Disclaimer: I don't own Power Rangers, House of Anubis or Big Time Rush

House of Power Rangers

Chapter 22: House of Strength

The past week had strangely been good for Nina, regardless of the fact that there had been some sort of attack every day. For example, the day after Nina was seventeen again (very strange situation) there was another Nighlok attack but this Nighlok managed to throw dirt on all the rangers except Emily, which already sounds ridiculous but what it did was even worse… they couldn't stop eating! The dirt caused the rangers to keep eating until they exploded! Of course, Emily wouldn't let that happen and naturally, Jayden wouldn't let her go into battle alone so as much as he struggled, he went after her to help but Emily did the bulk of the work, even using the black box! Once the Nighlok was destroyed though, whatever power the Nighlok had over the rangers broke so they rushed over to help defeat the mega mode although none of them could bare toe at for the rest of the day. The day after that was just a few moogers which could handle but the next day there was another Nighlok attack. This one actually caused Mike and Kevin to bound to each other at their wrists by some sort of unbreakable (trust me they tried), sticky white tack. While it was inconvenient, especially since the two of them could barely agree on a direction to walk and the two of had actually had dates planned with Mia and Shaylee, respectively, they eventually figured out how to work together to the point that bound together or not, they were totally in sync with each other – they even ended up just double dating with the girls which actually turned out pretty well. The most recent Nighlok attack, was just two days ago and this one had had a major impact on the team, namely Jayden. The team received a signal of disturbance on an small island but since the communication lines seemed to be down, the rangers decided to and investigate, Nina choosing to stay behind, half because while she had handed in her assignment she had sacrificed a bit of training time which she wanted to make up for and although she technically 'didn't need' to do so but she would only get better so what was the harm? The other reason she chose to stay behind was just in case of an attack on the city while the rest of the rangers were gone, luckily nothing like that happened but they did get a surprise visit from Cody whilst she trained with Shaylee – he got permission to come this time and he came baring one of the best homemade gifts Nina had ever seem. A bullzooka! Nina had borrowed Mentor's motorbike to take it to the rangers on the island and she hadn't arrived a moment too soon. She'd handed it to Jayden once she'd arrived and it had really help to turn the battle around. Seeing Deker, Serrator and Dayu in the same place made Nina wonder exactly what had gone down but she only asked the questions after the more pressing concerns were dealt with. She'd just been training a lot though and she felt great, strangely less stressed than the previous week.


Jayden had been very out of it since that battle, but Nina was only half sure why. Mia had told her what Deker had said to him, but he didn't really believe that did he?

"Come at me," Jayden growled, the surrounding rangers nodding at each other before charging in with their training swords against. This morning, the rangers, minus Antonio were practicing their group technique by going up against the strongest samurai they know; Jayden. They did this every now and then just to test and improve their group dynamic but the group while not quite out of sync, they were struggling to take down the red ranger because since it was training, naturally, they were holding back, just slightly, Jayden however, was not. He was fighting them full out, as though he were truly on his own, so once he knocked them down, and they got back up to try again, he spun his sword around, knocking every single one of them down, except Nina, who stepped back and when with the momentum of his sword to bring it down and trap it under hers, locking her eyes with him as she did.

"Jayden!" She hissed, more concerned than angry, unlike the green ranger.

"Dude! It's only practice!"

"Sorry!" Jayden replied firmly, straightening up and looking straight ahead. "Practice is over."

"Mike, come on," Emily said, walking over to pull Mike away, the tension in the courtyard thickening. "Let's go inside."

"Hey!" Antonio says, cheerily, appearing by the door. "Am I late?" Usually, Nina would have found this amusing, maybe even laughed but right now, their leader was her worry so as Mia addresses the gold ranger, Nina turns to Jayden, stepping so she's in front of him and if he looked down just slightly, instead of the fixed point he was staring above her head, she would be what he saw.

