I know i am a little late with this chapter. I wanted to have a excuse but I was just procrastinating. Anyway good chapter

Chapter 3: Love and nightmare

"She was so sweet..."

In a clearing in the middle of a forest, a little girl, looking around 6, was looking incessantly from one side to another. "Where are you?" She said afraid. "I said we shouldn't have come here . This isn't funny anymore." She didn't recieve any answer.

She was about to cry when another girl appeared from behind and hugged her. "I am here, Cristine." The other girl said, trying to comfort her friend. The girl started to cry.

"Why did I come here with you? Now we are lost in the middle of a forest!" Christine complained

"Calm down, I know the way back home. I just wanted to come here to show you one thing I found." The other girl waited she stopped crying, took Christine's hand and guided her to the entrance of a cave. Christine stopped seeing it. "What's up? Are you afraid of a little adventure?"

"Jessica, I know you like adventure but entering a dark cave isn't the best way to do it." She said, trying to go back.

"Trust me. Have I ever dragged you to any dangerous situation?"

"Never." She said, upset.

"So come with me." She said as she dragged Christine inside the cave. Christine had closed her eyes when she entered the cave. After some time They stopped.

"What happened?" Christine was afraid that something had happened.

"Open your eyes." Jessica said, softly. She did as Jessica said. Even though they were inside the cave, there was a hole in the top of the cave lighting up all the cave showing a lake in the middle of the cave covering all that part of the cave.

"What is this place? How did you find this place?" Christine was amazed.

"I found some weeks ago, I thought you would like it." She sat near the water, Christine did the same. Jessica put her hand in her pocket searching for something.

"What were you doing to find this place?" Jessica ignored her question. She found what she was looking for.

"Here!" She retrieved two wristbands, with white string and some blue and pink pendants, and offered one of them to Christine. "Friendship wristbands! I finished them yesterday. I wanted us to have something to show our friendship." Christine took it and put it in her wrist.

"Thank you, I loved it."

"She helped me when I needed..."

At a school cafeteria a girl around 11 was sitting alone, she was wearing a little wristband. She was looking at a girl at another table, this one was around many other girls, the other girl was wearing the same wristband as her. As she looked at the girl her face turned red. she turned her look down to the paper on her hands. "I need to do this." She muttered to herself. She walked near the girl she had been watching. She stopped, freezing in place. The other girl noted her. The red on the girl's face became more vivid.

"Christine, what happened?" The other girl said. Christine opened her mouth to talk but only air left. She looked down before dropping the paper and running away.

"What was that, Jessica?" One of the girls at the table said.

Jessica took the paper from the ground and opened it. "I need to see one thing." She said as she left hastily.

In another part of the school, Christine was sitting crying with her arms covering her face. "I am so stupid, I knew I couldn't do it."

"I know you aren't the smartest but I wouldn't say you are stupid." A voice came from afar, she lowered her arms to see Jessica standing in front of her.

"What are you doing here?" She said as Jessica sat next to her

"I saw you running away and came to see what happened. What did you want to say to me?" Jessica questioned

"I don't want to talk about it now." She said shyly, wiping away the tears.

"It's okay, when you are ready you can tell me. Just don't forget one thing"

"What?" Christine asked. Jessica showed her wrist to Christine.

"I am your friend. Now and forever." Jessica said. Christine hugged her.

"But then something changed when I had decided to tell her how I felt."

In the back of the school, Christine, around 13, was walking anxious from one side to another. The door opened and Jessica came through it. Christine's heart raced. "What do you want to tell me?" Jessica asked.

Christine sighed. "I wanted to tell you that..." She started but her fear stopped her.

"If you can't say it then I will go home." Jessica was about to turn...

"I love you!" Christine confessed.

"I don't feel the same." She said, without any emotion. She was about to turn back. A smile crossed her face. "Can I give you a advice?" Christine was surprised by the question. "If I were you, I wouldn't want rumors about my sexuality spreading. Did you know that the last couple of girls our principal found dating got expelled?" She started to laugh. Christine's eyes widened and her heartbeat rushed more than before.

"You... You wouldn't tell anyone about it, would you?" Christine questioned, full of fear.

"I wouldn't, if you do what I want" Jessica said with a mean smile on her face.

"She started to be mean."

