The first day of school ended. The five new team mates walked out of the building together along with Evan's twin sister Alice. "I'll meet you at home." He said to her. "We have to go and get a new project started."

Alice couldn't help but stare at her brother a little dubiously but really she had no concrete reason to believe otherwise. "Alright, I'll let mom and dad know you'll be home later on." She said and looked at the girls. "I'll see you all tomorrow I guess," She said and then waved. "Bye Raine."

"Later." Raine said. It seemed weird to her but they discovered they shared almost all of their classes together and though it sounded kind of cold Alice was the only one in her classes that she thought was really at her level.

In fact the only reason the long haired blonde was hanging around with Evan and the other three girls was because they had discovered they had something else in common in a way. They had been chosen by Thera the goddess of Earth to become Power Rangers and stop a bunch of demons from invading the Earth. She looked to them all. "So what are we supposed to do anyway?" She asked.

It had been Aaliyah's idea that they should all hang out and get to know each other since they were going to be working together for who knew how long but the new red ranger wasn't quite sure what to do now. "Uh, I don't know exactly." She confessed.

They all glanced up suddenly as they heard what sounded like wind chimes, which was odd since that isn't something you would find at the normal school. And they could find no evidence of what made that sound now. "Where did that come from?" Sophie asked.

"I don't know." Evan said. "But I think I heard it going in that direction." He pointed east. "I think there's a forest over there if I remember right."

"You're correct." Raine told him. "It was declared a wildlife preserve about fifteen years ago. Occasionally people will visit the forest as well."

"Do you think we're being told we should go there?" Antonella asked softly. She looked to Aaliyah. Evan and the two girls glanced at her as well.

Aaliyah thought a moment. She wished she knew rather it was a good idea or not. She wondered if it could be a trap as well. Then she nodded. "I guess we should check it out but let's be careful. This could be a trap." She said.

The five teens left the school and made their way to the forest as quickly as possible. It seemed to darken as they entered, which was not entirely unexpected considering the fact that it was midafternoon and the foliage on the trees blocked out a lot of the sky.

"This isn't exactly how I envision spending my afternoons." Raine commented simply as they walked along, she stepped over a large fallen branch that she was sure had fallen from the tree above them rather recently.

I'd think you'd love something like this." Sophie noted. "I mean you are a scientist and all aren't you?"

Raine looked at her somewhat weirdly. "There are many different aspects of science. Chemistry isn't one of those, as you might call it 'outdoorsy' sciences." She explained simply.

"I stand corrected." Sophie said with a slight roll of her eyes which Raine did not see. "Anyway I still don't see what the problem is. I think of worse things to do than spend an afternoon in the forest." She added right before she almost tripped over a half hidden tangle in some growth.

Evan reached out and grabbed a hold of her right arm and placed his hand on the middle of her back to steady her. "Like spending the afternoon in the hospital?" He questioned.

"Well, yeah." Sophie conceded as she averted her face to hide the small blush on her cheeks. "That's a good example of how not to spend your afternoon." He released her arm and she added, "Thanks."

"I've always enjoyed physical activity." Aaliyah said as she easily ducked under a low hanging branch. "At my old school I had a sport for all semesters. In the spring I ran track, fall was basketball and winter was hockey. During the summer I would teach swimming classes."

"I…I'm actually a pretty good swimmer." Raine confessed almost akawardly. "When I was young my mother did a lot of conferences in Hawaii. Her company had to hire a chaperone for me and often enough it was poolside or at the beach."

"Where was your dad?" Antonella asked her.

Raine shook her head. "If I knew I would probably tell you." She replied. "But I don't know. I don't know, he hasn't been in my life for as long as I can remember. It's almost always been my mother and I."

"I can relate." Aaliyah assured her. "My mother died when I was really young. She was killed in a shoot out." She hated to think about that since her father had been part of that as well but he had been off duty, simply the wrong place at the wrong time as they said. It didn't make a husband or six year old girl's loss any easier. "For such a long time it's been my dad and I. Sometimes I find I can barely remember my mother."

Antonella reached out and took her hand, squeezing it softly. It surprised Aaliyah just a bit since from what little she knew of their new pink ranger showing her thoughts or feelings to anyone was a rare sight. She still found herself squeezing back gratefully.

