Author's Note: I apologize for the late update. But when I decide to update this story my internet decides to throw a hissy and not connect. I am not impressed.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended in the making of this series. I simply own my OCs and anything that is unrecognizable from the show. Power Rangers belongs to Saban... although Mystic Force was created by Disney. Enjoy.

Shout Outs: I would just like to say a big thank you too: Dbzmangalover26 for adding this story and/or me to any of their alerts. Appreciate it mate

Warning: Rated T for safety.


Mystic Force: Against All Odds

Summary: "I didn't ask for this," "I know, but this is your destiny... this is our families legacy... and our time is now!" After the fall of the Lightning Academy and the arrival of the darkness, Rebecca learns that the prophecy has begun and Aliyah is now in great danger.


"Boo!"

Xander screamed, a high-pitched shrill, as Aliyah popped out from behind the cardboard cutout of a guy with long black hair and a crazed expression. She was laughing at him.

"Not cool, Ali," he complained, hand over his heart.

"I thought it was," Vida snickered, high-fiving her best friend in the process.

Xander glowered at the pair of them, just as Toby arrived. He smiled as he saw the others working and turned to the green ranger, arm around the cardboard cutout.

"Nice work, Xander," he nodded in approval. "I like how you've got everyone working. You are a natural born leader."

"Really?" Xander smiled. "You hear that guys? Natural born leader!"

Vida rolled her eyes as Maddie giggled, shaking her head.

"Who's the old guy, boss?" Xander asked, turning back to Toby.

Aliyah gasped. "Old guy?" she repeated. "Dude, he's not that old! Maybe late-thirties, give or take, but definitely not old."

"Whatever," Xander shrugged. "But I take it you know him?"

"Jake Bonebreaker?" Aliyah nodded. "He's the man that put metal in 'metal head'. The guy's a genius. He's the lead guitar and vocal of the metal mega-classic Hairy hatchet!"

Xander shook his head. "That right there," he said, pointing at her. "Is why you scare me, it's also the reason I have no clue who he is..."

Aliyah frowned.

"Heavy Metal," Chip supplied.

"You guys are so old school," Aliyah complained.

"Old school?" Xander defended. "Heavy metal is a thing of the past..."

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not, infinity!" Aliyah hissed.

Xander huffed and turned away from her as Toby assigned them homework for that day. They were to find a Jake Bonebreaker song, listen to it, enjoy it and like it. The only person who didn't seem put off by the assignment was Aliyah, who had already established the fact that she was a Bonebreaker fan.

"Guys," Xander called, turning back to his team mates. "Who wants to take care of the King of Metal?"

"Not me," Nick called from the back of the store.

"Me either," Maddie agreed, "He's older than my dad!"

Aliyah shook her head and turned to Xander. "Don't look at me," she said, holding her hands up in front of her. "I brought him in from the van, and I don't even work here!"

"Chip?" Xander looked towards the Yellow ranger.

"Heavy metal makes my nosebleed," Chip said.

"That's true," Aliyah nodded. "I remember him listening to Skillet once, blood everywhere!"

"Whatever," Xander muttered turning back to the cardboard cutout. "I'll do it myself! With a little magical assistance..." he added in an undertone as he removed his Mystic morpher. He opened it, pointed it at the cut out and said, "Vivacim Erectu..." there was a sparkle of green energy, and next second, Jake Bonebreaker stood before the rangers, very much alive.

"Hey-oh!" he yelled.

Aliyah's eyes widened as she looked from Jake, to Xander, to Vida and back again.

"Oops," Xander muttered. "It's a slight magical malfunction..."

Maddie grinned and looked back at Nick and Chip, as Aliyah and Vida grinned between them. It was wrong, of course, for Xander to use magic for personal gain, but it was awesome that he had managed to bring a cardboard cutout to life.

Unfortunately, there was no fun or rest for the wicked, seconds after Xander had brought Jake back to life, their morphers jingled and Udonna called out to them.