When Christine entered the classroom some girls on the corner of the classroom whispered something she couldn't hear, she sat at her student desk. She noted that one of the girls was Jessica and that from time to time they would look in her direction with mean smiles. She felt that whatever they were talking, was about her. She tried to ignore it, distracting herself with a book. Didn't work.

The girls walked to their deks, as they passed near Christine, she could hear some comments between the girls' whispers.

"She wears poor rags."

"Slut."

"What would someone see in her?" The last one had come from Jessica. Christine felt like something was crashing her heart. The closest friend she had had, now was saying such things about her. She lowered her head as some tears formed in her eyes. She got up, and left the classroom, quickly.

"That lasted until last year."

Christine was sitting in a cafe, she was remembering what she had suffered during the last two years. Other students had started leaving notes saying horrible things about her, like: 'You are a bitch' 'anyone would like a slut like you' and many other offenses. She had had enough. She decided to put a finish on this. She had left a note at Jessica's locker for her to meet her at a cafe near the school.

Jessica entered the cafe. She looked at Christine, went toward her and sat. "What do you want?" Her voice was empty.

"I had enough of you and your 'friends' torturing me." She was clearly angry.

"Then you called me to beg for me to help you."

"No. I will beat you if you do it again" Jessica got surprised by the calm in her tone.

"If you try it, I will tell the principal..." Jessica tried to reply but remembered one thing.

"Did you forget? Now we are going to high school. No more you threaten to reveal my sexuality to a homophobic principal." Christine got up and started to move toward the door before turn her head to Jessica. " I just came to give you a chance to stop, but if you don't want it you already know what will happen.

Back at the present Christine was sitting next to Xin, she was looking at the wristband she had received from Jessica years ago, but some parts of it had some red stain in it. "Then the bullying continued but I started to retaliate, what just make me get involved in more problems."

"Why do you still with this?" Xin asked, pointing to the wristband on Christine's hand.

"I don't know, maybe I still had hope. Hope that Jessica could become the same sweet girl from when we were children. But now that I said it to someone I saw that this dream won't become true." She started to cry while talking. "Jessica changed, and won't back down." Christine got up and started to walk away.

"We all have our demons." Xin muttered to herself.

At the Diyu, Siwang was waiting to meet someone. "Where are they? You said our yaoguais found something I would love but until now I don't see anything."

"Calm down, my little friend, what they found will be worth each second. And by what I can see they are already here." As he said a special yaoguai and a group of ordinary yaoguais entered the chamber, the last one holding a litlle golden chest. They kneeled down. One of them opened the chest to reveal some stones black as the dark.

"A bunch of stones! Is this your great find?" She was cleary angry.

"Calm down, mistress. Pixiu can you tell her why this is so important." The special yaoguai in the middle got up. His body looked like a stone statue of a humanoid lion with a pair of wings like the ones you see in the representation of angels and a pair of fangs that left his mouth.

"My mistress, these aren't ordinary stones these are the stones infused with Yin's energy, the pure evil energy. It is capable of make someone with some darkness inside to unleash it without control." The yaoguai explained.

"What lovely surprise, but in this state these stones won't be useful. We need a way to refine it and use it against the rangers." she said with joy.

"Well, have you thought about using a yaoguai capable of digesting rocks to refine it?" The voice in the shadows suggested.

"Then, Pixiu, you will eat one of them and go to the human world, to destroy the rangers. If you triumph, you can have all the rocks you want." Siwang commanded.

The yaoguai took one of the stones and ate it. "They will face my power and each other." He started to laugh. Siwang opened a portal where the yaoguai vanished inside.

"Try to use the rangers against themselves, a great idea. But it won't work while they have a strong will." The voice stated.

"Trust more in your plan. I can feel a doubt coming from the blue one since the first battle. If I am right she will be easily turned against the others." Siwang said.

"If you say so."

In a room at the underground of the temple, Xin was repairing a machine connected to a monitor, from where smoke was leaving, with Christine next to her.

"Screwdriver." Xin asked as Christine searched for it in the tool box she was holding.

"Can you say again what is this thing you have been building during the last week? You didn't tell me until now." Christine questioned.

Xin removed her hands from the wires of the machine and looked at her. "Well, do you remember how using my magic makes me feel tired?" Christine noded. "Since we need a way to locate the yaoguais when they appear without risk, and this is what this device will do it."