"Jayden, what's going on?" But when he doesn't even shift his gaze to her she sighs. "Is this about what Deker said? Because you do know that's not true, right?"

"I'm sorry for being so hard on you guys. I didn't mean to," he says flatly.

"Jayden- "

"I'll see you later," he tells her before walking over to Ji. She just sighs before heading inside, to the indoor dojo. She couldn't help, still wanting to train.


Terry had come over to the house to drop off something for Mia, so Nina came in to say hi but once he leaves, Nina turns to Mia.

"I don't know why I still find it so strange seeing him. I think it's just weird knowing someone else has a sibling." Mia furrows her brow at Nina.

"Someone else? You have a sibling?"

"What? You have a sibling," Jayden asks, his voice shocking everyone as he stand at the front of the room having just entered with Ji stopping, clearly intrigued by the question, a feeling that mirrored those of all the other rangers around.

Nina just laughed, "I was talking about Emily."

"Oh right!" Mia replies, joining in laughing just as the gap sensor going off.

"Rangers," Nina sighs, pushing herself up. "I believe we have a job to do."

"There's a disturbance at the coastline," Kevin said opening the map. "But-" He cuts himself off hearing the door open.

"Sorry we're late," Mentor Ji tells them.

"Jayden, we can handle this if you're not- "Mia begins but Nina and Jayden cut her off simultaneously says,

"He's fine." "I'm fine."

"See," Nina grins as Jayden chuckles slightly.

"I am fine. And, I'm sorry. I had a lot of things on my mind earlier. I was wrong to act the way I did."

The rangers look around at each other, Emily piping up first stepping forwards and placing a hand on his forearm.

"Jayden it's okay." He smiles at her before looking around at the rest of the team.

"I just want you all to know how proud I am to fight alongside you."

"Dude, really. It's okay. Just glad to have you back but can you stop the proud stuff? You're freaking me out," Mike said, putting his fist out for Jayden to bump as the others chuckle but Antonio raises his hand.

"Excuse me? Shouldn't we all be hightailing out to the coastline?"

Jayden nods, "Let's go."


Once the rangers arrived at the coastline, the Nighlok they discovered there was Serrator. At first, they had just been fighting moogers, and then Dayu came but strangely enough, she was fighting against Serrator. While that had confused the rangers, they hadn't had time to dwell on it since they had moogers to deal with but as they finished those off and Serrator too preoccupied with Dayu to call more forth the sky started darkening.

"What's going with the sky?" Mike asked as the rangers grouped together, thunder rumbling. "It's darkening like an eclipse." As lightning struck the ground Kevin asked,

"Nina?" But the purple ranger shook her head.

"This isn't me. This isn't natural. This feels… dark," she tells them just as a low, grumbling voice begins to speak,

"Days shall become night, as I escape the netherworld to face my enemies!"

"Xandred," Jayden states, recognising the voice.

"What?" Serrator says, from behind the rangers, his battle with Dayu paused. "It can't be."

"It can be," Xandred says, rocks rolling piling up, the eerie red glow of the netherworld gaps, seeping through the cracks. "And it shall be!" The rangers stand frozen, not much they can do as the rocks explode, a wide, tall figure, standing in its wake. Nina's breath caught as Kevin asked the question that everyone was thinking and already knew the answer to.

"Jayden, is that- "

"Master Xandred."

"Red ranger," the Nighlok King seethed.

"Guess, you're not as strong as you thought. Your night spell's already losing power," Antonio mocked.

"Xandred," Dayu gasped.

"His spell is fading so his visit here will be short," Serrator points out, as Xandred screams, a patch of his body already drying out.

"I will destroy you all!" Xandred yells, striking the rangers down, too quickly for them to react. "Serrator! It's your turn!" He sends, what looks like black and purple tendrils of smoke at Serrator.

