A/N: I got the idea for this story from watching a Little House: A New Beginning episode. Also, there are no OCs, at least not ones with any major roles.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Power Rangers, sadly. Mr. Saban owns them, and always will.
Note: Is Emily all better? Does she still have a ways to go? Naw! I'm just kidding. Emily is indeed all better, but what about her homecoming? That's what this chapter is all about: Emily's Homecoming, Tying up loose ends/the Promise, and Christmas!
Actually, it's better if this story is set in Samurai, not Super Samurai, because "Leap of Faith" will be/is set in Super Samurai. Obviously, as the preview/summary in Chapter 4 mentions Lauren a couple times, who, by the way, is super awesome!
~5~5~5~5~
That's A Promise
Chapter Five: The Return of Yellow
Emily turned to leave. She waved at her family one last time. "Bye! Thank you so much for everything!"
"Wait, Emmy!" Lilia shouted suddenly. Emily turned back around.
"What?" Emily asked. "Everything okay?"
"Yes, but I wanted to give you these, since you are ready for yours," Lilia said, holding out a cloth bundle. Emily took it and untied the string and revealed…
"Power discs?"
On the top of the stack was a white and yellow power disk…
Ji was excited. It was Christmas Eve, but, right now, that didn't matter to him surprisingly. It was something else.
He walked quickly to the front door, where, beyond it, the Rangers were training in the not-so-cold air. He opened the door and paused at the entrance, wanting to see how far the Rangers were coming along in keeping up with their skills.
Jayden was practicing his sword movements by himself, occasionally looking over at Kevin and Mike's hand-to-hand combat fight and pointing out what either one of them was doing wrong. Mia and Antonio were also fighting hand-to-hand. Antonio was great with a sword, but he needed to work on his bare hands skills just a tad bit.
In other words, they were doing well.
Ji chose this as the perfect opportunity to interrupt.
"Rangers, I have some excellent news!" Ji started to say, before the Gap Sensor sounded. "Damn…" he muttered, "I was just about to let it spill too," before heading inside for check the map, the five Rangers following him.
He tapped it twice before saying, "Town Square. Go."
This particular Nighlock was called "Scratchfight". He turned out to be a very feisty Nighlock, who attacked with such velocity and aggressiveness and just refused to die. He had managed to successfully resist any attack to destroy his first life. They had all used their swords by themselves once, but no solo attack worked.
They tried pairing up. Kevin and Mia's double water/air strike didn't work, neither did a water/fire, forest/water, forest/fire, light/fire, or an air/light attack work.
Then they tried grouping together in trios. A combination fire/water/forest didn't work either. Nor did a water/air/light attack.
That's when they tried all five attacks together.
"Spin Sword: Quadruple Slash!"
"Barracuda Blade: Barracuda Bite!"
Scratchfight stumbled backwards, but other than that, no effect. "Again, Rangers…no effect. Your swords have absolutely no scratch on them."
"Damn…" Mike muttered. "I thought for sure that would work."
"I know," Mia said. "And Antonio also has a different blade than us. I thought that he at least would be able to injure this Nighlock."
"We can't give up, amigos!" Antonio called out.
"Antonio's right," Jayden agreed. "Let's try again. This time…let's try our other swords."
"Right!"
"Fire Smasher!"
"Sky Fan!"
"Hydro Bow!"
"Forest Spear!"
They all attacked again. Scratchfight actually fell on the ground this time.
"Oh, that hurt! Stupid little Rangers!" He fired his claw scratchers at each of them and all five of them, now un-morphed, fell to the ground, each severely injured.
Mia felt nauseous. She felt sick to her stomach. Her insides suddenly felt extremely cold, then extremely hot and the world around started to become blurry. Funnily enough, the others felt the exact same way.
"G-Guys…?" Mike whispered "Any of you…you know…still alive?"
"Y-yeah," Kevin said, slightly trembling.
"Kev…I've never been so glad to hear your voice…"
Kevin didn't want to answer, but he felt…happy when Mike said that. And he sounded like he meant it too
"Anyone else still alive?"
Both Antonio and Jayden gave soft, shaky answers. When no one heard a sound from Mia, they each panicked.