"How?" Christine questioned. Xin took a capsule big, the size of her arms, and opened it, revealing a broken horn. "Xiezhi's horn."

"The yaoguais have a special aura that can be used to locate them, with a sample of this aura we will be able to locate them without using my magic." Xin returned the horn to where it was and started to fix the wires.

"How convenient." Christine said. "Now that I am seeing you with calm, you look a little too young to be able to build this device."

"Cause I am a little younger than you?"

"Well, yes." Christine said.

"I am a prodigy, I graduated from college at fourteen." Xin finished fixing the wires and got up. "Let's see if it work?" She closed the panel she had been fixing and pushed a button. The monitor turned on, it was showing a map of Clearbay. "It worked." She was excited. "Just took a week of work." She wiped the sweat from her forehead.

Christine's morpher rang as a red dot appeared on the monitor. "I think a yaoguai just appeared. Where it is?"

Xin looked at the monitor seeing the exact location of the yaoguai. "It is near the docks. I will teleport you there." Christine tried to argue with her but Xin continued. "It is near here so you don't need to worry about me being exhausted." Christine noded.

"Just let me morph before it." Christine took her morpher, opened it, summoned her disc, inserted it and spun it. "Zodiac awaken." A blue light covered her. The light faded away and Christine was morphed. "Now you can do it."

Pixiu was destroying everything in his way with the help of the yaoguais when Christine appeared in front of him.

"You are one of the rangers." Pixiu noted.

"Then you must be the ugly monster I will destroy." Christine provoked.

"Big words for someone who will perish. Yaoguais attack!" He commanded

The yaoguais advanced toward her. One swung her spear at her, she dodged it and kicked the yaoguai. Two others tried to stab her, one from each side, she jumped above it making them stab each other. She called her morpher and her weapon disc, she opened her morpher, inserted the disc and spun it. her saber appeared on her hands.

Three yaoguais raised their spears to the sky and brought them down to strike Christine, she blocked all the three attacks using her saber, she approached the yaoguais and slashed the three.

She went toward Pixiu and slashed across his chest. She noted a dark stone on his hands. She tried to kick him, her foot was caught mid air. The yaoguai threw her. "You got one lucky hit." He ate the rock he had been holding. "But you will find an end worse than death at this battle..." He was hit by Mark's staff.

All the other rangers appeared. "Another yaoguai who thinks will destroy us. What do you think will be the end of this battle, Ryan?" Flynn asked, ironic, as he used his weapon to hit the yaoguai on the chest.

"One less yaoguai in Siwang's army." Ryan hit the yaoguai on the back with his hammer. The yaoguain fell to the ground. All the rangers went to check Christine.

"You think I won't be able to destroy you, but you are wrong." The yaoguai claimed as he got up and a dark aura glowed around him. "I just won't get my hands dirty." He fired magma covered by a dark aura at the rangers. As the rangers got hit by the magma and fell to the ground as sparks flew from their suits. They quickly got up, at least four of them. "You will do this for me."

Christine was struggling on the ground. All of them were looking at her with fear. "What did you do to her!" Jessica asked enraged, while poiting the blade from her shield to the yaoguai. Christine stopped struggling and got up then went toward Jessica. She put her hand on her shoulder. When Jessica turned to her, Christine slashed across her chest, sparks flew as she fell to the ground.

"He just freed me from myself." Christine walked toward the yaoguai as the others got terrified.

"For now we finished what we needed to do, but we will be back." A fissure appeared in the air.

The yaoguai entered the fissure, followed by Christine. Before she entered the portal she had turned to Jessica "You will perish when I return." She entered the portal.

"Can you please explain what happened?" Flynn asked Xin, she was back with her hood. The four were in the underground of the temple.

"Well, I don't have any clue about what that was, but when I have I will tell you. By now I think you shouldn't think about it." The others were upset but started to walk away. "I want to talk to you jessica." She stopped and looked back.

"Why?" The others left.

"I wanted to talk to you, alone." She approached her. Jessica was scared that she had done something. "I lied about not having any clue. Follow me." She guide Jessica to the room where she and Christine had been working. Jessica looked intrigued by the device.

"What is this."

"A machine to locate yaoguais without using my powers." Her hands shone. "But with a little magic it can do this too. praeteritum ostende ipsum" Jessica got scared as the screen suddenly turned on. It was showing the battle from earlier.