"Rangers, there is a very strong dark magic presence in your area,"

"We can't all split on Toby," Nick said. "V and I will check it out. You guys take care of... uh... heavy metal boy," he pointed at Jake, before leading the girls out of the store.

"Do you want some metal?" Jake shouted as they left. "Well I want... some... prunes..." he wiggled his hips slightly causing Chip, Maddie, Aliyah and Xander to exchanged looks.

~*Against All Odds*~

Aliyah chewed her lip as the last two customers left the store.

Jake was playing the air guitar in the corner, as heavy metal, curtsy of Aliyah, played loudly around the store. At first she thought it would have been a good idea, but now she was starting to realize that not everyone shared her unique taste in music, especially the generation today.

"Party poopers," she muttered as Xander switched off the CD player and approached Jake.

"Mate, can you dial it down a notch, please?" the Green ranger asked. "We don't want to bring Toby -" he cut off as the door to Toby's office opened and the man in question stumbled into the store.

"Jake Bonebreaker," Toby exclaimed. "In my record shop. I need a camera... camera... camera..." he repeated several times, disappearing through the door, just as the others morphers jingled for the second time.

Reaching her's first; Aliyah snapped it open and inspected the screen. "V and Nick are in trouble," she announced, "Let's go!"

They hadn't even made it outside the door when Maddie remembered their situation inside.

"Oh, wait," she said, pointing at Jake. "What about him?"

"Uh, one more try," said Xander, pointing his morpher once again at the heavy metal king. "Vivacim Erectu..." he said, before rushing off after the others.

~*Against All Odds*~

Necrolai turned as she sensed the arrival of the other rangers.

"Time to end this party," she huffed, turning her back on Vida, Rebecca and Nick, all of whom had taken a beating from the monster that stood alongside the Vampire. She whistled and the monster folded downwards, taking the form of a taxi. "Deliver the map!" she ordered.

"That's just crazy!" Aliyah gasped as the taxi took off at a rapid speed. "Hey, wait!" she yelled, running after it.

"I got it!" Nick shouted, following her.

The others, who were close at hand, but not close enough, gasped as both Nick and Aliyah were hit in the back by separate energy blasts from Necrolai. The Red and Platinum rangers hit the ground and rolled over trying to numb the pain that spread through them.

"That's nothing compared to the power I will soon have," Necrolai laughed, before fleeing the scene.

Aliyah groaned and looked up as Vida stood over her. She grasped her best friends hand and pulled herself to her feet. "What did she mean by that?" she asked, looking at her sister.

"I'm not 100% certain," Rebecca answered. "But I have a hunch... but we have to get back to Rootcore."

"First of all," Maddie interrupted, spying something in the corner of the underground car park. "Smile. We're on camera."

Turning around, Aliyah, Rebecca and the others looked up to where the security camera was situated.

This was bad.

~*Against All Odds*~

"Oh," Aliyah groaned as she watched Vida and Nick morph on camera. They were back at Rootcore, and after much explaining from Cam, over the phone, of course, she had managed to hack into the security cameras of the car park where the attack had occurred. "Busted!"

"You must protect your identities at all costs, Rangers," Udonna reprimanded them. "This tape could put us all in danger..."

"Isn't there a way to erase it?" Chip asked.

"Not that I know of," Rebecca shrugged.

"What about Cam?" Aliyah asked. "He's a computer genius..."

"Or Hayley," Rebecca pointed out.

Aliyah nodded. "It would be easier for me to ask Cam," she shrugged.

"Do you think you could do it without blowing your cover as the Platinum ranger?"

"Yeah," Aliyah nodded, although she knew it was a lie. Cam already knew her secret identity. He already knew that she had acquired another morpher and retaken her role as the Platinum ranger; she had told him during her last visit with Tyler.

Rewinding the tape, Maddie pointed her morpher at the screen, and with a sparkle of blue zoomed in on a piece of parchment that Necrolai had taken out of the taxi cab monster. "What is that?" she asked.

"It looks like some kind of map," Nick said.

"Let's take a closer look," Rebecca suggested, pointing her own morpher at the screen. There was a sparkle of black, and an exact duplicate of the on-screen map appeared on the console in front of them. She picked it up and inspected the ancient writings. "Oh... Udonna..."

