"That was just so ... amazing! The way you came in on your motorcycle ... " Chip walked into Root Core, pretending to rev a motorcycle engine and making the complimentary noises. The other four walked in after him, grinning. They gently laid Udonna's body down as Clare ran in, looking frazzled as usual.

"Omigosh, what happened?" she said frantically, checking Udonna over and taking her pulse. Xander stepped forward, smiling in his charming way, and looked her in the eyes.

"She's fine. Just got hit in the head by Koragg," he said calmly. "You should probably take her somewhere else and put her on a bed. We can't very well leave her on the floor, now can we?" She nodded nervously and looked to her mentor's closed eyes. "She'll be fine, Clare. Just help me move her. In fact, Chip, would you come over here to help us?" Chip paused midway through reenacting their battle, and looked at his Australian friend.

"Aw, come on Xander. I was just getting to the good part." Xander just gave him a hard glare, sending the Yellow Ranger instantly into a jog toward his friends and mentor. He put a hand under Udonna's back and lifted with Xander and Clare. The three made their way off through one of the various doorways in the Root Core atrium, leaving Vida, Madison and Nick standing quietly there.

Vida was the first to move, heading over to the table in the center of the room and pulling her mp3 player out of one of her pants' many pockets. Madison smiled.

"What?" Vida asked. "They were in my only pants when we changed. Where else would they go?" Maddie smiled again, and shrugged.

"You got me there," she replied, taking her spot at the table. She looked at Nick, who was still standing where they'd all stopped in the entrance. "Hey, Nick, why don't you come over here and sit down by us?" she asked, projecting more courage than she felt. She'd never been good with guys, or people in general. Vida had gotten her cosmic share of people skills and then some.

Fortunately, Nick seemed to hear her, because she didn't think she had the guts to ask again. He wandered slowly over to his chair and sunk down. She just looked at him once or twice, took in the swirl of emotions raging in his eyes - his gorgeous green eyes, she thought to herself - and decided that she wouldn't confront him just yet. He looked like he needed some time to think.

So many thoughts whirled around his head, it could hardly be called thinking. He was lost in a flurry of his own mind. It took him a few more minutes before everything slowed down enough to a point where he could grasp a single thought and follow it.

Embrace the darkness. How had Koragg known about his latent dark side? He had let it slip a bit when he threatened the Knight Wolf, but was that enough? Or was it just Nick's mind spinning words into a new meaning? Was he overanalyzing it? But how else could he take those words?

Maybe it was just obvious, and even the other Rangers were afraid of him. If that was true, then he'd know soon enough. Weird things always happened to people when he found out that they'd lied to him, or when they tried to hurt him. His dark side began to creep out and he'd start alienating anyone and everyone. That's why he'd never stayed anywhere too long. If he didn't leave, people usually ended up hurt or angry. Eventually, he'd probably have to leave Briarwood, too.

But even more frightening was the fact that Koragg had called him 'son'. Why did that sound so ... right? He had a father, a whole family, albeit an adoptive one. But when Koragg said it, it struck a chord deep within Nick. It just wasn't possible, though. Today was the first time Nick had ever been in the woods. He'd lived in California since he was born. Maybe it was just Koragg's innate darkness reaching out to Nick's.

Maddie looked over at her conflicted friends' face and sighed. She had spent the last ten silent minutes not reading, like she had pretended to be doing, but gathering the courage to talk to him. Finally she spoke up, hoping she wouldn't choke.

"Nick? Are you okay?" Her words interrupted his thoughts, making him look up.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said unconvincingly. Maddie gave him a knowing look and, drawing on the fact that she hadn't screwed up yet, she moved over to the chair next to him.

"Come on," she responded, "I'm not that stupid. There's something wrong. I can just tell. It seems serious, too." Her heart was racing, not only from being so close to Nick, but from the sheer fact that she was confronting him and she hadn't stumbled yet.

Hesitantly, he looked into her soft grey-blue eyes. As hard as it would be to lie, something inside him compelled him to look at her. Seeing those merciful grey depths made him feel at ease, despite the turmoil he had been in just seconds earlier.

"I'm just thinking about what happened today." Okay, so it wasn't exactly lying, but it still made him feel terrible. Lying to Maddie, in any form, felt wrong. She knew that he wasn't telling the whole truth, but decided to let it go and let him finish. "I mean, a lot has happened in the course of one day. Earthquakes, sorceresses, magic, you guys ... " Maddie blushed and smiled.

"I know what you mean. Yesterday, I was just the girl behind the camera working at a record shop and now -"

"Now you're an all-powerful witch with the mastery of all things liquid?" Nick joked, getting a nod and grin out of the girl. "Yeah, I get it. If you'd said yesterday that I'd be the Red Power Ranger, something that most little kids just dream about, and be the mystical phoenix, I'd probably have told you that you were nuts."

"Nah, I don't think it's that crazy, seeing all the weird things that happen in Briarwood as it is. And, in its own way, it's kind of logical. I mean, weird stuff has happened to the four of us our whole lives. I guess we always had the spark of magic in us." Nick's eyes went wide.

