A/N: Wow, this took like no time to write. I'm on Spring Break, so I have nothing to do all day really. So, I literally spent almost all day writing. I wrote this entire chapter today and then I finished up the first chapter of the original fanfic I'm working on. Man, it feels good to write so much in one day. But yeah, I hope you guys like this episode! It's a really good one.

Anyways, without further ado, I give you Power Rangers Element Storm Chapter 20. Enjoy!

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Episode 20: Divided We Stand

Erica lay stretched across her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Tears flowed from her eyes and soaked her pillowcase. Her breath came in short, staccato sobs and her body rocked gently with each one. She let water seep out through her pores to cool the burns that spotted her light skin, but even that could hardly relinquish the pain.

"I can't believe he did that to me..." she whispered to herself. Her voice was so soft even she could hardly hear it. "We're supposed to be on the same side..." Erica had known that Stephen would get so angry at her for failing him, but she had never expected him to blatantly attack her like that. In his fury, he had viciously attacked her with his Dark Fire. She was too afraid of igniting his rage even more to fight back, so she only tried desperately to protect herself with her Dark Water. It wasn't much use, however, and she was still hurt pretty badly.

As she lay there trying to ease her pain, Erica found herself wishing that she had been with Rufus the day he turned good. She would have followed him, and then she wouldn't be suffering the way she was now. Her tears came anew as she thought of how he had left her. She thought that he loved her as she loved him, but now that didn't seem so certain.

Suddenly, much to her dismay and fear, she heard Stephen calling her from the other room. Getting up painfully, she hoped that his almost cheerful tone of voice meant that he wasn't still angry at her. It had been a whole two days since the failure of Venorn, so hopefully Stephen had forgotten about it like Erica wished she could.

When she got out to the main room, she found Stephen standing there smiling at her. He looked her up and down, mentally noting her wounds from his attack. But, he said nothing about that as he plunged immediately into what he was planning on saying.

"The way the Rangers are now, they're almost invincible to us," he began, seemingly pointing out the obvious on purpose. "If they continue working together, we'll never beat them. We need to separate them somehow..." He didn't take his eyes off of Erica as he waited for her to respond, almost looking like he knew or guessed what she would say.

"And how do you propose we do that?" Erica asked, forcing herself to make eye contact with the man she now feared so much. Stephen smirked and looked satisfied, as if she had said exactly what he had expected to hear.

"We just need to attack more than one place at a time so they'll have to split up!" he said, sounding proud and confident with himself. "So, I'm going to need you to come up with at least two monsters for me. If we can even split them in half it should work out just fine."

Erica was a bit taken aback at this. "But Stephen, do the two of us have enough power to create two monsters at a time?" she asked him. "I mean, we never even tried that when Rufus…" Before she could finish, Stephen's eyes began to glow with fire, making her stop short in fear.

"Do not mention that name again, Raine," he said, his tone turning suddenly dark and angry. Then, his face and voice went back to normal and he continued in the same way he had spoken before. "No worries," he assured her. "You may not have noticed, but I have grown much in power. Combined with your power, we should easily be able to create one monster after another. We'll send each of them to different parts of town with a band of Crodus to keep each of the Rangers busy. This way, they'll be forced to split up and we won't have all 11 of them against us at the same time."

He paused, smiling at these thoughts and seeming to look off into space dreamily. Then, he snapped back to attention and looked at Erica again.

"So, go back into your room and think up some monsters for me, Raine," he said in a sickeningly cheerful voice. "Make sure they're good ones too. I need the very best you can give me."

Erica nodded and scampered back into her room, shutting the door softly behind her. She sighed deeply with relief that he had not mentioned what had happened with Venorn or his attacking her. His attitude frightened her, though, and it was not reassuring. Sighing again, she flopped gently back onto her bed and started to think, hoping she could come up with something worthy of creation this time.

The park was nearly empty as Kimber and Will walked towards the playground. It was during school hours, and the kids would not be let out until a few hours from now. The other Rangers were still in school as well, so the two were free to do what they wished. They had decided to come to the park where it would hopefully be peaceful.

They were not disappointed. A slight, cool, California Spring breeze blew through the trees, creating a soft fluttering noise that was quite calming. The only other sound was the chirping of the birds as they made their nests and tended to their young. The two Power Rangers went to the swing set, walking across the warm sand. Kimber sat on one of the swings and held on tightly to the chains holding it up.