"I will not be bound!" Serrator shouts back, dodging the attacks, losing when he was holding – Dayu's harmonium. "NO!" As he dodges more attacks, he speaks to Xandred. "I never thought you'd venture into the realm. While you dry out, I'll take my leave."

"You will not escape me!" Xandred yells but Jayden distracts him from that enemy, being the first to recover, he tries to attack Xandred with his Blazing Strike, but it has no effect, Xandred just grabbing the blade with his hand.

"Ahh, yes. The red ranger. Pathetic head of the Shiba clan." Xandred, simply, strikes him away. However, seeing their leader knocked down is exactly the boost the rangers need to get back up. Unfortunately, the sextuple strike they send Xandred has quite the opposite effect they intended as Xandred redirects it back at them, knocking them all back down.

"He's more powerful than I imagined," Mia groans. However, as the rangers are down, Emily begins reaching for her sword, but Jayden gets to it first.

"Red ranger, I owe your family some payback and you're the one who's going to pay," the Nighlok King grunts as Jayden stands tall in front of him, merging the bullzooka and black box with Emily's spin sword to create the super bullzooka!

"Jayden, hold on," Emily says, pushing herself up.

"Jayden don't do it," Kevin warns.

"Emily's right." Jayden replies, getting into position. "I have to try." Jayden and Xandred begin to battle, in the air but it's when none of the shots from the super bullzooka hit, both parties involved begin to get annoyed.

"Enough playing around," Xandred yells, shooting Jayden down.

"No!" Emily yelled, getting up with the other rangers.

"It's the end of the line red ranger." Xandred takes another shot and the red ranger as he begins getting up, this one way more than necessary to keep him down. Jayden's more drops and although he tries to get up again, his body has been through a lot, so he falls back down, unconscious. "Pathetic."

"No!"


"Bring him here, he'll be fine," Ji says, as the rangers burst in, Kevin and Mike, holding up the red ranger, placing him on a couch. Not moments after Xandred had taken down Jayden, had he himself been forced back to the netherworld by Octooro but not until he called forth a colossal Mooger cannon! The rangers, minus Jayden and Emily (who had stayed to take care of him) had entered their upgraded megazord to take it down before rushing back.

"I'll grab him some water," Mia says, leaving the room. Looking around, the room Nina sees tears welling up in Emily's eyes. She steps back, wrapping an arm around her back,

"He'll be okay. He's strong." She knows that the weight they must carry is properly settling into everyone now, especially after seeing their ultimate foe.


It's later in the day that Jayden wakes up, sore and bruised but otherwise okay. Shaylee assures them that he'll be back to himself in a couple of days if he takes it easy but that easier said than done.

"You're supposed to be resting," Nina huffed, as he enters the courtyard. Once, they got back and Shaylee had assured them all that Jayden would be fine, she had gone back outside to train. She had left in her training gear in the first place, so she didn't have to change so right now she was kind of a sweaty mess.

"Actually, I'm supposed to be taking it easy," he points out.

"Jayden, seriously. That wasn't any ordinary fight. Just tonight, please don't. If not for you, then for my piece of mind," she pleads, sighing in relief when he stops reaching for the training swords.

"Fine."

"Thank you," she breathes.

"Why are you training so much though?" He asks, causing her to furrow her brow.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," he says, taking the sword away from her hands. "What have you done today besides train and go into battle?"

"I… okay fine but that's one d- "

"Nina, what have you done this whole week besides training and fighting?" Nina opened her mouth to answer but shut it again when she realised, she couldn't.

"I didn't even realise I was doing it," she sighs, walking over to the bench, talking a seat as she pick up her water bottle.

"You're gonna burn yourself out if you keep training like this. Trust me, I learnt that the hard way," he tells her going over to join her. "So, what's wrong? Is it because of what you dreamt last week?" Nina hadn't really told anyone what she saw. Not even Eddie. She hadn't been able to Skype him (too many people (and ears) around on his end), but he had been on his laptop when she was, even though it had been incredibly early there, he had known something was up with her and wanted to make sure she was okay. They hadn't spoken about school, or power ranger-ing, or living at Anubis house-ing, or anything that would stress either of them out, they just talked, and it was great. While neither had spoken about what had been bothering them, just talking like regular teenagers had serious helped pretend the weight of the world didn't rest on their shoulders for a little while.