"Weird stuff has always happened to you guys, too?"

"Yeah," replied Maddie, so much more comfortable with Nick now after talking for a bit. Maybe it was his smile ... No. Daydreaming later. Stories now. "There was this time when I was six. Our dog totally tore apart my favorite doll. I cried for hours, wishing that it was okay again. I thought I'd never be happy again without it. Eventually, I cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, there it was in my arms, like nothing had ever happened to it."

"Couldn't your mom have replaced it or sewn it back up or something?"

"No way!" she replied with a feigned look of disgust on her face. "My grandmom made it for me. It was totally irreplaceable. And my mom's no genius with a needle. The thing was beyond repair as it was." Nick still looked skeptical. "What? You still don't believe me? Okay, then I'll make you a believer. Back when we were eleven, Chip came down with a serious case of pneumonia. Veed and I stayed with him day and night, and even Xander showed up for six or seven hours every day. His parents were a lot stricter about that kind of thing than Veed and I's. But the guy came for as long as he could every day, and we spent the whole time sharing memories about him and hoping he got better. The doctors told us that if he didn't wake up soon, he'd probably end up a vegetable. But we had this fierce confidence that he'd bounce back like he always did. One day a couple days later, we came back from eating lunch and he was gone. We freaked out and thought they'd moved him to the extended stay ward. Then he walked out of the bathroom and just grinned his goofy Chip grin. The doctors said it was a complete miracle."

She paused to breathe. Her nervousness around Nick had begun to melt away, at least to the point where she felt comfortable talking to him openly, kind of like how she felt around her other friends. But her feelings for him ... They were more than friendly. But he'd never return them. Guys like him never went for shy girls like her. She was the girl who was always the friend, never the girlfriend.

Pulling herself away from those thoughts, she jumped back into the conversation. "So how about you? You sound like you could relate to those kind of unexplained things happening to you." Suddenly, Nick felt a little apprehensive about this conversation.

"Well ... " he said, glancing away from Madison, "yeah, I can sort of relate."

His uncomfortable demeanor was not lost on Madison, who started mentally berating herself for messing up whatever they had built over the past few minutes. "So, do you want to share or are you going to hold out on me?" she asked, putting on a happy facade.

"Uhhhhh ... " Nick pretended to try and think of a time, but in reality, he remembered each and every time quite vividly. He was just trying to find one time that wouldn't scare her too much. He didn't want to destroy whatever they'd built up over the course of the past few minutes. He liked her, liked her a lot, and he liked having friends. Some of his stories would freak them out to the point of them never wanting to talk to him again. He really didn't want to end it all so soon.

"Let's see ... Promise not to freak out? Most of my weird things are kind of ... bad." He said the last word with a slight wince, as if hurting him just to admit it. Maddie only nodded, intrigued by his honesty about something that looked to be, well, painful. "Well, when I was fourteen, I was staying at my grandparent's house because my parents were working abroad again. One day some of my cousins came over and one of them was a real jerk. I was just trying to read a magazine in my room and the guy came in and wouldn't leave me alone. Finally, I got fed up and just punched him in the nose and went back to reading. He got pissed and punched me back. We got into a huge fight and he ended up getting that upper hand. I mean, he was bigger and older. How could he not? And then suddenly, I got angry, angrier than I'd ever been. I swear I literally saw red. I just lost control of myself. I threw out my hands to push him off me hard and let out this battle cry that seems really cheesy in retrospect When my hands touched him, he started to scream and fell back off me. Everyone else in the house rushed in, and my grandma freaked. When I got up and looked at my cousin, he scorch marks on his chest in the perfect shape of my hands. Hell, he was still smoldering. My grandpa had to take him to the hospital for second degree burns." Nick looked back at Maddie, expecting to see her looking horrified and repulsed by his very presence, but he was pleasantly surprised. She just nodded knowingly.

"We can hardly control our magic now," she said, "so how could you then?"

Nick looked at her incredulously. "Wait, back up. You're not freaked out?"

"No way. Come on, Nick. We all have our bad moments."

"Some of us more than others," he muttered. She smiled sweetly and draped her arm over his shoulders, a bold move for her that sent her heart racing. Inwardly, his heart leapt up and down, but he still looked pensive. "It's just that bad shit like that has happened to me my whole life. It follows me around like the plague. I don't want to hurt anyone, so I move before I do. That's why I'm always going somewhere else after a few weeks." He found that opening up to Maddie was far easier than he'd thought. She was so ... great, wonderful, accepting, open, kind, choose any compliment, and she was it.

"Wow," she replied. "I can see why you couldn't believe in magic at first. If you did, it would mean that you'd have to accept that you caused all that. So why the change of heart?" He gave her a sheepish smile.

"I had a vision." She raised an eyebrow. "No, honest truth. I was riding my bike out of town when all of a sudden, all I can see is Koragg kicking your guys' butts. I figured that even if I didn't want to believe, I had to if I wanted to save you guys. Especially you," he said, taking her arm off his shoulder. She thought for a moment that maybe she had been too bold, but then he wrapped his hand around hers. She blushed and glanced away, all her confidence lost in the storm of butterflies in her stomach.

