Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers Megaforce. This story is fan-made.

Author's Note: This is not where the Megaforce series starts. If you want to read the series without getting lost, I suggest you read my stories in the order they appear:

No To Date Nights - The Party Night - Project Partners - Megaforce: Lives Behind The Masks - Prom Night - A Trip To Remember - First Meetings - Something She Loves – Protective Morans – Samurai In Harwood County – Rainy Days – Luck Had Nothing To Do With It – Ranger Support – Parents and Children – Hero Without The Spandex – Emma's Night – Emma's Mother

I'm finally back. I had an awesome time on vacation. I got to see family and friends, visit two cottages, and enjoyed the great outdoors, but I'm so glad to be back at home and back to writing. Thank you all for being very patient with my hiatus and I hope this chapter (and the ones to come) are well worth the wait!

Gia watched the battle from the command center. With her broken arm, she was forced by her mother and by Gosei to sit out battles. She didn't like the rule. She didn't like having to stand by and watch as her friends risked their lives without her, but it was for the best. Though she could do most of her normal activities with the cast on, it limited her range of motion in her wrist. In training, she had seen that could be costly.

She didn't like the sidelines. She didn't like watching, but this battle seemed easy enough. Her friends were taking a few hits, causing her to wince from time to time when they were knocked down, but it was clear they were going to win. Vrak hadn't sent out his strongest monster this time. It had been a while since his last attack. Gia assumed he was just reminding the Rangers he was still around.

"Never underestimate your opponent," Gosei reminded Gia. "You never know what they have planned."

"I just want to see this monster gone," Gia muttered. She got her wish. The Rangers took down the cricket-like alien and finished him off with a final attack. "Can I join the Megazord?" Gia looked up at Gosei and hoped he would give her this pass. He didn't say anything.

"Robo-Knight will be finishing him off," Tensou told her. Gia looked down at the screen to see he was right. For the Megazord battle, Robo-Knight would take the lead. From there, it didn't take long for the monster to fall. He was weak, and when matched up against Robo-Knight's strength as a Megazord, he was no threat at all.

Gia watched the monster's defeat with a little smile. She was glad her friends were okay.

After a little time they arrived at the command center. They looked a little banged up. Though the battle was one of their easiest ones, it didn't come without a few cuts and bruises. It seemed to be nothing that wouldn't heal up on its own. Troy, certainly, could explain the new bruises to his parents by saying he had been training in the woods with his friends. They knew about his love of martial arts and would buy his story without too many questions. Noah could say he had been in the forest, looking around for samples to study for his latest project when he tripped and fell. Jake could lie and say he had taken a nasty fall playing soccer.

Emma didn't need to explain. Everyone in her life knew who she was. That made the after battle clean-up a little easier to handle.

"How was it?" Gia asked when she saw them. They looked to each other and shrugged their shoulders.

"Nothing we couldn't handle. There was a little scare in the beginning," Jake answered. Gia looked to him curiously. It had taken a little time for the screens in the command center to get focused on the battle. She had missed the first part of their fight. When she had finally gotten a view and saw the Rangers were okay, she made nothing of it, assuming the part she had missed was more of the same.

"Vrak showed up for, like, a second," Noah said. "He presented the monster and this new weapon. He said it was some super-powered blaster that would be the death of us all."

"He must have gone to fix it up," Emma continued explaining. "When he blasted us with it… nothing really happened."

"Nothing?" Gia asked skeptically. "Vrak, the super-genius of the alien world comes up with a super-weapon and it does nothing?"

"Nothing," Troy nodded. "I don't know what it was supposed to do, but if destroying us was its purpose, it failed."

"Miserably," Jake chuckled. He then wrapped his arm around Gia, "The fight was pretty easy, but we still missed you."

"Yeah," Gia looked down at her cast, "You'll be missing me until the end of summer, I'm sure."

"There's a way you can still help out," Tensou said as he rolled up to the group, "You know, I wouldn't mind a hand around here every once in a while."

"I wouldn't really be able to help you with anything," Gia shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry, Tensou."

"Well," Noah said as he picked up his bag, which he and the others had left at the command center for safe keeping. Dumping their bags in a store or at the park while they ran off to fight a monster in the city was just asking for their things to get stolen, so they gave their bags to Gia to keep with her. "I should get back. Mom and dad are always worried about me during monster attacks."

"I should get back too," Troy nodded his head. "Rebecca was at the adoption center looking up possible parents for the baby, and the attack was pretty close. I want to be sure she's okay."

