"Will someone please help me?" pleaded the old man, looking pitifully to the surrounding crowd. "My brother is lost in the forest." With those simple words, most of the crowd gave incredulous looks, shook their heads and walked off. Maybe he didn't know enough about what went on in this forest, but that still seemed rude. The old guy just needed a hand with finding his brother. Besides, this felt important, like it was bigger than it seemed.
"Please, won't anybody help me?" the old man asked one last time, pleas desperate now. Wiping the sweat off of his brow and his hands on the oil rag he held, the young man spoke up.
"I'll help you. I could use a break from working on my bike." He stood up, jacket in hand, as the old man smiled and approached him. Another guy, around his own age, reached him first.
"Hi. The name's Xander," he stated jovially, sticking out his hand like a politician. The other young man took it hesitantly, not accustomed to such friendly strangers. "I don't recognize you, so you must be new in town. I know everyone here, and I've never seen you around before. Anyway, seeing as you're not from around here, I'll let you in on a little secret: no one goes into the forest. Not even strangers." The young man inwardly rolled his eyes, but kept his expression quietly determined.
"Hey, the old guy needs help. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to let him walk away and do it by himself." For a second, the two young men stared each other down, until a girl about their age pushed him aside.
"Don't mind Xander," she said. "He may seem all brawn, but he's too fluffy for this. I'll help, though." The fierce gleam in her eyes made him grin, and he could've sworn he saw the old man smirking from the corner of his eyes. A moment later, another redheaded boy stepped forward with tremendous zeal.
"I'll go too. This'll be just like in my novels, right, V?" he asked the intense young woman next to him. She grinned and nodded. His smile widened, a fist punching into the air joyfully. "Yeah! You think we'll see a dragon?" The young woman he'd addressed as V rolled her eyes good-naturedly, used to her friend's exuberance. The old man stepped forward again.
"Will anyone else help?" he asked of the rest of the lingering crowd, more specifically addressed to the guy known as Xander and the young woman with dark hair beside him. They must have felt the way he directed the question towards them, as they suddenly became sheepish. When no one else responded to his question, he turned to the trio of teens.
"We must hurry. The longer we wait, the worse everything will become." The young man in the jacket arched his eyebrows questioningly, but followed the already leaving man alongside the other two.
The trip was relatively quiet and, seeming almost impossible, they managed to trek all the way to the forest, on the outer edge of Briarwood, in only ten minutes. The jacketed young man shook his head, swearing that it was at least twenty miles from where they had been and that it was impossible to travel so far by foot in such little time. The other two seemed nonplussed about it, whether they'd noticed or not.
Standing on the edge of the forest, he knew what Xander had meant. This place had a weird aura, like something beyond their world was within it. The old man had stopped on the edge, looking to each teen.
"Are you sure you are prepared for this?" he asked.
"Have we met before, dark wizard?" Udonna asked. "You seem familiar." Koragg sighed inwardly. He hated this kind of battle banter, but it did give him precious time to think and rest.
"As do you, white witch," he growled back. Anything to keep her occupied. But there was something about her, something in her aura. He briefly thought that she might be the sorceress who stole his son away from him, but pushed the thought aside. Her aura was familiar, but not close enough to be the sorceress. Still, it tugged on something on the back of his mind.
Forcibly focusing himself only on the fight, he lunged forward, sword in hand, and went to deal a killing blow. He would have succeeded in doing more than knocking her unconscious if he hadn't been distracted by four voices to his right.
"Magical source, Mystic Force!"
A quartet of colors burst onto his vision for only a second before dying away and leaving four Rangers in its wake, all brandishing similar wands. Koragg, over the shock of their sudden arrival, only chuckled darkly and turned to them, noticing the lack of a Red. With no leader, they'd be hard-pressed to win. They were easy pickings.
With the white witch unconscious, he dove into battle with them, first taking them all on at once, then one by one as he knocked others away. Within minutes, they'd all been severely weakened and exhausted. Only the Yellow put up a real fight, seeming to have a real passion for this kind of fighting, and even he went down with the others after a few more minutes.
Now, with all the Rangers down, he stood at their feet and laughed maliciously. Slowly, he lowered his sword to the Blue's neck. His mind registered a low buzzing in the distance, but ignored it.
"Now, should I take you first?" he asked the quivering Blue. She was trying to get up, but her body was protesting. Inside his helmet, Koragg smiled. He moved his blade to the Green's neck. "Or maybe I should take you out. You are the leader without Red." The Green shakily propped himself up on his elbows, and Koragg thought he could see the boy smiling behind his helmet.