Aliyah frowned as her sister passed the paper to their aunt.

"Oh my," Udonna breathed. "I thought this was lost. It's the map to the Fire heart."

"The fire what?"

"The Fireheart," Rebecca answered. "The ancients believed it to be the source of tremendous power..."

"So that's what Necrolai meant when she said that she'd have more power?" Aliyah asked. "I can't imagine her with tremendous power. That energy ball hurt enough."

Nick nodded in agreement.

"Then we need to find the Fireheart," Vida added in, "before Necrolai gets her scaly little hands on it."

"Well that won't be easy," Udonna said looking over the map. "It says you must travel through the Cimmerian forest..."

"Oh, that's alright," Xander grinned. "We like forests, don't we guys?"

"This one is different," Udonna said, shaking her head. "Imagine your worst nightmare."

Aliyah and Vida exchanged looks.

"That's easy," Chip said, "my mom puts my cellphone in the dryer, and the next time we morph, my uniform is really tiny!"

Laughter bubbled from six of the seven rangers.

"Enough!" Rebecca snapped, silencing the quell of laughter. "This journey will not be easy! It will be one of the worst that we will ever have to face as Rangers. If my knowledge of the Cimmerian forest is correct, our path will be filled with unimaginable danger, evil creatures and ravenous demons..."

"Now go," Udonna said, once Rebecca had finished. She passed the map to the Black ranger, before adding, "Remember, returning with the Fireheart will not be your success. Your success will be to return at all."

~*Against All Odds*~

"This isn't so bad," Chip said, slightly nervously as he approached the edge of the woods that he and the others had never ventured into before.

A sign was nailed to a tree. It read.

GO BACK!

CIMMERIAN FOREST AHEAD.

"I am not looking forward to this," Maddie said. She was freaked out already.

"Me either," Nick agreed.

"Relax guys," Aliyah said, bypassing them both. "What's the worst that could happen... besides, we haven't even passed the Lightning Academy grounds yet."

Vida turned to her friend.

"The Lightning Academy is based in this forest?"

"Part of it," Rebecca answered. "The Lightning Academy grounds are so massive that they stretch for miles. If I remember correctly, a part of the lake lay within the Cimmerian forest. It was a part that no one seemed to venture into, it was always full of creatures that would pull you beneath the surface and drowned you. One recruit learned that the hard way."

"The dude should have listened," Aliyah defended. "I did tell him not to go out there..."

Rebecca nodded. "Yeah, after you dared him to take the plunge!" she added.

"I didn't kill him!" Aliyah scoffed. "I'll admit, I dared him to dive into the darker waters, but I did also warn him about the creatures that resided there, he could have backed out at any moment."

Rebecca shook her head and glanced down at the map. "Sadly enough," she said, "our path leads away from any of the barriers of the Lightning academy. This is a good thing, I guess, considering i'm sure that's where Necrolai, Morticon and Koragg are resting."

"You think they've taken over the academy?"

"I would," Rebecca nodded. "It's a source of power..."

Aliyah shrugged in agreement. "Alright, well, you're the one with the map, lead the way..."

"OK," Rebecca nodded. "But first... anyone's who unsure about whether or not they want to continue, better head back to Rootcore, because once we enter pass this point, there is no turning back. I'll only lead those who are certain that they can see this journey through to the end."

Nick, Maddie and Chip exchanged looks.

"I'm staying," Aliyah said, bypassing her sister and entering the trees.

"You would," Rebecca nodded. "Anyone else?"

"If Ali's staying," Vida nodded. "I'm staying too..." she bypassed her friends and followed after the Platinum ranger.

"Chip?" Rebecca asked the Yellow ranger. "Maddie? Nick? I won't hold it against you if you want to turn back... this is a dangerous mission."

Maddie shook her head. "Wherever my sister goes, I go," she nodded.

"I'll stay," Chip agreed.

"Me too," Nick said.

"Xander?" Rebecca said, turning to the back of the group.