Will smiled and began to push her gently, making the swing move higher and higher with each push. Kimber laughed merrily as she swung to and fro. She was delighted at the mild touch of her friend and leader every time she swung back towards him. Will was content to stand and watch her, enchanted by the beauty of her smile.

After a while of this, Kimber slowed the swing down and jumped off. She then ran across to the jungle gym and climbed up to the top, where there was a little steering wheel. While Will followed her slowly, she turned the wheel and pretended she was steering a ship, laughing the whole time. Once her friend finally got up to her, she stopped and turned to him, smiling merrily.

"I feel like a kid again," she laughed. "It's been so long since I've taken the time to just come to the park like this."

Will nodded. "It's been even longer since I have." He ran his hand thoughtfully along the top of the wheel, turning it slowly. He let his eyes follow his hand, not willing to look at Kimber. "All these years, it has been so hard to find any joy amongst all the pain. All this time, I thought, 'How can I be happy when they're gone?' It never seemed right. I thought you guys were…dead. H...how could I allow myself to be happy when you guys were gone forever, never able to feel anything again?"

Kimber's lips parted slightly as she gazed at her friend. She hardly knew what to say as tears began slowly rolling down his cheeks. Reaching her hand towards him, she lifted up his head so he was facing her and she wiped away a tear from his eyes. His deep brown globes seemed to search hers as he looked at her sadly.

"A…Adus, I'm so sorry," Kimber whispered, letting her hand drop to her side again. "I had no idea… But, you should have known I would…we would want you to be happy. Despite what we said when we were under Pyric's control, none of us ever blamed you for what happened to us. We know that you did everything you could to protect us. There was nothing more you could have done."

Will closed his eyes and let the tears continue to fall. "It was my fault," he said softly. "And now nothing can undo the damage of his spell on you, on all of you." He paused, sighing painfully as he looked at the smaller girl. "Because of what Pyric did, I'm twice your age now. He ruined entirely what we had, Anaia."

The Yellow Ranger watched him helplessly, struggling to find words. "But Adus, I still love you, and I always will," she said as the tears welled up in her eyes as well.

"I love you too, Anaia." Will told her. "So much. And nothing will ever change that. But we both know that now it can never be. Because of what Pyric did to us, we can never be together again." The words seemed to pierce both of their hearts as silence filled the park. Kimber could only nod slowly, not knowing what else to do. She couldn't bring herself to look up at the older man now as the pain weighed heavily on the both of them.

A few hours later, Erica got up again and went out into the main room of the tower, where Stephen was glancing through the telescope thoughtfully. As she entered, however, he whipped around to face her, an oddly eager look on his normally serious face.

"Well?" he asked with anticipation. "What have you got for me?"

Erica forced a small smile. "I think they should be able to do the trick, Stephen," she replied, her voice sounding small compared to his deep one.

"Good, good," her master replied with a smile. "Let's do this then. The Rangers are out of school now, so they'll be easy bait for our trap." With that, he moved closer to Erica and they formed their circle.

After creating the monsters the way they always had in the past, Stephen looked them up and down with judging eyes. He nodded approvingly, smirking.

"These should do just fine, Raine," he said, laying a hand on her shoulder. Even though he was applauding her, the girl still flinched a little under his touch. Either Stephen didn't notice this or he chose not to say anything about it. "Now, what shall we name them?"

Erica looked at him oddly. "Is that really important?" she asked. "I mean, naming them won't teleport them like it did when…" She stopped herself in time before saying Rufus' name. "When he named them."

Stephen smiled at her. "Didn't I tell you that my power had grown? Just watch and you'll see." He walked up to the first monster, which was about his size. It had thick, brown and green scales and it looked like some sort of mutated lizard. "Hmm. Your name shall be Ikiru," he said to the creature. As soon as the word was out, Ikiru disappeared in a flash of green. Erica could only gape at this in disbelief. Somehow, Stephen had gained Rufus' power of teleportation!

Again pretending not to notice Erica's reaction, the older boy went to the other monster, which looked like some sort of gigantic bird. It was also about his size, but it was covered in white and blue feathers with a bright yellowish orange beak. "And your name shall be Yukora," he said. With that, Yukora teleported away in a flash of blue.