"Makes me kind of grateful for the full family I have." Sophie admitted gently. "Even if sometimes having a six year old around can make life difficult."

"Well when I was six, so was Alice." Evan remarked. "My parents used to remark that we could find all sorts of trouble to get into when we wanted to because we always had each other's bad ideas to feed on."

"Like Raine and Aaliyah I'm an only child too." Antonella said. "Both my parents are alive though, but they…travel a lot. They're kind of like missionaries in a sense. I live with my Aunt Courtney. She's not married and doesn't have kids. Unless you count me since I've lived with her the last five years or so, since I was in middle school."

"You must not see your parents often." Sophie guessed.

"I see them a few times a month." Antonella answered. To Raine the answer seemed a bit vague.

"I can't imagine that though." Sophie said. "Not seeing my parents everyday."

"Neither can I." Evan agreed.

Raine privately agreed as well, at least as far as her mother went since she couldn't even remember her father though she didn't take it the way Aaliyah did where her mother was concerned. She kept that to herself.

"Sometimes my dad will get stuck with overnight shifts." Aaliyah commented. "When that happens it's like we never see each other since when he's awake I'm asleep and he's at work. When I'm awake I'm at school and he's asleep. It's at times like that that I miss seeing him."

"Being power rangers is going to make that seem a little more real for all of us I would imagine." Raine reminded them all seriously. "Not just to our parents," She remembered what Antonella said. "Or our legal guardians but even to our siblings and non-ranger friends."

"You have a good point there." Sophie agreed. "But we all saw the alternative that awaits if we don't do this or if we fail." She couldn't stop the shudder that went through her body. "What I saw happen to my little sisters…"

"I think I get it." Evan promised her.

"Then we won't fail." Aaliyah stated simply. She just hoped they could keep that decision intact.

From the trees came the same Slicers that had attacked the school, landing in front of the five teens and surrounding them. Aaliyah and Antonella had kept their hands intertwined until that moment, when they separated and stood back to back with the other two girls and Evan. "We're surrounded." Sophie stated.

"Then we have to fight our way out." Aaliyah said to them. "It's morphin' time." The five teen formed their golden gauntlet around their left hands while their energy cards appeared in their right hands. They slipped their card into the slot on their gauntlet and transformed.

"Time to wipe the floor with them again." Evan the yellow ranger declared.

"Is that what we did with them?" Raine the blue ranger questioned. "I figured it was more we managed to send them running by the skin of our teeth."

"I'd say it was more somewhere in the middle of the two." Sophie the green ranger voiced.

One of the Slicer's attacked Antonella and by instinct she let out a small gasp of fear before remembering she was the pink ranger and kicked the demon minion in the chest as hard as she could.

Aaliyah the red ranger drew her sword and focused to channel the power of fire into her weapon. "Let's show them what we can do guys." She told them and then charged two of the Slicers with her sword blazing. She cut through the first one effortlessly.

Her four team mates drew their sword and channeled their respective elements into their swords before charging the Slicer's as well. Evan wanted to point out how easy this was turning out to be as he cut through Slicer's with his lightning blade, he could see Raine cutting through them with her tidal blade and Sophie cutting through them with her leaf blade. He couldn't see Antonella.

Sophie and Aaliyah could however and she was doing just as well with her lunar blade.

It seemed like the fight was quickly swinging to the ranger's favor when a cove of branches shattered and the five of them looked at the source of the noise to see a broad shouldered, three skeleton headed creature standing there. One pair of eyes was red, a second blue and the last yellow.

"Oh my gosh." Sophie whispered.

"How do we fight that?" Raine wondered.

"Carefully." Aaliyah answered. Together with Evan the two rangers charged toward the three headed skeleton monster, both of them slashing their blades at it. In its two hands large sword made of bone formed in its hands and blocked the attacks, it also seemed to absorb the elemental portion of their attacks. Then it knocked the swords aside and slashed the red and yellow rangers back hard.

"This is just a guess, but look at its eyes." Raine instructed. Sophie and Antonella noted the colors. "Try to attack that thing together just as Aaliyah and Evan did. I would submit that it can't block your elements the way it did theirs."