"I'll stay," Xander nodded. "On one condition..."

"And that would be?"

"I get to lead,"

Rebecca frowned. "I'm not sure that's a good idea," she hesitated.

"C'mon," Xander complained. "I'm a natural born leader. I can handle one simple task."

"Um..." Rebecca hesitated, before handing over the map. "Fine. But one hesitation on your part and I'm retaking the role, alright?"

Xander nodded. "Alright." he agreed, looking at the map and then up at the trees. "Team Xander... onward."

~*Against All Odds*~

"Hey, do you two want to slow down?" Xander yelled as Aliyah and Vida pulled ahead of the group. He couldn't understand how they could disregard everything he was saying, while leading them to the Fireheart. He had the map, so how could they have possibly been ahead of him?

Aliyah shook her head and turned to walk backwards. "If you can't keep up then turn around," she called back. "As long as we follow the path we should be OK."

"But the map says -"

"Sometimes," Aliyah interrupted, "you just have to follow your instincts, and my instincts are telling me that the path will lead us to safety. So excuse me for following my orders."

"Orders? Orders from whom?"

"Orders, instructions," Aliyah shrugged. "Whatever you want to call them... my Sensei told me to follow my instincts, and that's what i'm gonna do, but you carry on, you're doing an excellent job so far."

She grinned, gave him double thumbs up, and then pulled even further ahead.

"V," Xander smiled at the Pink ranger. "You're with me, right?"

"Sorry, Xander," Vida said, shaking her head. "I'd actually like to go home tonight. I'm with Ali on this one," and she hurried off after the Platinum ranger.

"Rebecca, your sister sucks,"

Rebecca smirked. "Tell me about it," she agreed. "But when have you ever known Ali to follow anyone's orders by her own?"

"True," Xander nodded looking at the map again. "Ah well, at the moment we're all heading in the same direction... it's when we change directions, then we'll see who's going about this the correct way."

Maddie, Nick and Chip exchanged looks, while this did not seem like a good idea; it was going to be interesting to see which executed plan worked out for the better: Aliyah's or Xander's.

~*Against All Odds*~

"Whoa," Xander said, stopping dead in his tracks.

Maddie, Rebecca, Nick and Chip, all of whom were walking behind him, complained as they walked into him. Aliyah and Vida, who were still ahead of the group, stopped and turned to see what the problem was all about.

"Next time just say stop," Rebecca said looking up at the Green ranger. "Whoa is for horses. I don't see any horses around here, do you?"

"OK," Xander nodded. "I got it."

He looked back at the map as an eerie wind rustled amongst the leaves.

"What was that?" Maddie asked completely freaked out now.

"I've got a feeling that something has been following us since we started," Chip said.

"Then why didn't you say anything?" Aliyah asked as she and Vida rejoined their friends.

"Because I always think someone's following us,"

Vida smiled faintly.

Before Maddie emitted a scream as something, or rather, someone, dropped out of a tree right in front of them. She sighed in relief when she saw it was Phineas.

"Relax guys," Nick sighed. "It's only Phineas."

"Oh," the Troblin said. "It's only the Rangers..."

Maddie giggled.

"We're sorry, Phineas," Xander apologized, "but we're on an important mission. Don't have time for a visit."

He looked back at his troops.

"Tell you what," Phineas said, before anyone else could speak. "Since you asked so nicely, I'll take you through the forest."

"Hey, that doesn't sound like a bad idea," Aliyah agreed. "I mean, who better than to lead us than someone who knows this place?"

"I like her," Phineas nodded. "Knows what she's talking about. I know this forest like the back of my - oh," he gasped in surprise. "A new wart. Lucky me!"

Xander shook his head.

"Nope, I don't need any help," he said, pointing at the map. "I know exactly where I am going. This way," he grinned, pointing over his shoulder and leading his friends away.

"See ya, Phineas," Maddie called back.

"Or not," Aliyah added, earning herself a slap from Rebecca. "What?"