Then, Stephen turned back to Erica, ignoring the look of shock on her face. "I've sent each of them down with a good number of Crodus to help them," he informed her. Walking over to the telescope again, he focused in to the park, where Ikiru had been teleported, sighing contentedly. "Now, we just sit back and watch our monsters destroy the Rangers once and for all!"

After school, Dan, Peg, Sean, Beth, Tiz, Jud, Angela, and Jorge made their way over to the Overclocked café like usual. Much to their surprise, it was closed, and looking in through the huge windows, they saw no sign of Will.

"Where could he have gone?" Dan asked, confused. "It's not like him to not be open when school gets out."

"Well, I did overhear him and Kimber talking about going to the park today," Jorge put in. "But they still should be back by now."

"This doesn't sound good," Tiz sighed. "We should try to contact him."

Peg nodded. Putting her morpher to her lips, she pressed the button for the communicator. "Will? Come in, Will." She spoke into her morpher and then released the button, waiting for a response. It wasn't long before their leader's rushed and breathy voice came to them out through the communicator.

"Good, you're there, Peg," he said, sounding relieved. "Kimber and I have run into a little trouble at the park. One of Pyric's monsters with a bunch of Crodus. We need you guys to come help."

"On our way," Jud said, leaning in so his voice would be heard through Peg's morpher. Suddenly, a flash of blue light filled the area behind them. Turning around, the Rangers saw a strange, bird-like creature appear, surrounded by Crodus.

"Uh, Will, we've got a bit of a problem over here as well," Dan said into his own morpher. "But I'll send some Rangers to go help you guys." Looking up, he thought quickly. "Jud, you take Jorge, Angela, and Beth with you and go to the park. The rest of us will stay here and take care of this guy." Jud nodded, and motioned for the others to follow him. The four of them ran towards the park as quickly as they could.

"Should we try to contact Rufus, Dan?" Tiz asked.

"I'll do it," Peg offered. "You guys go ahead." The three boys nodded and took a few steps forward.

"Ready, guys?" Dan asked.

"Ready!"

"Element, Fire!"

"Element, Wind!"

"Element, Earth!"

Now morphed, they ran towards Yukora, ready to fight. Behind them, Peg spoke into her morpher, calling Rufus to help.

As the other four Rangers arrived at the park, the scene before them was not pretty. Will and Kimber were morphed, but they were obviously weary, staggering about slightly as they fought.

"Come on, guys!" Jud cried. "Ready?"

"Ready!" the others replied.

"Element, Light Water!"

"Element, Light Wind!"

"Element, Light Earth!"

"Element, Earth!"

The Power Rangers rushed in to help their friends. Jud, Jorge, Will, and Kimber took on Ikiru while Beth and Angela went for the Crodus. The two girls split up, each jumping in the midst of a pack of the footsoldiers.

Beth immediately called out her weapons, crossing her arms as she gripped them tightly in her fists. She ran forward towards a Crodu, slashing her daggers across its arms. Sparks flew off of it, and it fell backwards, clutching the places she hit. She leapt up and flipped over its fallen body, landing behind another Crodu that was coming to help. Twisting around quickly, she let the blades of her daggers grind across its back. It stopped in its tracks, but before it could turn to face her, she kicked it and made it fall forward onto the other Crodu. Two enemies ran towards her at the same time, one on either side of her. Leaping into the air, she kicked her legs out sideways, knocking them away from her and them flipping backwards, landing again expertly.

Angela took out her bow and began shooting arrow after arrow at the surrounding footsoldiers. While some of her arrows hit, most of them were dodged. Seeing that this wasn't working, Angela ran forward towards the Crodus, gripping her bow tightly in both hands. They rushed towards her as well, but right before they clashed, Angela flipped over them and then she slashed her bow behind her, scraping across the backs of her enemies. Turning to face them, she took a few steps back and began pelting them with arrows again. This time, they could not dodge them, and they fell forward and dissipated.

The other Rangers were not having as much luck with Ikiru. He proved to be a very skillful fighter, and he used his powerful arms to throw the Rangers away from him as soon as they approached. While he was distracted with knocking Kimber and Jorge away from him, Will and Jud took the opportunity to rush his other side, slashing their weapons across his thick scales. While sparks flew from him, the attack did not seem to really faze him.

"His scales must serve as armor for him," Will suggested. "They appear to be as strong as dragon's scales."

"Noted," Jud replied grimly. "So what can we do to stop him?" Will just shook his head, not having an answer for that.