"Kind of, I guess," she shrugs.

"How about this? I'll tell you what was up with me if you tell me what's up with you?" He suggests.

"Fine," she nods. "But you first."

"Okay," he agrees. "Deker told me I've lost my edge. Relying on you guys too much so I've become weaker."

"Jayden," she sighs. "You have lost your edge and you do rely on us but that does not make you weaker. We're a team. We rely on you too. And as much as we work together, we're great fighters on our own, especially you. You're not the same warrior you were when we all came together. That Jayden was lone wolf, so to speak. Now you're not. You are so much stronger and have become so much better since then. Whatever your edge was then? Yeah, you lost it, but you have a better one now and I don't just mean us, the team. You are a leader and have brought honour to the previous red rangers. Never forget that." Jayden chuckles. "What?"

"You sound just like Ji," he smiles.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment."

"You should. Anyways, your turn. What's bothering you?"

"Okay, so I know I'm going to sound crazy but I'm being serious. I can't exactly tell you why but sometimes, I get these flashes, images in my head of things that are happening or going to happen. I can't really control it but it's how I knew about those plaques that were stopping you from morphing at the beginning of the year when Antonio and I were working on the black box."

"I remember. Are they like visions?" And Nina's not sure if it shows on her face but she's so relieved he seems to believe her.

"Right well, last week when you guys 're-aged' me before I woke up, I had one of these visions. It was… not nice to watch. Essentially, all of you guys, everyone I care about ended up dead. Killed right in front of me… in horrible ways," she pauses for a moment, trying not to go back there in her mind. "Nothing I did helped, and I don't know when what I saw is supposed to happen. So, I guess I just figured if I train hard enough, I might be strong enough to do something if what I saw…" she trails off, not wanting to say it out loud. "Seeing Master Xandred today and how powerful he actually is, freaked me out slightly so I returned to training overdrive mode."

"Nina, what you saw hasn't happened and we don't even know for sure that it will. All I know, is that we are going to put everything we have into destroying Master Xandred even if it means we don't all get to see it. All we can do, is of course train as hard as we can but don't forget to enjoy everything too. We need that balance. If you're always training, by the time we get to a real battle, one time you just might be too tired to give it your all. We need a bit of moderation."

"You're right."

"Of course, I'm right. I'm the red ranger," he teases, to which she laughs, rolling her eyes before she quiets down.

"Jayden?"

"Yeah?"

"He's coming soon, isn't he? Master Xandred? It's going to end soon," she says. She sees Jayden nod in her peripheral vision.

"Yeah. I think it is." They sit in silence, dwelling on that fact before Nina exhales loudly.

"Okay, how about this? I won't train anymore tonight, if you don't."

"Deal," he chuckles, as they get up heading inside.

"And thank you. For believing me," she tells him as they pass the threshold.

"Of course. I have no reason not to," he replies.

"Right, well I'm gonna go shower because I'm really sweaty," she says.

"Oh yeah, you should. You stink," he mocks.

"Hey! I've been told my sweat smells like cinnamon so-"

"It does! Nina, if anything you've told me tonight is crazy, it's that!" He gasps as she chuckles walking away to her room.

It's a day late but chapter twenty-two is a go! This is coming out slightly later in the day than I planned but it's out! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, it was fun and slightly difficult to write since I skipped a couple of episodes but it's cool. There's only eight chapters left! (Until touchstone of Ra that is but we'll talk more about that closer to the time ) Anyways, so just confirming that there won't be any chapters out next week but I should be back for next Tuesday but I'll keep you updated. See you in a week and thanks for reading!