Rebecca shook her head and pushed onwards after Xander. She knew that he was having trouble, but she had agreed that he could lead, at least until he asked for help; that's what being a ranger was all about, learning when to follow. She would only help when he asked for it, not before.

~*Against All Odds*~

"We've been this way!" Aliyah shouted as she dropped down onto a tree stump. It had been over three hours, give or take, since the beginning of the journey, and her feet where burning from walking so much. The terrain was anything but soft, the trees were starting to creep her out, and her temper was spiking as Xander still insisted that he knew where they were going.

"What are you talking about, Ali," Xander asked. "We haven't been this way before..."

"Yeah, we have," Aliyah nodded. "This stump -" she patted the one she was sitting on, "we've passed it like four times in the last hour. Admit it, we're lost."

"We are not lost!" Xander protested checking the map. "We're just -"

"Sinking!" Chip yelled.

Aliyah's eyes widened as she watched her friends sink lower and lower into the swamp sand beneath them. "Oh, this is bad," she said jumping up and running over. Rebecca, who had sensed the danger a moment sooner than her friends, caught her sister and held her back.

"Try your morphers," the Black ranger instructed.

The others nodded and grappled with their cellphones.

"Magical Source! Mystic Force!"

Nothing happened.

"Oh great," Chip worried. "The morphers don't work out here!"

"You're magic is being cut off," Rebecca answered. "The swamp is dampening your powers. Quick, grab on..." she reached towards Maddie, who was closest to her, while Aliyah held her hands out towards Chip and Vida. Pulling and tugging the two sisters managed to pull the Blue, Pink and Yellow rangers free, before turning back to their last two team-mates.

"Xander," Aliyah panicked. "Give me your hand!"

Latching onto his best friend, Xander struggled against the thick sludge that covered him from the mid-waist down, and pushed himself towards the bank of the swamp. Aliyah strained but managed to pull him free, falling backwards onto her butt, as he slumped against the banking.

"Is everyone OK?" Rebecca asked once she had pulled Nick free.

Aliyah grimaced as she wiped the mud from her hands. "Aside from a bruised tail bone," she grumbled, rubbing the bottom of her spine, she had hit it on the stump behind her when she fell backwards, "i'm fine. Guys?"

"We'll be alright," Nick nodded, panting hard. "Thanks for the help," he added to Rebecca.

The Black ranger shook her head, before turning to Xander. "Fun's over," she said, snapping her fingers. "I gave you a chance, you should have asked for help two hours ago, you failed, and you're obviously not cut out to be a leader. Now, a deal's a deal, hand over the map."

Xander patted himself down. He had no map.

"Um..."

"Tell me you're kidding?" Vida growled.

Xander looked scared.

"Oh, great!" Nick complained.

"A map?" Xander chuckled. "Who needs a map? I looked at that thing a million times. I have it all up here," he tapped the side of his head.

"And that's supposed to make us feel better?" Aliyah asked, shaking her head.

She loved Xander, really, she did, he was one of her best friends, but it was time like this that he let his huge ego get in the way of things; and it pissed her right off.

~*Against All Odds*~

Stalking angrily through the woods, Aliyah brushed aside several cobwebs as she ducked under low-hanging branches, jumped over rotten tree stumps and came to a stop in the middle of a dead clearing. Behind her she could no longer hear her sister's shouts, or the calls of her friends to come back, Xander had really did it this time.

Yes, that was right, she had, undoubtedly, lost her cool with the Green ranger and instead of hurting him like she would have done any other guy, she had turned toe and walked away. Her instincts were telling her that they were going in the wrong direction, but Xander, being Xander, wouldn't believe her and insisted that she was wrong.

"Sadly for him," Aliyah muttered as she spied light ahead of her. "A Ninja's training is more advanced than wizards..."

Aliyah grinned as she burst out of the trees and onto the top of a ravine. It was a long way down, with murky green water separating the side where she stood, and the long deserted stretch on the otherside. Now, any normal person, like Xander, would need to move further down to see if there was an easy way to cross, and even then he would only reach the side of the river.

Maybe it wasn't deep, but that wasn't the point, the point was getting across unharmed and in one piece.

