me!"
"Leave my mistress alone!" Kody called out, leaping at Bagpipes and knocking him to the ground.
"Good boy Kody!" Hayley congratulated him. "Redbot, he's too strong, we have to get out of here!"
"One of my rocket boots is damaged, but the other is working." He told her. "It's not going to be a smooth ride..."
"Right now, I'll settle for getting out alive!" Hayley told him, grabbing onto the robot tightly. "Kody, follow us!"
With that, Redbot fired up his one remaining rocket boot, blasting off in a chaotic, uncontrolled flight that took them far from Badpipes, but ended with a hard crash landing. Hayley tumbled away from him, de-morphing as the suit took the brunt of the blow.
"Redbot, you saved us." She said. "Redbot?"
"System error...rebooting..." He said, before his body went limp. She went over to him, sitting over him protectively.
"You saved us both Redbot, I'm not leaving you behind." She said, before activating her Ninja Comm. "Guys, come in."
However, she only got a pathetic bleep, before her Ninja Comm died.
"It must have been damaged in the crash." She surmised. "Redbot, I'm not leaving you, even if I have to drag you back myself!"
She grabbed his feet and started to try and drag him, but Redbot was a lot heavier than he looked. She only got him about two feet before realising she'd need to re-think how she would get him all the way back to base by herself.
Up on the Warrior Dome, Cosmo was taking an intermission following Badpipes' first attempt at taking down a Ranger, and was making his way back to his office with Ripcon and Wrench in tow.
"The White Ranger got lucky, that's all! She only got away by running scared!" Ripcon protested, seeing that Cosmo was not at all happy with the way this battle was going.
"You promised me something that would surpass Madame Odious' last efforts and this is what you bring me?" Cosmo yelled at him. "By this time in the broadcast, Tangleweb had already captured four Rangers, your wind-bag can't even take on ONE!"
"She ran away!" Ripcon reminded him. "That's a loss!"
"He's also losing in other areas!" Wrench chipped in. "We've already gotten a number of complaints about Badpipes from the social media feed!"
"Complaints? What complaints?" Cosmo asked him.
"Well...mostly it's his voice." Wrench told him. "About sixty nine percent can't understand a word he's saying and another twenty three percent say it's one of the worst accents they've ever heard! They want to know why we've got a monster trying to mock a Scottish accent who doesn't even sound like he's heard a Scottish person speak!"
"His accent? That's what people are complaining about?" Ripcon asked in disbelief. "But he kicked the White Ranger's ass all over the forest!"
"How is this affecting our figures?" Cosmo asked.
"The first-quarter ratings are down on last week by seventeen percent." Wrench told him. "I've also heard from ticket vendors that about six percent of the studio audience are asking for refunds."
"REFUNDS!" Cosmo screamed, looking like he was about to have a stroke. He glared at Ripcon. "What are you trying to do to my show?"
"Those fans aren't real fans, they just want to see show-boaters, nor real warriors!" Ripcon sneered. "Besides, you're just upset about that song and dance number he made you put on!"
"Oh believe me I'm not happy about that, but if he was selling then he could have made me dance around a stripper pole for all I care." Cosmo snarled at him. "But I just got word from the merchandise tables that over ninety percent of his merchandise is still on the table!"
"But...but..."
"Maybe you should stick to your nickel-and-dime matches, leave the promotion to those of us with the mind for it!" Cosmo interrupted Ripcon. "If you can't boost the ratings by the end of the episode, you can forget all about that word I was going to have with the board!"
With that, he stormed into the office, shutting the door behind him. Ripcon just looked to Wrench.
"How far along are you with those upgrades to the Kudabots?" He asked.
"The Basher Bots?" Wrench asked him. "It'll be at least a couple of weeks before..."
"Prepare the teleporter." He told him. "He wants a bump in the ratings? Badpipes is about to get a tag team partner."
In his office however, Cosmo was still steaming. He knew it was a bad idea to let Ripcon pitch a fighter, but he never thought it was going to be that bad. Ripcon could certainly pick strong fighters, but he knew nothing of the business side of things. He was always confident that Ripcon's pick would be dull, but the come-down in ratings seemed to be verging on the point of sabotage!