"M-Mia?" Kevin asked, the most panicky one out of the group, since everyone knew that he had a huge crush on Mia, besides Mia herself. "Mia…are you okay?"
Mia wasn't paying attention to them. Her eyes were focused on a sole figure that was slowly walking towards them. Mia's eyes followed the figure, who soon proved to be a girl.
"Don't worry. I'll take care of everything. Thank you all for being strong without me…"
That voice sounded so familiar.
"E-Emily?" She stuttered, making the boys turn in Mia's direction.
The girl's face was clear to Mia now. It was, indeed, Emily Shields herself.
Mia struggled and managed a smile. "You're back, Em." Emily merely smiled wider and held out her hand to the older girl.
Mia took it, and Emily helped her fellow Ranger up off the ground.
Scratchfight caught their attention, "What?! You had a friend!" Mia immediately turned to him. "No fair!"
"You will not touch a hair on Emily's head," Mia defensively warned.
Emily wordlessly held out her hands to the others, which they all smiled before taking. The four guys also stood in front of Emily along side Mia, protecting the younger girl.
Surprisingly, all Emily had to do was place a hand on Jayden's shoulder.
"Thank you, all, for protecting me, but it's my turn to protect you." She whipped out her Samuraizer. "Samuraizer!" And flipped it open. "Go, go, samurai!" She drew her symbol and morphed.
When she unsheathed her sword, Scratchfight just laughed. "You honestly believe that will actually work?! Sending in a little girl to fight me! Ha! I heard that she's the weakest one out of the Rangers! Actually, I heard the same thing in every Generation. It's always the Yellow Ranger who's the weakest!"
The others tensed up, remembering how weak and vulnerable Emily looked and was when Jayden pulled her from the water not even six months ago.
"Take that back!" Mike growled out, flipping out his Samuraizer, as the others did the same.
"Without the earth, the other elements have no meaning," Emily calmly said, remembering and reciting what Serena told a week ago. "But without the other elements, the earth has no meaning either. Earth grounds all the other elements and combines them into one, while the other elements to the same with the earth."
Antonio whispered a soft, "hear, hear" before the Nighlock scoffed once more.
"Whatever! You're the weak one!" Scratchfight said, firing his claw scratchers at her. Emily gripped her sword tighter. She could take this hit for the team and still stand up and fight. She embodied and represented the Earth itself. She could stay strong.
But she heard a "Go, go, samurai!" and a "Gold power!" chorus and saw slashes in the air. The next minute, all she could see was her five friends standing in front of her and no scratcher waves in the air. The others in front of her had completely destroyed them all.
"What?!" Scratchfight watched this all go down.
While Scratchfight was quickly contemplating what had just happened, the others all rushed to Emily's side and stood in usual formation.
"Thanks, guys…but I had it handled," Emily calmly said.
"If you call just standing there 'having it handled', you must have completely lost your mind," Mike retorted. He just couldn't believe that, A) Emily was really back, yet B) she had decided to take an extremely powerful hit for them all by herself.
"Enough, Mike," Jayden said, taking out the Lion Disk. "Leave her alone. Let's attack once more with our Spin Swords. Hopefully, with Emily here, things should go a lot more smoothly."
They all nodded, as Kevin, Mike, and Mia each took out their respectful animal power disks and Antonio took out his own red, personal Power Disk. But Emily didn't take out the Ape Disk like she normally did.
She took out the white and yellow Disk she received from her mother.
"Time for the test of the legend of Earth," Emily mumbled as she hooked the disk above the hilt and spun it.
"It's over, Nighlock!" Jayden said.
"Samurai Sword: Six Element Strike!"
"Feel the burn, Nighlock! Spin Sword: Blazing Strike!"
"This is my turf now! Spin Sword: Dragon Splash!"
"You're in my neck of the woods now! Spin Sword: Forest Vortex!"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you so happy, you could fly! Spin Sword: Air Way!"
"Barracuda Blade: Barracuda Bite! Hope that outshines you!"
When it came to Emily, it wasn't her usual attack. "Meet the Legendary Earth Disk! Spin Sword: Legendary Seismic Swing!"
Emily's attack felt quicker than the others, the Nighlock mentally noted. "What? What was that disk you just used, Mellow Yellow?"
