Disclaimer: I don't own Power Rangers, House of Anubis or Big Time Rush
House of Power Rangers
Chapter 14: House of Boxes
"Man, they're pretty banged up after that run-in with Arachnitor, huh?" Antonio sighs, standing at the threshold with Ji who nodded. Almost all the rangers, except Jayden, who was missing and Antonio, were in the hospital room. The battle against Arachnitor had weakened them all greatly.
"Now that the Sanzu River is seeping into our world, the Nighlok are getting stronger. Soon they will be too powerful for even our team to stop." He leaves the room, Antonio following closely behind. He reaches into a drawer. "It's crucial that you fill this Black Box with all the rangers' symbol powers."
"Once we rescue Jayden, he and I will get it running in no time," Antonio nods, causing their mentor to stop in his tracks. He turned back to the fisherman.
"Antonio, you must focus on the job at hand."
"But Jayden's out there," Antonio replied, his brow furrowed. He figured getting their friend and leader back would be top priority.
"Jayden would be the first to tell you the Black Box is the priority," Ji tells him. In the back of his head Antonio knows that Ji is saying makes sense and is true but there was still a little nagging voice of doubt. Taking the box from Mentor Ji, Antonio opened it and looked down doubtfully.
"But even the original red ranger couldn't finish this," he says wearily. Mentor Ji looks at the boy compassionately, leading him to the living room.
"Your lack of formal symbol power training will make this very difficult," Ji admits before pointing out. "But you did build your own samurai morpher."
"This is the ultimate hack job… my kind of challenge." Ji smiles at his determination.
"I have faith that your high-tech skills will enable you to succeed where others have failed."
"All right, I'm on it," Antonio nods. "With the others down, I know I have to pick up the slack." Ji nods at him before leaving the gold ranger to get to work.
Later, in the hospital room all the rangers were awake, just feeling a bit beat down after their fight. They felt so powerless, especially since Jayden had been taken away by a Nighlok while he was poisoned, and there was nothing they could do about it. Kevin had had enough! He threw the duvet off himself and stood up, catching the attention of the others in the room. "There's no time to rest! It's our sworn duty to keep the world safe. We're samurai. Nothing can stop us." However, as soon as he attempted to walk, he found himself stumbling.
"Kevin!" Emily gasped as he caught himself on the bed.
"I know it's frustrating," Mia says as he sits back on his bed. "But we have to rest."
"They're right, dude," Mike adds. "We're no good like this." Kevin sighs, laying back in bed. Nina looks over at her teammates, smiling sadly before turning back to her laptop. She'd tried to go and get it earlier, but Ji had stopped her and got it for her instead. She didn't like sitting around, feeling useless so she was hoping that Eddie had gotten back to her. She was in luck! Opening her email, she found she had two emails from him.
Hey Nina!
I'm so glad you emailed me. You're definitely right, things have not been easy around here at all! Is this really how you spent your two years here? How did you still manage to go to class and not fall asleep all the time? The locket has actually been a lifesaver. It has been working for me. Anyways I hope you're good. I'll go down and look for the book tonight.
Eddie
She was glad he was doing good, even if things hadn't settled down. He didn't sound like he was suffering badly. The second email had read,
So, I found the book. Don't worry, no one followed me. I came alone and man this place is dusty! It took me a little while, but I found it. The chapter you were talking about was still bookmarked luckily so here. I found this makes more sense to you than it does to me. When you finally finish you're gonna have to explain this to me.
Below were 9 attachments; the photos of the pages.
Thank you, Eddie, she thought to herself before she started reading the pages. She was going to reply because there was so much, she wanted to say but at the same time, she wasn't sure exactly what to say. He said when you finally finish, and Nina didn't know how to reply to that. Especially since she had no idea when that would be. She didn't want to be negative and she was confident that they would stop Master Xandred and his Nighlok eventually, she just wasn't sure when. She'd reply later. For now, she was just going to copy out the relevant notes from the pages Eddie had sent her.
"Nina, are you doing work, right now?" Mike asks her in awe.
"Something like that," she replies, and she took down more from the book.