Back in front of the café, Peg and Sean were keeping the Crodus busy while Dan, Tiz, and Rufus, who had quickly teleported over there to help, worked on Yukora.

As soon as they rushed in to attack the Crodus, Peg and Sean found themselves completely surrounded as their enemies made a circle around them. They stood back to back in a fighting pose. Before starting, they looked at each other and nodded. The two of them loved working together, and they were very good at it. Calling on their weapons, they ran off in opposite directions to attack the Crodus.

Sean started right off the bat using his bow more as a blade, not shooting arrows right now. He slashed it this way and that, knocking Crodus away from him on both sides. As one came up from behind him, he heard its footsteps even above the noise of the battle. Jumping up, he kicked backwards, spinning himself in the air so that he landed facing the Crodu he had just hit. He then shot an energy arrow at the enemy, making it fly backwards from being hit at such a short range. It impacted three others behind it hard, knocking them onto the ground with the force.

Behind him, Peg slashed and jabbed her trident at the Crodus, hitting them each time with powerful blows. But, somehow, her attacks weren't putting the footsoldiers out of commission. They stood up soon after they were forced to the ground, and they seemed hardly weakened. Suddenly, a Crodu snuck up from behind Peg, and in the frustration of seeing her attacks proving ineffective, she didn't notice it. It reached under her arms and held her in place while she could only struggle to get free. Other Crodus in front of her moved in and began hitting her viciously. While she was unable to move, one of the enemies grabbed her trident and threw it far out of her reach.

The boys were finding their battle with Yukora much less of a challenge. They each held their weapons in their hands as they slashed mercilessly at the feathered body of the strange monster. It all seemed to easy, until all of a sudden, Yukora leapt into the air and flew out of their reach just as they were about to hit him. Of course, this was unexpected, so they weren't able to stop themselves in time before they hit each other with their weapons. This caused each of them to fly backwards in pain, landing on their backs.

Having defeated all of the Crodus in his vicinity, Sean turned around to see that Peg was in trouble. Her trident had landed not too far from him, so he picked it up and ran towards her. When he got there, he jabbed the tip of the trident into the back of the Crodu that was holding his friend, making him let go of her. She turned around to face him and he tossed her weapon back to her. Catching it, she nodded her thanks and ran up to him.

"Hey, how about we double-team these losers?" she suggested.

"Just what I was going to say," Sean replied. With that, he motioned for Peg to get on his shoulders as the remaining Crodus made a circle around them again. The Blue Ranger leapt up on Sean's shoulders and pointed her trident down at them. Dropping his bow, the White Ranger grabbed her legs, holding her tightly. Then, Peg began to shoot a strong burst of Water out through the tip of her trident. While she was doing this, Sean spun quickly around in circles so that the Water hit every Crodu around them. The sheer force of the impact made the enemies fall over and dissipate.

But Yukora had not abandoned the fight. The large winged creature flew towards them as they stood up, knocking them back down with his arms. This happened twice, and each time it caused sparks to fly off of their suits. After the second time, they stayed down.

"Dan! What now?" Tiz asked.

"I don't know," Dan replied truthfully. He felt helpless, since as the leader he should know what to do.

"Hey, maybe you guys can combine your weapons," Rufus suggested.

"Well, Beth's not here, and we kind of need her daggers for that…" Dan said.

Just then, Peg and Sean walked up to them, having heard what was said. As Yukora zeroed in to hit them as well, they ducked quickly, dodging him just in time.

"Wait, maybe it could still work," Peg argued. "Maybe we could include Rufus' lance in the combination. It might give us enough power to defeat this guy."

Sean nodded empathetically. "Good idea, Peg," he said, laying his hand on her back. "It just might work."

The others now ventured to get up, ducking as Yukora once again flew over them.

"Well, it's worth a shot," Dan agreed. With this, he pointed his sword out in front of him. Peg placed her trident on top of it and Sean put his bow sideways on top of that. Tiz laid his sai on the middle of the bow, the blade facing outward. Finally, Rufus set his lance on top of the sai.

Dan waited until he saw Yukora zooming towards them for another attack. Peg, Sean, Tiz, and Rufus stood behind him, each with their hands on his back. As Yukora once again drew towards them, Dan prepared to shoot. "Ready! Aim! Fire!" A powerful blast of energy burst from the weapon, hitting the flying creature head on. It exploded on impact, destroying the monster with its force.