Luckily enough for Aliyah, she was a Ninja, and Ninja's knew how to move faster than the speed of light - sort of.

"Do I love being a Ninja," Aliyah grinned, jumping off of the ravine and shifting into her Ninja streak, a second before she hit the ground. In a blur of black and platinum, Aliyah landed on the otherside of the river, rolled for a second, and then landed back on her feet.

Brushing herself off, the Platinum ranger grinned and looked around the quarry.

"You should have listened to me, Xander," she murmured.

~*Against All Odds*~

Vida sighed as she stopped for what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon. She was starting to regret not going with Aliyah when she had the chance, and she would have done so, had it not been for Rebecca holding her back. The Black ranger claimed that Aliyah needed some time to cool off, and being alone would allow her that time.

Another eerie wind rushed through the forest, causing all Rangers to backtrack a few steps.

"OK, which way now?" Nick asked looking to Xander. They were covered in mud, after their little incident in the mud swamp, but that didn't deter them from their mission.

"That way," Xander said pointing ahead of him. He stepped over a log and stopped as Phineas landed in front of him.

"I wouldn't go that way," said the Troblin.

"Maybe now is a good time to ask Phineas for help," Maddie suggested looking to Xander. "I mean, we've already lost Ali, she could be in trouble. We should find her and then get out of here."

"Aliyah?" Phineas asked. "Oh, she's safe, made it out of the forest about half an hour ago..."

"She did?" Xander asked.

"Yup."

"I knew we should have followed her," Vida groaned, glaring at Xander.

Xander held his hands up in surrender. "I don't need help. I am fine. I know exactly where we are going." he said.

"But Aliyah went in the opposite direction," Chip pointed out. "And she's out of the forest. We should try and retrace her footsteps."

"Aliyah got lucky," Xander said. "She's probably not even near the Fireheart. Just because she made it out doesn't mean she's in the right place."

Rebecca shook her head. "A true leader knows when to be a follower," she chided the Green ranger. "But, if you insist on leading us further away from the exit then go, I, for one, am going with Phineas."

"What?"

"My sister is out there," Rebecca said. "I'm going to find her, find the Fireheart, and go home. You guys can do what you want..."

She turned to Troblin.

"Lead the way," she nodded.

Phineas nodded in return and gestured to the path ahead of him.

"Whoa, wait a minute," Nick said, shaking his head at Xander. "I'm going with Phineas and Rebecca. They seem to know a little bit more about this place, and heading home, doesn't seem like such a bad idea."

"I agree," Vida nodded. "Guys?" she added to her sister and Chip.

The Blue and Yellow rangers sighed before starting after them.

"Guys!" Xander stopped them. "I know where I'm going..."

Feeling no reassurance, Maddie and Chip tried again, only for Xander to stop them and propose a deal. He would cover two of their weekends at the Rock Porium if they stayed with him.

"Three," Maddie challenged.

"Deal."

Maddie sighed took his hand and followed him deeper into the forest, away from her sister and friends.

~*Against All Odds*~

"Glistening rocks," Aliyah grinned running towards the glowing pile of boulders. "Cam, you're a genius..."

"So you tell me," the Samurai chuckled.

Aliyah smiled. She had called Cam the second she had made it to the quarry, he had, after all, downloaded another copy of the map from the security tape that had Vida and Nick morphing into action on, it was the same one that she and the others had taken their map from.

"So, you just walked away from the others?"

"Xander was annoying me,"

"I thought Xander was your friend?"

"He is,"

"And he was annoying you?"

"Even friends annoy me, Cam," Aliyah answered. "Hang on; I need to see if I've got my powers back." She reached for her mystic morpher, snapped it open and held it out towards the pile of rocks. She paused, muttered a spell that she had read in one of the books Rebecca had been studying, and grinned as the pile of boulders exploded, sky high.

"Ali, what was that?"

"Just a little explosion,"

"Little?"

"Don't be such a worry wart," Aliyah chuckled. "Now, for some lightning. With the Power of Lightning! Lightning strike!"

