Chip the chipmunk woke up screaming as he fell out of his bed or rather his bed automatically pushed him out. He soon worked out why everything happened the way it did. It wasn't because he had a nightmare. On the contrary, he was having a lovely dream of living in a giant tree as if it was not a royal palace but the royal palace of all trees on the planet and he was the richest chipmunk in the world and every day he would be surrounded by billions of beautiful lady chipmunks who would fight over him, with Clarence Chipmunk among them, and his best friend Dale would be his loyal (and very cheap) servant, even very close to being a slave. What woke Chip up was the alarm was going off in his room. He quickly changed out of his pyjamas and put on his Rescue Rangers hat and jacket.

"Come on, Dale!" Chip cried, as he ran to his best friend's bed. "We gotta move!"

He got no movement from Dale at all.

"Dale, come on!" Chip repeated. "This isn't a drill! I know you love Dreamland a lot, but you have to leave it and this room with me now!"

When there was still no movement, Chip pulled off the duvet off and finally found out why Dale wasn't responding – because he wasn't even in his bed at all.

"Chip! Dale!"

Chip turned to face two more of his friends Monterey Jack the Australian mouse and Zipper the fly entering the room.

"What the heck are you doin' in here, Chip?" Monterey Jack asked. "Havin' a slumber party while the emergency alarm is gon' off?"

"No, I'm not having a slumber party, Monty!" Chip snapped. "I've just discovered that Dale is missing!"

"What? Dale's missing?" Monty cried.

"Dale's missing?" Zipper repeated.

"That's what I said!" Chip yelled through the loud alarm noise.

"Do we have a problem in here?"

The three Rescue Rangers turned to see their half-haddock and half-cyborg friend, Cyber-Haddock, or Cy-Had for short, flying into the room.

"Yes, we have a problem in here, Cy-Had," Chip said. "The problem is Dale's missing and I can't find him."

"What is the emergency, Cy-Had?" Monty asked.

"I don't know yet, Monty," Cy-Had replied. "I don't have any idea at all."

Then there were a lot of machine noises.

"Now, I have an idea. I believe someone must have broken into this hideout and is trying to steal my machines."

Zipper buzzed.

"Yes, Zipper," Cy-Had agreed. "That thief could also be after Dale too. So, follow me, everyone! And quickly too!"

So, the Rescue Rangers followed the flying fish leader out of the room and into the rest of their hideout.

"Could this intruder be Annie?" Chip asked.

"That is a very good possibility, Chip," Cy-Had replied.

"Or could it be some of her cleverest soldiers from her Air Army?" Monty suggested.

"A very slim chance, Monty, as most of those soldiers aren't very bright, but still a chance, nonetheless."

Cy-Had and the Rescue Rangers soon learned that the noises were coming from the hanger bay, where Cy-Had's machines were kept. They hid behind the doors and the fish opened them with a flicker. As they opened, they peeked around and was shocked at what they saw. There were gadgets lying all around on the floor and the rocket plane, The Speedy Cloud, was alive and rumbling.

"Quick, boys!" Cy-Had yelled. "Board the machine!"

She led the Rescue Rangers into the machine as quickly as they could. They didn't stop until they reached the cockpit. They heard someone was in it.

By using sign language, Cy-Had ordered the Rescue Rangers to grab the emergency blanket on the messy floor. Then they went into the cockpit and immediately threw the blanket over the chair.

"Hey! What's going –"

"Just can it," Cy-Had said. as she flew around the figure under the blanket.

"How can I can it?" the figure asked. "I don't have a can."

"I don't know who or what you are, but I can promise you that I will make you pay for what you've done." Then Cy-Had grabbed the blanket with her metal fins and yanked it off and found that in the chair was…

"Dale?"

"DALE?" cried the Rescue Rangers.

"You made this mess?" Cy-Had asked.

Dale was the one in the seat. "Hi, guys," he said, as if nothing had been going wrong. All he got in return was some angry looks from his friends. "Yeah, it was me," he confessed.

"Dale, it's bad enough you goof off too much, but goofing off with Cy-Had's stuff?" Chip snapped. "You really crossed the line this time! You could have hurt yourself or us with them! And what if she needed these things on a mission while you've been goofing off with them, huh?"

"But I wasn't goofing off with them," Dale protested.

Everyone was shocked to hear that.

"You weren't goofin' off?" Monty said.

"Nope."

"Then how do you describe the mess you made?" Chip demanded.

"I call it training," Dale replied.

"TRAINING?" everyone cried.

"Training for what exactly, Dale?" Cy-Had asked.

"Why, for the Cy-Rescue Rangers, of course," Dale replied.

"The Cy-Rescue Rangers?" Then Monty burst into laughter.

Then Zipper joined him. Then Chip and even Cy-Had.

Dale got annoyed with everyone's laughter. "What's so funny?" he demanded.

"That you really think there's actually gonna be team called the Cy-Rescue Rangers," Monty said.

"Well, why not?" Dale asked. "I mean, the Rescue Rangers are back together and we have a Cy-Ranger so therefore – the Cy-Rescue Rangers. And if we are going to be working together, we gotta be familiar with all the equipment and learn how to use them in case anything bad happened to each other and –"

"I must stop you there, Dale," Cy-Had said. "I don't know how to say this. You do make some good points and I like that you're being very imaginative and creative – in a very unusual way."

"Thank you," Dale said.

"You're welcome. But this is equipment is something only I can use. I don't even let the other Cy-Rangers use them."

"Not even in an emergency, luv?" Monty asked.

That seemed to have got to Cy-Had, who seemed to struggle to answer.

"What about your leader?" Chip asked. "Does she get any say about your inventions at all? Or does she trust you blindly?"

"Is she a bat?" Dale asked.

"No."

"Sorry. Is she a Cy-Bat?"

"No, Dale," Cy-Had replied. "She's not a bat at all. And, no, she doesn't trust me blindly. In fact, she doesn't trust me at all. In fact, neither she nor the other Cy-Rangers know about this or any other of my hideouts. That's why I'm better off working without them. So, I'm sorry, Dale, but they will be no Cy-Rescue Rangers ever."

"But –"

"But nothing, Dale!" Chip snapped. "You heard her. And in case, you haven't noticed the Rescue Rangers are not back together because Gadget isn't here."

"Oh, so we just need to find her and then –"

"Even if she was here, the Rescue Rangers would not be together again, especially after the very last mission."

"Why? What happened on our very last mission?"

Chip groaned. "Dale, if you've been doing this 'training' all because you're very bored after being in this hideout for our own safety, I've found a better game for you to play."

That got Dale very excited as Chip knew he would because he liked games a lot.

"What game are we gonna play?" a very excited Dale asked. "Huh? What's the game like? Huh? What's it called?"

"The game is called… Tidy Your Mess Up."

Dale's very excited face fell.

"And it's a game for you to play on your own, I'm afraid, Dale," said Chip, whose face grinned mischievously.

"That sounds like a good game to play, but I don't see the tools for it."

"Care to look behind you, Dale?"

Dale turned the chair to see Monty and Zipper holding brushes, mops, buckets dustpans and garbage bags. "Oh, no."

"Now, you have no excuse, Dale," Chip said. "So, get cleaning. And now, sometime this millennium."

Dale sighed. "Fine!" He got out of the chair and headed out with the cleaning tools he was given.

"And the rules of the game are that you can only use the tools we have given you," Chip went on. "If you use any of Cy-Had's inventions –"

"I won't! I promise!" Dale snapped, struggling to take any more of Chip rubbing his words in his face.