"Okay, explain please."

"Look at the yaoguai's hand" Jessica noted the dark stone.

"A stone?" Jessica asked.

"Not any stone, that is a stone infused with Yin's energy. If a stone like that is refined it can turn someone evil."

"And that yaoguai refined it inside his body and fired it as magma at us. But then why did it only affect Christine?"

"The zodiac spirits protected you, they reduced the effect from it. Unfortunately if the person have a great imbalance inside even this reduced effect can turn someone evil." Xin said. "And by what Christine said about your past together. She was facing a great imbalance" Jessica's face turned pale.

"What did she say about us." Jessica stepped back. "Wasn't nothing bad about me, was it?"

"She said everything, and if I had only that I would think you are someone mean. But I know you aren't." Jessica got intrigued.

"Why do you think so?" Jessica asked.

"Because the boar spirit chose you. The spirits can fell the true essence of the person, and it chose you." She got closer to her and pulled a wristband from her pocket.

"Is this?"

"The wristband that you gave her years ago." Xin answered. Jessica remembered all the things she did to Christine, understanding the damage, at least a part of them, that she inflicted to her. She thought about Christine like she didn't think about her in much time, she thought about Christie as a friend. A friend who was in danger because of her.

"is there a way to bring her back?"

"Well, there are two ways, using a stone infused with Yang's energy, what we don't have, or bringing balance back to her soul."

"And how do I do that?" Jessica said with determination.

"This is the spirit."

Pixiu and Christine were at the Diyu, face to face with Siwang. Christine was looking at the place. "I brought the blue ranger to you, my mistress." Pixiu kneeled. He signaled for Christine to do the same.

"Why would I kneel down to you, you freed me from being good and that is it. I am not your servant." She said. Siwang would make she regrets her words. Siwang's hand got covered by a green light as Christine body got covered by the same light. She felt her body being crushed by the light desmorphing in the same instant, falling to the ground. The light vanished. She started to search for air, all that happened in milliseconds but she felt like she was being tortured for a long time.

"What did you said?" Siwang asked sarcastically. Christine looked at her fear filling her eyes, she used all her strength to kneel down. "This way is better. Now what should I do with you? I could keep you as a toy to test my new creation power when he wakes up."

"I think use her against the rangers would be a good way to use her." The voice in the shadows suggested. "Think! have to fight a friend. what that would do to their minds. It will open a way to turn the entire team to the evil side."

"A risky idea, but without little risks we can't win the war." Siwang stated "Is decided you two will go and fight the rangers and turn all of them to our side..."

"Sorry mistress, I don't want to go against your orders but me and the pink rangers still have things to resolve." Christine interrupted, shyly

"So?"

"Give me a chance to kill her. I want to have her on the ground begging for her life, have her drowning in her own blood. If I fail, I will follow your plan. But please, give me my chance." She begged

Siwang looked surprised. Her will to get her revenge against the pink was big enough to go against her. She thought. "I will give you one chance to get your revenge." Christine nodded her head.

"I won't fail you."

Xin had been explaining how to free Christine, when Jessica morpher beeped. "This mean the yaoguai is back." Xin said as she went to the device she had builded. Something got her attention. " Two yaoguais?! She shouldn't had energy to free two even the weakest ones would still be more energy than she have now.." She started to despair.

"Calm down, Xin." Jessica looked at where one of the spots were. "Call the others to fight the one in the city. Teleport me to the one outside the city."

"but..." Xin tried to reply but got cut by Jessica.

"It isn't a yaoguai." Xin understood what she was talking about. She teleported Jessica. "good luck with her" she had muttered to herself before getting her phone and calingl the others.

In a tunnel a gray light appeared and vanished. Jessica stood where the light had been. She started to walk until she reached a cave from before. In the middle of the lake was a rock where a blue figure was sitting with her saber. "I knew you would come alone. So after all you still remember something we had."

"I am here to bring you back to your senses." Jessica proclaimed.

"I am with all my senses and they say for me to kill you. So morph and let's see who will prevail." Christine Called her with her fingers.