Back at the park, the other Rangers were still struggling with Ikiru. His immensely strong scales would not allow him to take any damage even when all six Rangers were now able to attack him at once, having gotten rid of the Crodus. They were taking much damage themselves as he pushed them away like bowling pins with his thick arms. The Rangers didn't know what they could do to defeat him.

As Beth was thrown back painfully, an idea came to her. "Guys!" she called out hoarsely. "Try combining your weapons. If we can do it with ours, I'm sure you can."

Will looked at her thoughtfully. "You're right, Beth!" he cried. "Let's give it a shot, Trienith Rangers."

The others nodded at him and they drew in around him. Will held his sword out in front of him and Jorge placed his trident on top of it. Angela then laid her bow across it, and then Jud stuck his daggers blade first on the undersides of the bow. At last, Kimber put her sai on top of the bow.

"Alright, guys, I hope this works!" Will held the weapon erect as the others filed in behind him, each laying their hand on their leader. "Ready! Aim! Fire!" The weapon let out an enormous blast of energy, impacting Ikiru and destroying him.

Back in the tower, Stephen growled in anger. This wasn't supposed to happen! They were just as strong apart as all together. How was that possible? It didn't matter how, he decided. All that mattered was that he had lost again due to the weakness of his monsters. His eyes began to flame up as he turned around to look for Erica. Not seeing her in the room, he decided that that was best. If he had seen her, he would have destroyed her in his rage.

Instead, he let out a huge fireball at her door, but he made it dissolve before it hit it. Well, that was the last time he would work with monsters, he decided. Obviously, they weren't good enough.

"If you want things done right, you have to do them yourself," he told himself, calming down at this thought as he made his way to his own room. "It won't be long now before I'm ready to show those Power Rangers the real meaning of power. Then, they'll regret ever crossing me."

With these words, he went into his room and slammed the door behind him.

Back at the café, the Rangers were discussing the day's victory over smoothies. Will hadn't opened up again yet, saying that he was closed for renovations. After a battle like that, he felt like doing anything but work.

"That was amazing," Tiz commented, taking a sip of his smoothie and grinning. "Even separated, we're still so powerful."

"I know this sounds lame, but it helps that we all worked together," Peg said. "Combing our weapons was the best thing we could have done."

"Yeah, I'm sure glad Beth suggested that we do that," Jorge said with a smile, looking at his friend as he held Angela close to him. Beth blushed a little modestly, but she said nothing.

"You know, I would have thought of that eventually," Jud put in. This made the others laugh as Kimber laid a hand on her friend's back.

"Sure you would have," she laughed.

Will laughed with them, but his face soon became solemn again. "In all seriousness though, we all do work very well together. That may make all the difference against Pyric. So, let's make sure that we never lose that." He lifted his cup up towards the others. "To teamwork!"

"To teamwork!" his friends agreed in unison, bringing their cups together.

After this, a comfortable silence filled the table for a moment. Beth looked over at Rufus, who was sitting a bit apart from them with a thoughtful expression.

"Hey, what's the matter, Rufus?" she asked, concern in her voice. Being spoken to seemed to shake the boy out of his thoughts.

"Oh, um, nothing," he replied a bit too quickly.

"It's not 'nothing'," Kimber said, walking over to him. "You can tell us. We're your friends." This got a smile out of him, and he stood up and moved closer to the others.

"Well, it's just…" he began slowly, trying hard to think of how to put this. "I just feel so bad for leaving Raine all alone." He paused, struggling painfully with himself. Guys, I can't just leave Erica there alone with Stephen. Who knows what he'll do to her… Especially since her monsters are failing him. As angry as he got at her before, it must be so much more intense now. I have to do something to help her."

"What makes you think she wants to turn good?" Peg asked. "She seems pretty content being evil to me."

Rufus glared at her slightly. "Well, you don't know Erica," he insisted. "She would have followed me instantly if she had been with us that day. But instead, I left her alone with Pyric. I just have to do something…"

Will laid his hand on Rufus' shoulder. "You're right, Oscuro," he said gently. "She is in danger with Pyric, especially if she does indeed want to turn good. But you're the only one who can get into the tower. Only you can help her now, Rufus."

The boy nodded, slowly at first, then with more determination. "You're right," he said firmly. "Only I can help her, and I will. I swear on my life that I will save her."

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A/N: I seem toonly have like two peoplewho still review this / But anyways,I hope you liked it! Leave a review!