"Now, come on, can't we resolve this peacefully? I'm Xander, and these are my friends Madison, Chip and Vi-" Koragg growled, causing the talkative Green to swallow loudly. The Knight Wolf moved his blade to the Pink's neck.
"Maybe I'll kill you first. I never did like Pink."
"Neither did I," she quipped back, ever brave in the face of danger. He quietly smiled and moved his sword to the Yellow's throat.
"I would kill you first, but I think I'll do you last instead. That way we can fight, and I can kill you battle."
The buzzing in the distance grew closer as the Yellow snarled back, "You'll never kill us. We're the Power Rangers!"
"Oh, contraire. I already have you just where I want you. Now," he said, turning back to the Blue, "I think I will kill you first." He raised his blade, preparing to swing down, when the buzzing noise, now a roar, ripped through the foliage over his head. It was another teenager, riding a vehicle from the surface world. This new teenager jumped off the device, throwing off his helmet as he came down.
Just looking at this stranger, Koragg was struck by how familiar those eyes were. At the same time, he was hit by an overwhelming aura of power. This boy had more power than the other four by far. He hadn't payed much attention to the others power-wise, but he knew that they were nothing compared to this boy. His aura flowed with energies from both worlds.
He came down hard and fast. Koragg instinctively raised his sword at the same time the boy shouted "I believe!". His body was engulfed by a blazing red light, throwing Koragg back as his sword and the boy connected.
When he landed, the boy's surface clothes had been replaced by traditional wizard's garb. Confidence shone out of his green eyes, a stark difference against his dark hair and skin. He held up a wooden wand, one Koragg hadn't seen in ages, not since the Great Battle.
"Power of the phoenix!" the boy shouted, propelled forward by the flames suddenly surrounding his form. The phoenix? Could this boy be...? No. He wasn't. Koragg pushed the false hope from his mind and braced himself as the young wizard hit him full force. He flew back, hitting a tree and cracking it in half. So this was the fifth warrior spoken of...
The others began to regroup around the phoenix boy, giving them all a new air of confidence. The Blue in particular seemed empowered by his presence.
"You came back!" she said, glee barely hidden in her voice.
"Nice of you to show up, mate," said the Green, patting the phoenix on the back. "And stellar time to break out the belief."
"Nice firepower," the Yellow said with an awed voice.
"Way to save the day!" the Pink added. "You really saved our hides there, Nick." Nick? Okay, that definitely cemented that lingering thought in Koragg's mind. It was no longer false hope; the boy, his boy, was standing before him. The eyes, the hair and skin, the aura, the power of the phoenix - it was all no coincidence.
All that ran through his head as the Rangers all turned to look at him. He hadn't moved since Nick had attacked him, and it was becoming suspicious. Nick stepped forward, wand extended toward Koragg's helmet.
"Now, should I just get it over with now, or should we let you retreat and nurse your bruised ego?" he asked. The others couldn't see it, and Nick himself probably didn't know it was there, but a dark gleam shimmered behind his bright green eyes, so much like his mother's. Even his words bore traces of a darker intent than most Rangers could ever muster. This boy, though raised and tainted by the light, still had hints of the darkness in his actions.
Deciding quickly what to do, Koragg muttered a spell and sank back into the Underworld. As he faded downward, Nick heard his departing words.
"Embrace the darkness, my son." And, with a shimmer of purple light, he was gone. Nick suddenly felt a weight lift off him and he realized what exactly was going on around him. It was all undeniably strange, but felt oddly right. He grinned at the feeling and looked at the others.
"Hey," he said, taking in their colorful suits with a smile. The others demorphed and gathered around him.
"Great job, mate!" said Xander, grabbing Nick's shoulder and squeezing.
"C'mon, let's get Udonna and get back to Root Core before anything else shows up," Vida suggested, not wishing to fight anyone else today. They all silently agreed, bending over her body and lifting. Chip led the way back, the whole time imitating Nick's entrance and fight. Everyone else laughed and joked around, but they didn't notice Nick's slight delay in laughing or smiling. All except Maddie. She hadn't heard what Koragg had said, but she knew that those words were the reason Nick seemed so off, so disconnected from the rest, and she was determined to find out why.
A/N - Okay, I had to play with the end for a while before it finally felt right, but now I think it's pretty good. It's definitely better than the original ending for this chapter. I like Nick's entrance, too. I can kind of see it happening in my head, especially the look in his eyes when he's got Koragg at wandpoint (is that a word? Probably not).
Thanks for the reviews, CallingGirl, jean, Amanda, Ant Crown and animezebra. You don't know how elated I was to see your reviews. This chapter is dedicated to you guys.