Thunder rumbled over head as dark clouds rolled in from the south, white lightning clashed against the invading darkness, and plummeted towards the ground. It hit the golden mass beneath the boulders and melted it down until only a cylinder remained.

"Anything?"

"Just a second," Aliyah said, pocketing her Mystic morpher and picking up the cylinder. She opened it and removed a slightly smoking piece of parchment. "Awesome! I've found it! The secret of the -" she cut off as a scream erupted from her throat and she was blasted backwards, the parchment flew into the air, and Necrolai swooped in to claim it.

"Ali...?" Cam's panic-stricken voice shouted over the phone. "Ali, what's going on? Answer -" he was cut off as Necrolai stood on the cellphone, crushing it beneath her heel.

Aliyah growled. "Hey, do you have any idea how much that thing cost?" she spat. "Not to mention breaking something that doesn't belong to you!"

"How about taking something that doesn't belong to me?" Necrolai challenged holding up the parchment in her clawed hands. "Thank you for leading us the way, Platinum Ranger, we could never have done it without you. The Fireheart is mine."

Pushing herself up, Aliyah bit back a snarl and reached for her morpher. "Not in this life time," she promised. "Magical Source! Mystic Force! With the power of Light!"

~*Against All Odds*~

Aliyah groaned as she hit the ground on her stomach.

The Taxi Cab monster revved its engines and rolled towards her.

"Whoa," the Platinum ranger squealed, throwing herself aside and rolling out of the way. She rolled back to her knees and jumped up and over as the taxi served and came back towards her. "Now I know why they do say don't play in traffic!" she muttered, jumping up and aiming a kick for the windscreen of the car, it cracked and the monster reverted back to its creature form.

"Aliyah!"

Aliyah looked around at the sound of her name, a smile coming to her face as she spotted Rebecca, Nick and Vida making their way towards her from across the ravine. The three of them were fully morphed and it was Rebecca who had called.

"Are you OK?"

"I am now," Aliyah nodded, turning to Necrolai. "She has the secret to the Fireheart!"

"You found it?" Nick asked.

"I found the map," Aliyah said.

"How?

"With a little help,"

Rebecca frowned.

"It's not important," Aliyah said, shaking her head. "But we need to get that map..."

"Then let's do it," Vida nodded. "Let's show this overgrown bat what we're made off!"

"Hey, wait!" Xander shouted as he, Maddie and Chip finally arrived. They had made it out of the forest, with Phineas help, after being trapped in a spider's web by a giant boarbeast. "Are we late?"

"No, just in time," Rebecca said, jumping up onto an overhead ledge. The others followed her.

"Power Rangers Mystic Force!" the seven of them yelled at once.

The cab monster growled, fired several energy blasts at the rangers, engulfing five of seven of them in smoke, while Aliyah and Nick jumped from the ledge, flipped over and landed, cat-like, before running at the monster, their Magi staff's drawn.

~*Against All Odds*~

"I'm really sorry, everyone," Xander apologized later that afternoon.

After successfully managing to destroy the Taxi cab monster with the Titan Megazord, and ripping the Fireheart map in half, curtsy of a single fight between Necrolai and Vida, the rangers, with a little help from Rebecca and her magic, teleported back to Rootcore with their half of the bounty.

"I guess being a part of a born leader," Xander continued, nodding at Rebecca, "is knowing when to follow."

The Black ranger nodded. "I guess today wasn't a total failure," she smiled. "You did, at the very least, learn a thing or two."

"Yeah," Xander nodded. "How following your instincts is not always a bad idea..."

"Speaking of following your instincts," Vida said, looking around. "Where's Ali?"

"Blue Bay Harbour," Rebecca answered. "She has an idea on how to figure out where to start looking for the Fireheart..."

"So why is she in Blue Bay Harbour?" Chip asked.

"Because her idea entitles the help of an old friend…"


Copyrighted ©

A/N: Cookies and cream to those of you who review.

Chapter written by xXxKaraBeckerCutterxXx

Chapter updated Wednesday, October 24, 2012 at 04:32am