"He's right, Em," Kevin said, as the others turned to Emily, all of them curious as to what made Emily's attack stronger than all of theirs combined. "What did you use?"
Emily held up the white and yellow Power Disk. "The Legendary Earth Disk, created by the First Generation Yellow ranger for her descendants to use in times of great distress. Every Ranger has one and it greatly enhances our speed and powers, each according to our own individual element. It packs quite a punch, huh, Nighlock?" The Nighlock said nothing. He only held his stomach, which still hurt after Emily's strike. "According to you, my attack should have felt quicker and stronger than the others. Was it?" She turned to the other Rangers, who were now quickly devising a plan.
"That attack didn't destroy him. It left him greatly injured, though, thanks to Emily's new Disk, but still not enough to destroy his first life," Jayden said.
"Don't worry," Emily said, holding out a red and white Power Disk. "Jayden, meet the Legendary Fire Disk."
"Whoa…thanks," was his answer, before taking the Disk from her hand. She held out three more, each in the others respective colors.
"Sorry, Antonio, you're the only Gold Ranger. There is no Legendary Disk for you," Emily said, meaning every word.
"That's okay, chica," Antonio said. "As long as we finally have a chance to beat this guy…"
Emily nodded in agreement.
Each of them connected the Legend Disks to their respective Swords and Antonio connected his own Power Disk again.
"Now, it's over, Nighlock!" Jayden said.
"Six Element Legendary Strike!"
The Nighlock never felt so miserable in his entire life. Scratchfight's first form was defeated.
Thanks to the Legendary Power Disks, Scratchfight's second form was defeated in no time at all. They were all in the Legendary Octo-Spear Megazord, still morphed, sitting and resting up after the battle they just had.
Antonio, Mike, and Kevin were all standing, Mia sitting, on Mia and Mike's side of the Megazord. The four were just messing around, laughing at Mike's refreshing jokes, Antonio occasionally putting in a random comment about fish.
Emily and Jayden, though, were on the other side of the Zord, sitting and watching them.
The Red Ranger gave off a light chuckle and the Yellow Ranger was smiling softly under her helmet, but it quickly went away as she remembered Chloe's mean words to Emily. About herself. About Serena. But especially about her friends.
She had called them all "lame" and "uncaring". She knew that she could take insults about herself. She did it against Negatron and again with Chloe. It took her while, but she could also take certain insults about her sister. But never had she ever heard insults about her friends like that.
Sure she never really had friends when she was young and she could take insults about not having any friends, but never were insults ever directed to her about having friends that didn't care.
She quietly sighed in sadness. How could she get over those insults?
As if he could sense her sadness, Jayden turned his helmeted head toward Emily and asked, "What's wrong, Em?"
Emily only sadly sighed once more and hung her head.
"You okay?" Jayden asked again.
It took a while for her to answer, but it wasn't because of her brain damage, because that was long gone by now. It was because of how things actually went down between her and Chloe.
"Y-Yeah…"
"Em…" Jayden said in what Emily called his "warning" tone.
"Alright, fine. I won't lie. I'm not okay…"
"What's wrong?" He asked.
"It's about Chloe…a-and your email that you sent…"
"I see. I was convinced that my email would actually work. And for a while, it seemed like it did, but apparently, it only worked temporarily. What happened between you and Chloe?"
"She insulted me."
"But you can take insults about yourself, can't you?"
Emily nodded. "Yeah, but I lied when I said that her insults about Serena made me snap. Actually, those didn't really matter to me. Again, I could take insults about my sister. I've gotten them before. But I really snapped when she insulted you guys."
This apparently threw Jayden completely off guard. "That was something that you left out of your email."
"I know," Emily said, half whining. "And I'm sorry I did. I just didn't want you to worry about me."
"We worry about you anyways, Em," Jayden said. "Even if you can't take insults about us, I can take an insult about myself any day. After all, you taught us that. And we all took it very seriously."
"I know, but–!" Jayden cut her off with a simple half-raise of his hand.
"Did you hear me the first time, Em?" Jayden asked her, his voice holding a slight tone of amusement. "I said that wouldn't have mattered to me. When I was responding to your emails, all I could think about was you. It didn't matter what I thought and it didn't matter what anyone else thought. All that mattered to me was you. You sent me an email telling me of your emotions and experience with Chloe. When I was reading it, I didn't feel sorry for you, I felt…worried. I was worried that you wouldn't be able to get through it by yourself. The same feeling crept up on me when you were drowning and even recovering and other numerous times."
