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Blake has been lost before. The first time was when he was six and his birth mother decided she couldn't provide for him anymore and gave him up. His heart was lost in the confusion, and the rest of him in the foster system.
He's lost when the social worker leads him to a room to meet “someone special.” He has never been in this part of the home before, but he's heard the stories. He knows it's where lost kids like himself go only to never come back. He's worried now. It only gets more confusing when he walks into the room and sees two people on a couch, holding a stuffed teddy bear and smiling at him.
The people are nice, and he likes the way they look at each other and at him. They talk about the things they do, their home, and even another little boy. Blake is confused when the social worker pulls him away and says it's time to go. Why can't he stay with the nice people? He really wants to! They all smile when they hear that, and the couple promise that they will see him again soon. Very soon.
Blake doesn't understand why he has to pack all of his things a week later. He doesn't get why all the workers are telling him goodbye and that they will miss him.
He's lost. Where is he going?
He understands it better when the couple picks him up, but he can hardly believe it. They're taking him to their home, his home now too, they explain.
He's lost in amazement when he walks through the door of a huge house, and a boy in a dark red shirt comes flying down the stairs, almost tripping in the process. The older boy stops at the bottom to take a deep breath and compose himself before he holds out a dark blue motorcycle toy, smiles, and says “Hey little brother.”
* * *
Blake proceeds to lose many things at the Bradley household, the very first being his birth father's last name. Somehow it doesn't bother him much, he thinks Blake Bradley has a better ring to it anyway.
He loses his preference for playing alone. Now that he has Hunter as a brother, he never has to be alone again. He loses his shy nature, learning from his family to be confident in who he is. It takes some time, but eventually he even loses the strangeness he felt, being a part of a family that he looked nothing like. He loses his last reserves and knows in his heart that his mother, father, and Hunter are his true family.
Blake loses years at the Bradley house, his house, and he couldn't be happier. Until one night he and Hunter lose it all.
The night their parents are murdered, he and Hunter break and become lost in a way Blake has never experienced before. They lose their home and their parents. They lose everything that made them feel happy, safe, and loved.
* * *
They remain lost and broken for awhile. They make their living on city streets and spend their nights in alleys, dodging authority at every step. If the cops find them it's back to foster care, and they know the system won't see them as the brothers they truly are.
They'll be damned if they lose each other. Not after everything else.
* * *
It's not long before they're eventually caught. But thankfully it's by a man named Sensei Omino, who has been looking for them ever since that night. He explains their parents secret identities and connection to something called the Thunder Ninja Academy.
Blake is still lost. Ninjas really exist? His parents were ninjas? He and Hunter have the choice to become ninjas too?
They choose to go with Sensei Omino and train at the academy. Of course they do. Besides the interest in becoming ninjas and the promise of a safe place, they both know the alternative is unthinkable. Hunter is still under 18, and while they were managing on their own, living on the street is tough and they won't risk being separated.
* * *
They take to training with an ease that says they were born for it. They're a little less lost now that they have a place to stay, guidance, and each other. But they are still broken. Blake starts to believe that they probably always will be.
Still, it feels like a cruel joke when the academy is taken from them too. They barely get out in time with the help of Sensei Omino, who manages to give them morphers right before he is captured.
With their new abilities as Thunder Rangers, they swear to rescue the academy, and avenge their parents.
One proves to be easier than the other, when a space ninja named Lothor approaches them. In return for their assistance in destroying the Ninja Storm Rangers, he promises to lead them straight to the man who murdered their parents.
Blake feels conflicted about attacking Rangers now that he is one too. The three fellow ninjas are just kids with strange abilities like his who hadn't done anything wrong. Until he hears that the man who gifted the three with their power is the same one who took his parents away. He and Hunter make the deal.
* * *
Blake vows to never let anyone into his heart again. After his parents, Sensei, and the academy, he's better off closing others out. He can worry about himself and Hunter and everyone else be damned. He has a mission to accomplish and a family to avenge.
* * *
Damn it.
He had to go there, didn't he? Screw everyone but him and Hunter, right? Well tell that to the blonde beauty with the blue eyes.
Tori is funny, smart, fierce, and proud. She spends her time surfing the ocean and watching motocross races. Blake is lost from the moment he meets her. Even Hunter can see it. His brother has to remind him to not to forget what they are there for.
Because not only is Tori a ninja, she's the Blue Wind Ranger, operating underneath the very man who had destroyed Blake's world. She may have been everything he never knew he wanted, but she was also everything he couldn't let himself have. She and her friends stood between he and his brother's revenge.
But the worst part, or best depending on how he looked at it, was that any time Tori was around, he lost his anger, forgot about some of the pain that filled his heart, and even felt a little less broken. And Tori seemed to have the same feelings for him.
Damn it all.
* * *
Blake has been lost in anger before. So consumed by it that it fills his heart, mind, and being. But never has so much of that anger been directed towards himself.
Not, at least, until he sees Tori's heart break.
She trusted him from the beginning, tried to save him when he didn't deserve it. Even now she gives him the benefit of the doubt, calling out his name to give him a chance to explain. She believes in him, he realizes. Too bad she shouldn't.
The pain is written all over her face when he apologizes for using her. He wants to scream that he never meant to. Sneaking, lying, and kidnapping were bad enough, but he knows that is not what breaks her. Blake using her did that. Blake did that.
She threatens him in a voice full of sorrow and pain, and he can see in her eyes that he's just lost one more thing, and this might be the one loss that finally breaks him completely.
* * *
Blake and Hunter become lost again when they realize their mistake.
Being lied to and tricked is enough alone, but learning that they were working for the enemy all along, and realizing that they almost destroyed a family is a burden too big to bear.
They leave, for their sake and for the Rangers.
* * *
They have to lose themselves to find themselves again, and eventually Hunter and Blake do make it back to Blue Bay Harbor. He knows it's going to take a long time before things between the Thunders and the Winds are right, before he and Tori can be right, but Blake intends to take full advantage of his second chance. He doesn't deserve it after everything he and Hunter have put the ninjas, Cam, and Sensei Watanabe through, but at least they're letting them try. He and Hunter even become part of the Ninja Storm team. It's a better start than he could ask for, and he thinks that maybe right now this is his place, where he's meant to be.
* * *
Against all odds they become a strong team and defeat Lothor. They lose their Ranger powers in the process, but it's a price they are willing to pay to rescue the academies and bring peace.
They get together once it's all settled to see the Wind Ninjas graduate. Cam and Sensei Watanabe lead the ceremony. Even Sensei Omino is there for the occasion.
Post-Ranger life promises to be interesting. Hunter is going on to teach at the Thunder Academy, Tori, Shane, and Dustin are moving from students to teachers, and Blake is getting ready to take off to live his racing dreams.
And even though he's lost something huge, the Thunder Ranger powers that came to be a part of him, Blake takes the moment to look around at his friends and family, and realizes that he's no longer lost.