Disclaimer: The basic concept belongs to whoever Disney assigned it to but the characters belong to us. Like our previous fic series Viva La Resistance this series requires a lot of work due to differences in Time Zone and Hemispheres.

Power Rangers: To The Tenth Power
Horrors
by Robert and Mistri, Cho's Observer

Previously on Power Rangers: To The Tenth Power.

"Okay... this way are the dungeons," whispered Valdi, as they crept downwards. Suddenly, their suits flickered, and then they cut out. But Thala, who had been in her Phantom aspect was still with them, but still invisible.

"I'm demorphed, but still in my Phantom aspect," she whispered, astonished. They crept along, and soon Charda spotted Jolik in a cell, drugging their parents. He halted them, and Jolik left.

They crept in, and began untying their parents. Carefully supporting the adults, they began to make their way out, and soon they remorphed.

But alas, they managed their way to the throne room. In a thunderclap, they all demorphed, one by one. As Thala demorphed, she was force-shifted out of her Phantom aspect, and Valdi snarled, flinging his mother aside, who became a Tylai.

"We've been tricked!" Kylara snapped as the others also flung aside Tylai.

"Oh, god. Can't a simple rescue mission go right?" asked Wildrik.

"No," answered T'Aldr, as he came upon them.

~*~

"What have you done with our parents!?" demanded Charda.

"Little Blue Ranger... so impatient. I have done nothing. Yet. But for your insolence... " He clapped his hands, and April and Danny appeared tied and gagged.

"Let them go!" hissed Charda. T'Aldr only smiled and in a lightning fast move, crushed April and Danny into the floor. They didn't even have time to cry out. Blood, flesh and bone were all liquidfied and began puddling outwards. Charda and the other Rangers looked on, horrified. In a blue flash, Charda summoned his cutlass.

He brandished it, the weapon and his morphed body glowing bright blue. In blue thunder and lightning, the entire castle collapsed, the living parents were returned to their homes, and Charda looked straight at T'Aldr. "You will fall, like this castle."

"Don't make me kill you like I did your parents, boy," T'Aldr snarled. The Rangers ported out, Charda disappearing somewhere unknown. The debrief was very quick and afterwards, they went looking for Charda, but couldn't find him.

"Charda Ularna Pepe!" called Kylara. "Where on Unaka are you?"

Charda had actually done something quite stupid, he had ported to Earth, demorphed and was now walking around in Old New York.

I will kill him for what he has done, he seethed. "He will pay!" he shouted, drawing strange looks from some people who wrote him off as a crazy. He found a museum, and walked through it, admiring the collections of very ancient things. He found himself in front of a display cabinet, which displayed seven books. He read the plaque.

The British author, J.K. Rowling wrote seven books, focusing around a young wizard named Harry Potter and his two best friends, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley, in which they would confront a dark wizard known as Lord Voldemort. These seven books are regarded as literary classics of the late twentieth/early twenty-first century. We are exceptionally lucky to have first editions of each book, resplendent with mistakes. Probably the best known one occurs in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where shadows of people that Voldemort killed come out of his wand in reverse order. James Potter died before Lily Potter, and should follow his wife, yet in the first edition it was written that James' shadow came out before Lily's shadow did.

Charda smiled somewhat and moved onwards. He saw Greek and Egyptian remnants of civilisation. He finally morphed again and teleported back to Unaka. He demorphed, and soon Kylara came to him.

"Why, Kylara? Why?"

"I don't know."

~*~

T'Aldr looked morosely around his ruined castle.

"Jolik, clean it up. I'm going for a beer."

"All of it?" Jolik said, looking around. "There must be seventeen thousand tonnes of stone here! Not including fixtures and whatnot!"

"Would you rather be dead?"

"I'll clean it," said Jolik nervously. He picked up a stone, and hurled it into space. He began to pick up the rest of the stone, hurling it into space. After ten minutes, he had shifted precisely 0.00000000000000018820473% of the ruined castle's rubble, and decided to take a quick break.