"Man, I do not wish that," Mike says, causing her to look up and shake her head at him but she can't help but smile.
"Mike," Emily scolds.
"Sorry," he tells her, but she just brushes it off.
Eventually, Nina actually started doing schoolwork seeing as there wasn't much else to do. The rangers had begun to feel a bit better and she had read through the pages Eddie sent her and they weren't confusing, but she just couldn't put something together. She had left it deciding to come back to it later. Shutting her laptop and putting her notebook on top of it, she placed them on the desk beside her bed. She might as well rest now, she was kind of tired of reading through things. She slid down the bed to lay down but as soon as her head hit the pillow she inhaled sharply.
"Nina?" she heard Kevin, maybe, ask. She wasn't sure because there was a louder voice and images flashing in her head.
"Chosen one…" The voice seemed to echo. "Draw the symbols, activate the box." Kanji and symbols, she hadn't seen before flashed in her head and somehow, she understood what they meant. "Activate the box…" The loud, echoing voice whispered once more before she suddenly sat up gasping.
"Nina, what happened? Are you okay?" Kevin asks crouching by her bed.
"I'm fine," she says, trying to move the duvet away. It's tangled around her legs. "Where's the black box?"
"Antonio's working on it right now," Mia tells her as Ji enters with a towel.
"Nina, where are you going?" He asks, he says rushing over. "You need to rest."
"No, no I'm fine. I need to help Antonio," she says, lightly pushing away the towel Ji had away from her head.
"Nina, you just looked like you were having a seizure, I don't think that counts as okay," Mike tells her.
"Guys, I promise you, I'm fine. Seriously, but I know how to help Antonio and I need to do it now," she says, looking around at her fussing teammates.
"Okay," Emily nods. Nina gets up and walks to the living room where Antonio is. The floor was kind of cold making her wish she at least she had socks. The rangers and Ji follow her and on entering the room they see Antonio breathing heavily, leaning on one of the couches. Using so much symbol power is clearly draining him.
"Antonio, I can help you," Nina says, going over to the gold ranger, putting a hand on his shoulder as she kneels in front of him.
"What? How?" He asks her, as she helps him up.
"I can't explain it, but I can. Trust me but I still need your help," she says.
"Okay," he nods as the gap sensor begins going off. "Oh, we can't do it now. We need your discs, but you have to take them into battle." Emily, however, reaches into her back pocket, holding out her disc to Antonio.
"We'll make do without them," she says. Mike looks at her smiling but pulling out his disc too the other two following suit.
"She's right," Mike says. "It's way more important for you to finish this."
Antonio still seems hesitant to continue, wanting to find Jayden instead but the others manage to convince him that Jayden will want them to do this first. He knows they're right. They want to find him too, of course they do, but their duty as Samurai rangers is to help those who can't really help themselves. Besides in a situation like this, they know Jayden himself would say his life is insignificant compared to the fate of the whole world. It's clear Nina is hesitant to leave with her team. She wants to help, but she knows that she's the only person who can help here too.
"Nina, it's okay," Kevin tells her. "You stay here. If you're sure you can help him get the Black Box working quicker, you should do it."
"Are you sure?" She asks.
"Yeah, we've got this, don't worry," Mike nods.
"Okay, get out of here! We've got work to do," Antonio laughs as the others run out.
After about half an hour, Antonio has managed to program Mia and Mike's symbol power into the Black Box but with each one he adds it gets harder. Symbol power drains the rangers and he's used a lot so far.
"Nice Antonio," Nina cheer as he finishes putting in Kevin's.
"Now let's keep it going with a little yellow," Antonio says, programming his morpher to add Emily's symbol power. At first, it appears to be working but then the stream of symbol power fades.
"No! I just don't have enough symbol energy to finish it fast enough!" Antonio yells, throwing himself down on a chair. "I'm sorry… it's just that the whole planet's counting on me." Just as Nina's about to reply to his fears he perks up. "Wait, the whole planet... that's it!" He exclaims, typing away on his morpher. "I'll piggyback on the global satellite system and use my light symbol power to triangulate with Jayden's samuraizer."