Even though the two were wearing helmets in their respective colors, Emily could tell that Jayden had just confessed something personal. And she would respect that.
"I see," Emily said, not knowing what else to say on that. "Did you mean what you said?"
"Every word of it," Jayden said, not once hesitating. He was glad he was wearing his helmet, because a red blush had crept up on his face.
He could practically feel Emily smiling under her helmet.
"And your promise? Did you mean that too?"
"Of course," Jayden said, again, not hesitating for even a second. He turned his head to her. "I'll always be by your side, Em. No matter what, I'll never leave you." He held out his pinkie.
Emily nodded lightly and connected her pinkie with his. "Neither will I, Jay, neither will I."
They shook as they both thought, 'That's a promise.'
And Mike just had to ruin the moment.
"Are you two lovebirds okay?" The Green Ranger asked to two sitting down in the secluded corner of the Megazord. "The people are starting to come out now."
Jayden chuckled some more. "Yes, Mike. Emily and I are just fine. Can't we just have a moment alone for once?"
"I'm afraid Rojo is right, Mike. The two deserve their moment alone," Antonio agreed. "But we really should be heading back to the house…"
Jayden laughed out loud before he and Emily, who was giggling, got up from their seats on the floor.
It was nearly Christmas Morning, just three hours away. Emily sat there in the living room since two hours earlier, just watching Mike sleep right under the tree. Emily had brought out her flute and played a calm, gentle tune, which put Mike to sleep right away.
Two to three hours later, Emily was still playing her flute. A poke in her side alerted that she was not the only one in the room. She lightly screeched in surprise and whirled her head around, hands raised in a defensive position.
"J-Jayden?" Emily whispered, afraid that Mike had woken to hear it.
"Hey," Jayden said. "Don't worry. Mike's a real heavy sleeper. He's still asleep."
Emily mentally sighed in relief. "What are you doing up so late?"
"I should be asking you that," Jayden said, sitting next to her.
"Just waiting for Christmas to come already. It's only for seven more minutes. And besides, Mike was getting restless and he asked me to play my flute for him until he went to sleep."
"You're still worried about Chloe, huh?" It somehow knew what she was really upset about.
She sighed again. "Yeah…"
"What is it this time?"
"Well, I…I made friends with her…I realized that she was only making fun of me because she was jealous. She only insulted you guys because she didn't have real friends like I do…do you think I made the right choice by doing that?"
"It's not really my authority to judge you on that. She's your friend, not mine. But I think that what you did for Chloe was a very kind and noble thing to do. Not noble as a Samurai, but noble as a person."
He could swear that he saw Emily's face light up with happiness.
"Really? You think so?"
"I know so," Jayden answered with a gentle smile. Looking at the clock, he said, "Oh, look it's 11:59," just as Emily looked up.
Mistletoe.
Emily looked back at the clock and saw the second hand slowly move back up towards the 12. She tensed up, but as soon as the second hand reached the 12 notch, she gave her leader a gentle kiss on the cheeks.
"Thank you, Jay, for everything…"
Jayden could do nothing, but smile.
~5~5~5~5~
A/N: Review! Tell me how I did! And the news that Ji had was the fact that Emily was returning in time for Christmas.
Note: Yes, I am a Jemily shipper. Deal with it! (That does not mean I hate Memily or Jia. I think they're cute couples, but I just think of Mike and Emily more like siblings. Same with Jayden and Mia.)
And no, I did not add the Legend Disks for no reason! They will show up again sometime in "Leap of Faith".
"Leap of Faith" is indeed the sequel to this story, because the two stories (will) tie together so well!
Summary: She expected him to keep his promise, but he couldn't, because, he wasn't the real Red Ranger. Lauren was. And he didn't want her to get hurt, but it couldn't be helped, because she wasn't the real Yellow Ranger. Serena was. AU stemming off from "Fight Fire with Fire", Sequel to "That's a Promise", Jemily, possible Lantonio and Kia
Look for it on my profile very, very soon!