Summary: As the fight continues, the rangers try to keep their lives as normal as possible while learning about their full powers.

Phantom Rogue: Yeah, poor, poor Ray, but Andros is there to cheer him up. I love KO-35! And flying things… Do you think my laptop can fly?

Mz. Daydream: Andros is the best!

Arwennicole: Oh! I can't wait for that chapter! Hope you'll put it up soon. I've got a lot of chapters right now waiting to be put up and still two at my beta-reader for beta-ing.

Jenny: I can write sucky chapters! You just never get to read them. laughs evilly Already ranted about that 'open house' of yours in your review… Hope you enjoyed it.

Ghostwriter: Glad you liked it. And I agree, it turned out perfectly, even better than the original plan.

The-power-of-love: Glad you loved it. (happy now?)

Juzblue: Neither do I… Life's not fair!

As The Battle Rages

Chapter 12

"Hey Collin." Aurora greeted.

As she got up from the stone steps to her dorm, she looked around.

"I thought some of your friends were coming too." She commented as Collin opened the door to his passenger seat.

"Yeah, but they bailed so it's just you and me." Collin smiled.

"Okay…" Aurora replied, raising her eyebrow, but she got in anyway, though a little hesitantly.

Collin started the engine and drove off. The whole way to the cinema, he talked about his sports club and how he was the best of his team, but his coach not seeing that.

Aurora started to wonder why she had ever agreed to this in the first place. At the cinema he never even asked her about the movie, but just bought two tickets to the most gruesome horror movie that they played.

"I hope you don't mind the movie." Collin told her with a strange gleam in his eyes. "You can hold my hand if you get scared."

Aurora watched him enter with an open mouth. He thought she would get scared? If only he knew she and her cousins had snuck Ray and Gwyn into the same one the weekend before.

It was one of the oldest and cheapest dating tricks in the book. Aurora had heard enough stories from her mother to recognize it for what it was and she followed Collin with mixed feelings.

The feeling of dread only intensified when Collin went to sit in the back of the theatre. She joined him reluctantly and decided just to sit back and enjoy the movie; looking for little details she missed last time.

The theatre finally darkened and Collin's mouth stopped moving. Within minutes Aurora felt Collin's arm lying on the top of her backrest, lightly wrapping around her.

Aurora stiffened a little, ignoring it and keeping her eyes fixed on the movie. It seemed to be twice as long as last time, but it might just be Collin's undeniable presence practically demanding her attention, always making sure she knew he was sitting next to her.

She was happy when the movie was finally over and she could get out of the theatre's oppressing atmosphere and into the cool night air.

"Can you bring me back to my dorm?" Aurora asked, turning to Collin. "I still got some things to pack before I go back to Crystal Springs for the weekend."

"Hop in." Collin smirked.

Aurora didn't like the look in his eyes at all, but she ignored it and got in anyway. Collin got in too, started the engine and drove off. Belatedly Aurora realised they weren't going to the university at all, but the complete opposite direction.

"Um… Collin, my dorm is the other way." Aurora noted gently.

"I know, but I wanted to show you something." Collin replied. "Just sit back, relax and let me handle things."

His words only served to put Aurora more on the edge, but she didn't reply and stared out of the window. Soon she found herself on the top of a hill looking out over Angel Grove. It would have been a beautiful and breathtaking view, if it hadn't been for the other cars parked there, seemingly unoccupied, but she knew better.

"Collin? What are we doing here?" Aurora demanded, her voice increasing in volume.

"Forget about that Mack guy, there are so many better fish in the sea." Collin muttered, ignoring her last comment, and before Aurora knew it, his lips were on her.

It took her a few moments to take in what was happening and by then, Collin's hands were making their way under her shirt. Not caring about him being a civilian, she pushed him off her. The sound of flesh hitting flesh rang through the air as she slapped him without holding back.

"Jerk." She hissed, scrambling out the car she slammed the door shut.

In anger she forgot all care and closed her eyes, seeing the red and yellow light surround her even through her closed eyelids. In blind rage and with tears gathering in her eyes she entered the building she ended up in front of, not even paying attention to where her feet carried her.

She stopped in front of a door and calmed down a little and carefully entered the darkening room. The tears started to roll down from her eyes as she sat down and took the hand of the person in the only bed in the room.

"Oh Mack, I'm so sorry. I should have seen it coming." She muttered, letting the tears fall freely.

Hours later

Aurora woke up in shock and looked around. Outside it was dark and the clock on the wall told her it was 3.30 the next morning. She stood up and looked at Mack, soothing some hairs out of his face before placing a kiss on his forehead.

"I've got to get home, my parents will be worried, but I'll be back on Monday, I promise." She whispered before leaving the room and hospital.

Outside she decided to leave her car and all her stuff and pick it up tomorrow, maybe take Ray or Chaitlin with her. Right now all she wanted to do was go home, crawl into her bed and just forget about the horrible evening she just had.

For a second time that night she let the teleport light surround her and moments later she found herself in front of her home. She was glad to have the keys to her dorm on the same ring as the keys to her house so that she had them with her at all times.

Thrusting the key into the lock, she carefully opened it and crept in. A tear rolled down her eyes when she noticed both her parents fast asleep on the couch, her mother wrapped up in her father's protective embrace. Deciding to take pity on them for worrying them so much, she walked over and woke them up.

"Where have you been?" Ashley muttered sleepily when she realised who was standing in front of her.

"I don't want to talk about it." Aurora muttered. "All I want is to get into bed and not get out for the rest of the weekend.

"We'll talk tomorrow." Andros promised her, not at all sounding angry.

Aurora nodded thankfully and kissed them both goodnight, before walking to her room on the attic and crashing on her bed without even changing. The moment her head hit her pillow she drifted of in an uneasy sleep.

A/N: Okay, so this chapter leaves me an opening to a chapter that wasn't really planned, so the chapter 13 I had ready will just have to wait and be chapter 14. Hope you liked it. Please review.