"I have no idea what that means but if it means you can find Jayden, I say do it," Nina says. It only takes moments before,
"Golden! I found him!" Antonio walks over to Mentor Ji. "Look, I can't finish the black box now, but I can help Jayden."
"Go," Ji replies after a moment's hesitation.
"Nina, I'm -" Antonio starts but said girl interrupts him with a wave of her hand.
"You've done more than enough for me to do what I have to," she says, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Go help Jayden." Antonio nods before running out, leaving the purple ranger with Ji. Walking back over to the table with the Black Box, Nina pulls out her samuraizer,
"Okay, my turn." She brings it down to the floor with her before sitting cross legged in front of it.
It's about another half hour later when Nina begin getting tired. She's been drawing the symbols from her vision onto the talisman. She may not know them, but she understands them; light, power, strength, agility. She's assuming these are things that unlocking the black box will help them with, but she is just so... Tired…
"Nina. Nina," a voice says. She feels herself being shaken. Opening her eyes, she sees Emily. "Nina, wake up."
"What? What happened?" Looking to her side she sees the Black Box; she reaches out for it. "I need to finish..." she sighs but she's still weak.
Emily pulls her arm back. "No Nina, you need to rest. You used way too much symbol power."
"But-" Nina begins but she's cut off by Jayden.
"No Nina, Emily's right. You have to rest." Looking up, Nina realises that the whole team is back.
"Jayden, you're here!" she breathes happily but weakly. He smiles back at her slightly worried. She tries to get up, but she ends up stumbling and having to lean on Emily. "Whoa, okay maybe you're right. I should rest." She was already weak before she started using her symbol power to activate the box, weaker than the others due to her lack of rest and the vision too; now she's almost completely drained. She pushes away from Emily gently, trying to walk to her room but she only manages a few steps before Jayden catches her before she can fall.
"Let me help you, Nina," Jayden says, pulling her arm over his shoulder as he hunches down to put his arm around her waist, helping her to her room. The purple ranger was already asleep before they reached her bed.
It's just after six in the evening when Nina finally wakes up. She's still exhausted from not having slept for nearly as long as she probably should've but luckily not to the point of collapsing as she takes a few steps. She hears talking and some laughing somewhere else in the house as she can't help but get up and find out where it's coming from. Getting out from her bed, not completely remembering how she got there, she sees she's still wearing her clothes from earlier. She decides to put on some socks before she walks out of the room. Following the voices, she finds herself in the living room, pausing at the threshold as she sees the rangers and Ji eating pizza and talking about how to defeat the more powerful Nighlok. It may seem like a weird topic, but it was clear they were enjoying themselves, not all their suggestions being serious.
"I bet if I made them my baby barracuda fish kebabs, they'd be willing to compromise," Antonio says, causing the others to laugh.
"What? So, they'd only attack every other Wednesday and the occasional Thursday?" Mia laughs.
"Maybe only once a year! I'm telling you now, they'd love them! I'm pretty sure Deker did, even if I didn't actually see him it them." Nina just smiles at her teammates. It was nice just seeing them enjoy themselves for once. Their lives were usually so intense and they were all still so young so having little moments like this made her wish she could stop time.
Mike was the first one to notice her, "Nina, hey!" The others turn to look at her as he gets up, gesturing for her to take his seat. She thanks him, taking his spot next to Emily as he moves to join Antonio on the floor.
"How are you feeling?" Mia asks her.
"Tired but don't worry, I'm not going to pass out," she tells them.
"Good. Honestly, we didn't think we'd be seeing you again today," Mike says.
"And miss out on this talk of baby barracuda kebabs? No way," she smiles, grabbing a slice of pizza. She looks across from her, seeing Jayden looking at her a question in his eyes. She nods at him subtly, smiling, letting him know she'll be fine.
And chapter fourteen has officially aired (yeah, pretty sure I've run out of endings now)! I'm trying to subtly to make Nina's chosen one powers become more relevant to the story while not taking over from power rangers plot. Anyways, see you on Tuesday and thanks for reading!