"If this is what you want." She called her morpher and disc, she opened the morpher insert the disc and spun it." Zodiac awaken!" her spirit went up before turning back and collided with her creating apink light that covered her body. as the light vanished she was morphed. She repeated the same thing this time calling her weapon disc. "Zodiac weapon Boar shield." Her weapon apeared in her hand as the morpher disappeared. She put something around her wrist. Christine got in the water, followed by Jesica. it was shallow, only got at their knees.

The two charged at each other, their weapons hit one another. They started to fight for space. "You can't win" Christine kicked Jessica, opening space for her to slash at her. She tried to do it again but was blocked by Jessica's shield that repealed her sword. Jessica stabbed her with the blades of her shield. She punched only for Christie to step aside, dogging, Christine held her arm, got Jessica with the back turned to her, then kicked her back making Jessica fall.

Christine brought her blade up and them down, Jessica rolled out of the way of the blade. She used the chance and got up. She kicked Christine side but was blocked by Christine's arm. Christine stabbed but her blade was caught between the two blades from Jessica's shield. "But I can try to bring you back." Christine raised her blade together the shield so the two could see each other's helmet.

"You make my life a hell. I opened my heart to you and you crushed it!" Christine used her strength and threw Jessica shield to the side, kicked her, making her drop her weapon, then slashed her multiple times.

She brought her blade closer, a blue light shone as she passed her fingers through the blade of the saber, a translucid wolf head appeared in her hand like it was holding the saber. "Zodiac Final Strike: Wolf Slash." She rushed toward Jessica a trail of blue energy was formed as her saber passed through the air. Jessica was paralyzed by fear, or so thought Christine. When she was close enough Jessica jumped over her while she slashed the air forming an energy cut in the air that hit the wall of the cave, opening a hole on it. Jessica landed, got her shield and turned to Christine.

"I am sorry..." Jessica started but was interrupted by a kick from Christine, followed by multiple slashes across her chest, she dropped her shield and fell to the ground, but was still morphed. Jessica tried to reach for her shield. Christine pressed Jessica's pulse with her foot.

Christine looked to the hand she had pressed and saw two wristbands on her arm then stepped back, freeing Jessica's arm. "Why do you have that, even when everything that it represents was crushed by you." She said pointing her saber to Jessica's gut.

"Because this was the symbol of our friendship, it represents that when one of us is down the other will help, I know I have been the one who brought you to the darkness. But this time I will be the one to rescue you from it." Jessica's words made something in Christine wake up. She dropped her saber. Something inside her was trying to fight herself.

Jessica looked at her. "Jessica hit me with everything you have." She knew this was the real Christine who was trying to get the control back. "If you defeat me, I think I will be able to gain control back, but be fast. I don't know how much time I can resist." Christine opened her arms. Jessica knew what she should do.

Jessica closed her eyes, focused, and passed her fingers through her shield as a pink light shone. "Zodiac Final Strike: Boar Rush" She rushed toward Christine, a pink energy trail formed where on the way her shield passed. When she was close enough she pulled her shield and stabbed Christine, sending her flying to the cave wall. Dust covered all she could see. "I am sorry for everything I did to you and I hope you can forgive me." Jessica sighed then collapsed to the ground and desmorphed. when she was near to hit the ground, she felt something holding her, it was Christine who was helping her. She was desmorphed too.

"I will think about it, but considering you freed me from a mind control I can forgive some part of it." Jessica smiled. "But don't think we are friends again." The vainished from her face.

"I know you can't forgive everything." Jessica sighed.

"Teammates?" Christine offered her hand to Jessica. She smiled again.

"Of course, teammate." She shook her hand with joy. The dust settled, revealing a giant hole in the cave. "Look." Through the hole was the sight of the sun setting. The two siat and watched it.

Some time passed, it was already night. A gray light formed around the girls and they vanished on it.

They appeared at the temple. The other rangers and Xin were waiting for them. "Well, by what I see you two resolved the things you had." Mark said, the two girls exchanged looks before smiling.

"Yes." Jessica said.

"And we just needed a yaoguai capable of turning me evil to do it." Christine joked, and everyone laughed, except for Flynn. "By the way what happened to that yaoguai? he would attack the center of the city."

"He escaped again." Flynn sighed.

"Don't worry next time we will deal with him." Ryan comforted his friend. "By now let's be happy we are all together."

Flynn sighed. "Okay then." Everyone cheered and walked to the exit of the temple, except by Xin, Flynn was behind the group, looking down