"Why me?"

"Because you were the only one who told me to stay. And," he said nervously, glancing away from her, "I think you're beautiful." If she hadn't been blushing before, she definitely was now. Nick snuck a look at her, and smiled.

"Oh, c'mon. Don't deny it," he said. "It's true. You are the most gorgeous girl I've ever met. And believe me, I've met some cute chicks." He couldn't believe these words were spilling out of his mouth. He didn't know how or why, but he couldn't stop them. As he said it, though, he knew that every word was true. He looked at her bright red face, saw the slight smile that was creeping over her lips, and smiled back. Grabbing her chin gently, he turned her head so she'd look at him. "You are gorgeous and smart and shy and ... " He paused, searching her face for a reaction. She simply blushed harder, if that was possible, and smiled a bit more. "... and perfect." Without warning, he leaned in to kiss her.

At first, she froze, not expecting him to do that. She'd never been kissed by a guy and she definitely wasn't expecting it from a guy like Nick. Then, with a euphoric single thought, she realized that maybe he did like her, and began kissing him back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, and never wanting this to end.

He didn't know exactly what compelled him to kiss her. He was never that forward with a girl. When she began to kiss him back, he realized that she liked him just as much as he liked her, and there, in that moment, the world was in perfect balance.

They only broke apart when they felt the stares of Chip, Xander and Vida burning through them. Nick in particular could feel the venom stare Vida was giving him, one that said 'I swear to god, if you hurt her, I'll tear you limb from limb in the slowest and most painful way possible'. Both kissers blushed intensely, faces burning brightly. Madison, too embarrassed to handle whatever was coming next, got up quickly and rushed out into the forest. Xander was the first to break the silence.

"Well, I think Maddie's made a new friend," he said, grinning ear to ear. Vida continued her death-stare while Chip smiled a bit absently.

"I sure hope he doesn't kiss all his new friends like that," the Yellow Ranger said in a slightly oblivious tone. Nick tried to stammer an excuse, but Vida, now done with her death-stare, cut him off, leaning in close to his face.

"I swear, if you break her heart, I'll make sure you can see yours," she growled menacingly. She glared at him for another few seconds before stalking off, Xander and Chip in tow.

Nick just sat on his chair, stunned and bewildered by the events of the past minute. Whatever had made him do it, he liked it. It was a great feeling, kissing Maddie, and he was disappointed that it was over. But somehow he knew that he'd get the chance again, and then, he'd never stop.

Koragg stared into the scrying pool, watching again and again everything that had transpired since Nick's entrance. It was no coincidence that he'd found his son now. He just didn't know what to do now that he'd found him.

And he was the leader, the one that, if it had been any other person, Koragg would've destroyed first. Without their leader, Rangers were weaker somehow, less unified. But he couldn't kill his son. He just couldn't. Even through the years of feeding his rage, the soft spot for his son lingered.

In his turmoil, he was still pleased. The boy still had a seed of darkness in him. Somehow he had to get to Nick, lure him to the darkness, nurture this seed. If he dropped this bombshell on him too quickly, Nick would just think he was lying and pull farther away into the light. He needed to destroy something the boy cared about and plant the idea that only he could help him. But what?

Something in the scrying pool caught his eye. While he was thinking, he'd absently let the pool follow Nick after the battle. Now it showed him passionately kissing a beautiful girl within Root Core. He smirked. Yes ... This could work. If he loved this girl, then she would work perfectly against him.

But he had to bide his time now. Taking the girl would only strengthen Nick's resolve. Koragg had to get the boy to find out about his heritage on his own. Trying to figure out how, his eyes drifted around the cave that he was in. They fell on the Snow Staff mounted on the wall, so pristine and white in the vile darkness. He could use that to subtly plant ideas in his son's mind, drive him inch by inch to the darkness. And then, when Nick knew of his darkness and was at his weakest, he would strike.

A/N - I've got mixed feelings about this chapter. I love the NickMadison stuff, but the end is bothering me. It took forever just to get it there, and I'm not even sure I like it. I might come back and change it later.

If you don't include the ending, though, this is probably my favorite chapter out of everything I've written so far. I'm still not too sure where this is going, but I kind of have an idea for an end. I just hope I can get there without it feeling too forced.

On a different note, I have a little poll for you guys: Who's your favorite PR couple/pairing? Obviously I'm a big NickMadison fan, but I like some BridgeZ stuff, too. I just think it's kind of cute when those two are together, not to mention I'm a huge Bridge Carson fan. I'm crazy about him. Sad, huh? TommyKim, JasonTrini and KiraTrent are some other favorites of mine.

Thanks again, you guys, for the reviews. You don't know how excited I get when I see them in my inbox. Hopefully some of the questions you guys have put out will get answered. Some questions have even made me wonder, and add stuff to the story because I never thought of it. I'd have a lot less material in my head if not for some of your questions.