"She's actually going through with this adoption thing?" Noah asked as he and Troy started to walk out.

"We've discussed it's for the best."

"I should go find Jordan," Emma looked to Gia. "He likes it when I stop by after battles so he can see I'm okay."

"I should probably get home too," Jake said. "Dad is probably on his way home now from work to check up on me. I should be there when he comes home."

"I guess that means I'm headed home by myself," Gia said. "Someone's got to reassure my parents that Emma's okay. They aren't satisfied with what they see on the news."

Each of them grabbed their bags and started heading out their separate ways. Gia walked straight for home after Gosei teleported her back into the city, but he had only teleported her back from where he had taken her, leaving her a couple of blocks away from her home.

As she walked home, she looked down at her cast. She never liked it. She never liked the idea of sitting out battles because of it. Her mother had grounded her more due to the risk her arm would cause for her in battle than for her behaviour on the mountain. For that, Gia had been grounded from Mountain Boarding until she was completely healed.

Still, just because there was a risk for her, that didn't mean she also thought it best to sit out. Her teammates always had her back from the moment they came together. They even fought off Cliff and rescued her from him twice. Having to stand on the sidelines now, after all that, and watch her friends continue to fight without her made her feel a little useless.

She was pulled from her thoughts by people's screaming, and looked up to see Vrak standing in the middle of the street. He carried a blaster with him and a twisted smirk on his face. He was up to something – Gia could tell.

She had been told not to join the Rangers in battle, but was sure Gosei and her mother would agree she had to defend herself. Vrak had no monster with him and no Loogies. He had just appeared in the middle of the city, right where she was walking. It couldn't be a coincidence. If she tried to run, he was sure to come after her. She needed to fight at least until the others arrived.

The streets cleared themselves rather quickly. No one wanted to hang around where a monster was attacking. Gia found herself completely alone with Vrak in a matter of moments and saw his eyes set on her.

"We missed you, yellow Ranger. Have you realized the futility of fighting against us? You and your friends may be strong, but Earth will be conquered and destroyed."

"Yeah, right," Gia rolled her eyes, "You plan on taking over the world using monsters like that last one? Ten minutes is not a long time for a battle to take over the world. I've had longer fights with my parents."

"You don't understand, yellow Ranger. I have this," Vrak pointed his blaster at her, "A super weapon of mine. One I've been working on for some time now. Finally, it's been perfected, and it's going to be the end of you."

"You mean that blaster you used against my friends? The one that did nothing?"

Gia got her morpher out of her bag but just as she was about to morph, Vrak snapped his fingers and a flood of Loogies appeared in the streets. They started to grab her, making it impossible for her to morph. She had to fight.

Though she hadn't been allowed to join Ranger battles with her friends, she had kept up with her training for moments like these. The cast she wore would take her out of battle for several weeks and in that time she was sure she would run into a tricky situation. Rather than be helpless while waiting for her friends to turn up, she decided she would get used to fighting with the cast. Her training had worked long enough for her to defend herself against the Loogies. They weren't the strongest of fighters. The real problem came in the form of numbers. Too many of them meant the Rangers wasted too much energy fending them off.

Suddenly, she felt herself being pushed, and she was knocked into the ground. She looked up, seeing the Loogies had cleared a path for Vrak, and he had used that opening to shoot at her with his weapon. Gia looked down at herself to see if she was hurt, but there was no cuts and no blood. Her clothes weren't even torn or singed. All the weapon had done was push her over.

Though now there was another danger. She was on the ground with a dozen Loogies around her. As they lifted their blades to finish her off, she tried to cover herself. She didn't feel anything strike her for a while and assumed either someone had come to help her, or the Loogies decided not to finish her off.

Believing the former was most likely; she looked up and saw Noah fighting off what was left of the Loogies. Looking around again, she saw Vrak was nowhere in sight.

Noah came over and helped her up to her feet once the Loogies were destroyed.

"You okay?" he asked her. Gia nodded her head and looked at herself just to be sure.

"Yeah."

"Vrak took off as soon as I showed up. Most of the Loogies disappeared too. There were only a few left."

"Thanks for coming," Gia said.

"The alarm went off. I was closest. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," Gia nodded her head and gave Noah a smile for reassurance. "Loogies are nothing, and Vrak must have used the same blaster on me as he did on you guys. Loogies hit harder than that thing does."

"I'll walk you home," Noah said. He didn't want to take any more risks. Vrak attacking twice in one day, and singling out a Ranger was bad news, even if his weapon couldn't do much damage.