"Ripcon really doesn't know how to put on a show does he?" He heard Madame Odious say. Cosmo had to do a double-take. He couldn't remember her being in the office before.
"He's tanking my figures!" Cosmo complained. "If he keeps this up, I'll only be ahead of that stupid reality show by a hundred and thirty points!"
"I did catch some of his performance. It was certainly underwhelming." Madame Odious commented. "Why, if one didn't know any better, it would almost like it was intentional."
"Intentional?" Cosmo asked. "He's been hounding me for a production job for ten years! Why would he try to bring down the show now?"
"I don't know, but it might not be the SHOW he's trying to take down." She suggested. "After all, you said it yourself. He's been asking you for that production role for ages and he hasn't got it. Of course if you were no longer in charge..."
She looked at the look on Cosmo's face, and then smirked.
"Of course, all this is just speculation. Of course I could be entirely wrong." She told him. Cosmo turned to the window, lighting up a cigar.
"Ripcon being devious?" He chuckled. "Well...stranger things have happened. Madame Odious, what would you...?"
As he turned back, Madame Odious was gone. He just scratched his head in confusion, before sitting at his desk to plan out his next move. If he was lucky, this episode might not be the worst he had ever broadcast.
Back on Earth, Hayley was constructing a kind of stretcher from branches and foliage she had available. She didn't know how long it would take Redbot to re-boot, if she was honest, she didn't even know if he could re-boot himself, or if someone needed to activate some kind of command or something. Either way, while he was off-line, she couldn't really leave him, she had no idea who could find him. She reached for her Ninja Power Star as she heard some rustling in the foliage, but she breathed a sigh of relief as Kody came bounding out.
"Kody, you made it!" She said, hugging her dog. "I was so worried he'd caught you!"
"That overgrown wind-bag?" He asked her. "As if, I left him downwind ages ago!"
"Wow...hearing you answering me...that is still so weird." She commented. "So, is he anywhere nearby?"
"No, I can barely smell him now." Kody told her. "But he's probably still looking."
"You're right. We need to get the others quickly." She said, looking to her Ninja-Comm. She unstrapped it from her wrist and began strapping it to Kody's collar. "Alright Kody, go and get the other Rangers OK? Take them my broken Ninja Comm. They'll know what to do."
"So...I'm Lassie now?" Kody asked her.
"Well..."
"Oh boy! I'm just like Lassie!" Kody said excitedly, bounding around. "Don't worry, I'll be back with the others before you know it!"
With that, he ran off into the distance. Hayley just watched him go, before returning to her stretcher.
"Alright, I think this should hold your weight." She commented, rolling Redbot's inert form onto it. She grabbed the handles at one end and lifted it up, but the support struts just fell straight through, dumping Redbot on the ground. She just sighed.
"Well, Calvin's the mechanic." She said, beginning to gather what she could to have a second attempt at making the stretcher. "So this time I guess I need more support struts."
Back at the High School, the preparations for the dance were still underway. Brody was raising the glitterball while Calvin was sweeping. Calvin and Sarah saw Kody running into the school from the front door. They already could see that this was unusual. Kody knew better than to come into the school, he was meant to wait in the yard or in the base while Hayley was at school. They both came over, clapping him reassuringly.
"Kody, what is it boy?" Calvin asked him, checking him over for any signs he had been hurt. He found Hayley's Ninja-Comm on his collar. "It's Hayley's Ninja-Comm."
"It's broken." Sarah said, inspecting it. She already suspected that there was something wrong. There weren't many good reasons for one of the team to turn off or remove their communicator. To find that it didn't work made sense, but it did lead to the question where Hayley was and why she had sent Kody on without her.
"Hayley went into the woods to find Redbot." Brody told them, remembering his conversation with her earlier in the day.
"She must have run into trouble." Sarah concluded. "Why else would she send Kody on ahead?"
"Kody, take us to Hayley!" Calvin instructed the loyal hound. Kody barked as if to acknowledge the command, and sprinted out of the door.
"Hey, Preston!" Brody called out, waving over the Blue Ranger. He tapped his Ninja-Comm to give him the heads-up that it was Ranger business. Putting down the decorations he was carrying, he joined the others as they gathered their things and ran out, hoping that they got to Hayley before whatever had attacked her came back.