"I never knew shifting rubble was so hard," he thought. He suddenly found himself with a new appreciation of women of the late nineteenth century/early twentieth century, and couldn't understand why, for as far he was concerned they had nothing to do with his present situation.

So Jolik returned to his lonely vigil, cleaning up the rubble. It never occurred to the idiot to perhaps use magic, and it wouldn't occur to him until all that was left was a tiny little stone engraved with 'ADSL'.

~*~

President Silvino was saddened to hear about the deaths of the Pepes, and offered a state memorial, which Charda almost refused. It took a punch in the face from Kylara to get him back to thinking properly.

But the Rangers were back to planning strategy.

"How?" asked Charda. "Our fights have been devoid of similarities."

"True," said Valdi. "We happen to have good sensor logs of other Ranger battles. We can watch them and make notes on things."

"Then play on," snapped Thala.

After five hours or so, they had made a few notes on fighting techniques that looked like they might be good to use as a surprise attack, a load of notes on what outside things they might be able to appropriate from 'places' to use in fighting, and one note on what to do if they were suddenly without Zords and Powers. It was: 'Run like hell to Fortress Articia.'

"We won't be running," said Landre. "We'll be fighting. They'll be running."

Radha suddenly thought back to what they had been told. '... the lines... deemed irrevelant... Green, Unakan Savior... Yellow, Lone Traverser of Roads... ' She excused herself, suddenly feeling very ill.

"We know he's gearing up for a battle," said Landre. "He must know that's stupid."

"That's not the point," said Wildrik. "I'm nervous about this whole damned idea of fighting this creep. We don't have much experience!"

"But you have some things that he does not understand," said Danielle, who had come to collect Sita for a movie night. "You have the desire to protect your homeworld. You have love. You have the selflessness of all Rangers, past, present and future."

"How's that supposed to help?" asked Xelia.

"You do not yet understand when it is best to let something happen, even when every fiber of your being is screaming to stop it. This is a chess game, nothing more than that. If you are to be victorious, you must make the right sacrifices at the right time."

"I didn't know you liked Harry Potter, Mother," said Sita.

"That's from the seventh book, when Harry is expressing doubt over having everyone follow his lead and die at his command," Adria realised. "And Ron told him to shut up and listen... "

"If you question every move, you'll have done nothing as Voldemort kills every person who's there to end this war! Trust your instinct, tell your people to go, and don't worry if they're killed, there'll be good time for that later! If someone's not where they're supposed to be, and they're not under your wing of command, stuff them! If they are, and they disobeyed orders and got killed, they must've had a good reason! Again, if they are and they won't go back when you tell them, leave it!" Ron roared.

The Rangers recalled that argument, and then they remembered the passage where Harry was forced to accept it.

"Avada Kedavra!" hissed Voldemort. Harry stumbled, and froze as Ron leapt in front of him, taking the curse's blow.

"RON!" he screamed. You have to make sacrifices... The right sacrifice at the right time... don't worry if they're killed... Thoughts went through his mind of what Ron had said. "Time for that later... " Harry said, his voice steel. He raised his wand. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

"There are some good points in there," said Isidore, finally. "We can't stop and mourn everyone who might die if this all out battle does occur."

"Right," said Landre.

"OK Rangers listen up. For now you can consider us to be on Orange Alert. If so much as a twitch comes from The Nameless One we will be immediately going to Red. Now is not the time to be worried about casualties. During the big battle there will be casualties possibly even among the team. If we do our jobs right though casualties will be minimized especially blue on blue casualties, casualties among the populace of Unaka and especially casualties among the Rangers. Alpha's job will be to stand by here and attempt to monitor the situation and if it gets real bad to request help from other ranger teams. Until the battle we will be training harder then ever before so hard the only thing you will remember is the route from your quarters upstairs to the training area downstairs," Valdi said.

Nine faces groaned at the thought.

End