"I sure hope you're not wrong about that." Sophie commented. She and Antonella started toward the monster, the two girls moving to flank the monster before trying to attack. The problem with a three headed creature is that it couldn't really be flanked and it managed to block the attacks and absorb the elemental portion of the attacks before kicking Antonella back hard and striking Sophie with both swords.

"I think your submission on its abilities was off." Sophie pointed out, oblivious to Raine's annoyed look at her comment.

"We are Scourge." The three headed skeleton announced. "And it is time to put an end to your pathetic little journey." He combined his sword together and unleashed a powerful blast of energy that was coated in the same color as Scourge's eyes. It stuck the five rangers down hard.

"I think this Kronos guy has upped his game." Evan noted as the Slicer's moved in behind Scourge. "This is not good."

"We have to keep it together." Aaliyah tried to encourage her team. "Let's all try to attack this thing." Reluctantly the five of them tried to attack Scourge together but this time when the demon general attacked it was with the energy of the Slicer's behind it and it sent them reeling backwards, crashing through some of the foliage.

They hit the ground and even worse than the landing was the discouraging feeling as they were forced to power down. "So much for round two." Sophie gasped, trying to catch her breath.

"I think we're about to have bigger problems." Evan noted as the Slicer's started toward them with Scourge coming in from behind them.

"What do we do?" Antonella asked.

"We run, fast!" Aaliyah answered simply as she grabbed Antonella's hand to help her up and started to run in the opposite direction. Evan and the other two girls were right behind them.

"Get them." Scourge commanded. "They will make excellent sacrifices for the upcoming return." The Slicers went running after the five teens.

It seemed like an eternity of running through the forest, not really even sure where they were going but in reality it was only a few minutes of it. The Slicers were silent but they could all feel their ominous presence, the feeling all too recent from the attack on the school that had resulted in their powers in the first place.

The sound of rushing water stopped them cold as they saw a huge churning lake. Raine thought she could make out an island in the center for all the good it did them, she sincerely doubted they could ever reach it even if the water was calm. "We're trapped." She said out loud.

Aaliyah and Evan took a step forward as if somehow they could stop the incoming Slicers themselves though of course in truth they could not. Scourge's three skull heads grinned even more broadly if at all possible as if anticipating their defeat. That look turned to shock when the water level rose even higher and unleashed a tidal wave straight toward the demons. It served as little more than a deterrent but when the water cleared they were alone; the five teenagers were gone.

The last thing Aaliyah remembered was being overwhelmed by water. She had wondered if Raine had somehow done it but elemental control without being morphed had not been something any of them had demonstrated yet.

Now she woke up on something soft. She wasn't quite sure what it was but it beat the hard ground. She saw that Antonella lay beside her, facing her. She was still out of it, at least as far as she could tell. Just behind her was Raine, she seemed to be on her back.

Aaliyah turned her head to see that Evan was on his back beside her and Sophie was on her side facing Evan. Both were still out as well. She seemed to be the first one up. She stretched a bit as she started to stand up. "Wow." She said softly.

She reached over and nudged Evan in the side gently with her right arm as she reached over and shook Antonella's shoulder with her left hand. They both woke up and as Antonella let out a gasp of shock, Evan woke up only to whisper, "Awesome."

Evan in turn woke up Sophie who let out her own gasp of shock as Antonella woke up Raine who took one look and whispered, "Okay now this is fascinating."

In front of them were console that seemed to be growing from trees. In the center of the room was a large globe that was sitting on a stump and being held up by four thick branches around it, almost like a fist. "What do you suppose powers these things?" Antonella asked Raine.

Before the genius blonde could respond they heard a young female voice say, "It's powered by the Earth, the energy of the goddess. Duh." They looked around and could see no one.

"Hello?" Evan called out. "Where are you?"

"I'm here, where else would I be?" The young voice responded and then after a moment added a sheepish, "Ah, I see. Sorry about that." From seemingly nowhere a small girl appeared in front of the consoles. "I haven't mastered my powers yet, I didn't know I had blended into the wood."

"How did you do that? And who are you?" Sophie asked her curiously