Today was a big day as the Auradon's Fighting Knights took on the Sherwood Forest Falcons in a highly anticipated rematch. That first tourney match was also the first time that Jay and Carlos had played for their school and the black ranger and become the MVP of the game.
That also meant that Audrey, Mal and Evie were on the side of the field cheering. Though they weren't sure why both Mal and Evie had noticed that Audrey seemed even more, well cheery than usual despite their recent nightmare scenario. None of the girls had spoken to anyone about what had transpired though something seemed to have been good for Audrey in the end.
In the front row Jane, Doug and Lonnie with Dude in tow as they sat in support of their friends as they played one of the toughest games of the season. Of course as far as Jay and Carlos were concerned a lot had changed since then, including their time as rangers. Tourney suddenly seemed a lot easier to manage, even on this level.
It was a hard fought game that ended with Jay passing Ben the ball for the winning goal, beating one of their biggest rivals yet again. The cheerleaders rushed the field to congratulate the team, with Mal throwing herself into Ben's arms and giving him a kiss that had only been beaten by the one she had given him upon waking from her nightmare.
Audrey stopped short of throwing her arms around Jay though she did give him one of her brightest smiles. "You did good out there, I mean all of you did good out there." She said, kind of shyly.
Jay felt himself flush a little and quickly tried to chalk it up to the exhilarating game. "Thanks. You looked good out there, too. I mean your squad." He replied.
Audrey again tried to extend the olive branch to Chad, who was supposed to be her and Ben's friend after all. "You did really great too Chad." She said.
Ben caught onto what she was trying to do as well. "Yeah, great game man." He added.
Chad shook his head. "Yeah, great game." He drolled. "I remember when it was you and I at the head of the team, now Jay over here has to hog the spotlight."
"Dude, it's called team work." Mal reminded him with just a bit of exasperation in her voice. She understood their arrival hadn't been the most welcome but at this point everyone else seemed to have gotten over it. Granted she knew he didn't have the same bonding experience that Audrey had ended up with since becoming rangers, but it was still getting tiresome."
"You did get a few points yourself." Audrey tried to remind him helpfully. Of course she knew that both Ben and Jay had gotten a couple more than that. Carlos had been a big asset to both of their success as well.
"You know what, Audrey?" He snapped. "Just shut up and stay out of it."
Audrey tried not show how much that got to her as Jay now stood toe to toe with Chad. "I've had enough of you snapping at her, and everyone else." He said.
"And you intend to do what about it?" Chad demanded to know.
Jay probably would have followed up on the fantasy hit he had given nightmare Chad in Audrey's nightmare if Ben hadn't stepped in at that moment. "Hey, come on guys. We just had a great victory. Pizza's my treat." He looked to Mal and Evie. He couldn't see Audrey from his position keeping Jay and Chad apart. "The cheerleaders can come along too; they were just as inspirational to the crowd as any play we made."
"Sounds good." Jay said as he backed away from the prince but still was glaring daggers his way. Chad for his part said nothing but also stepped away with that same look.
The teams headed for the locker room with a promise to meet at the bleachers. A few students also stuck around including Lonnie, Jane and Doug. He actually reached out to touch Evie's arm and when the blue haired girl looked at him he said, "You looked awesome out there."
"Thanks." Evie said, intentionally shaking her hair a bit around her face to hide the small blush coming to her cheeks. Then she added, "We're going to go change and stuff, stick around and we can…talk or work on something or…or whatever."
"Sure." Doug said with a slight catch in his voice.
Then Ben was right beside Doug. "Hey, man. Do me a favor and order the pizzas." The young king requested as he gave him his credit card. "We'll be out in a few."
Lonnie, Jane and a few other students ran back to the cafeteria to get some drinks. One of them was actually a friend of the group; Ally the daughter of Alice Liddell. Doug meanwhile ordered the pizzas and by the time he had placed the orders others had set up tables and the drinks were out.
Jay and Carlos had shown up minutes after wards. Doug and the two girls took their chance to congratulate them on the well-played game. Soon after that Mal, Evie and Audrey were out and Lonnie pulled the former evil kids aside along with Jane for some quick shop talk. Carlos took Dude as and started to run him through a few tricks. For a moment that left Audrey and Jay alone. It felt awkward but not in bad sense. It was still a new feeling to the former bad boy and a vaguely unfamiliar one for the princess.
"So, uh…any trouble sleeping since that Invader of Nightmare guy a couple nights ago?" Jay asked her as they sat on the bleachers.
"No." Audrey said. "It's like…I guess everything was brought up so quickly there hasn't been time for anything else to follow it."
"That's good, I think." Jay said. Audrey's burst of emotion toward him and his reaction to that still hung on their minds but they weren't sure what it meant, if anything. Part of Audrey almost wondered if that last part had been real but she couldn't figure out why else Jay would be acting as bizarre as she felt.
"I never figured out though why it was just Mal, Evie and I." Audrey finally said a bit softly. "Why weren't you, Carlos and Lonnie affected?"
"Because I'm a man, and we don't have nightmares." Jay tried to preen but saw that Audrey was being serious and just shrugged. "I don't know, Audrey. I kind of wondered that too. Carlos thought that maybe Paradias was trying to go after the most intuitive ones."
"That doesn't seem likely." Audrey replied. "Lonnie is way more intuitive than I am. I mean it was her idea to check that torii thing by the far shore after all, even knowing the legend behind it."
Jay sighed a bit. "I wish I had the answer for you…you girls." He said abruptly. "But the only one who has them is currently lurking somewhere waiting for his next right time to strike."
The knight entered the bridge and knelt before both Paradias and Nerissa. "You have summoned me and I have come. What is your demand?" He asked.
Paradias rose and started down toward the mystery knight. "I have been examining Auradon's files and I know what I need now." He placed a small pad in front of the knight. "Find this and bring it to me. To do so though you will have to do one thing first. Deactivate the command center."
"It shall be done." The knight promised.
"This is actually a two for one deal." Nerissa said happily from behind her master. "Not only do we achieve one of our objectives but we also eliminate one of the ranger's biggest assets, aside from those damn zords."
"This is only the beginning of what I have planned." Paradias said. "Though it will soon be the last plans that involve the rangers before they meet their end."
Fairy Godmother was working on correcting an oversight that hadn't been revealed until recently. Trying to find a way to keep the entire island covered with their sensors as she had recently learned from Jane about the torii herself. She had hoped her daughter would come by to help after the game but assumed that if the team won her friends would encourage her to stay for the celebration. She could hardly begrudge her that since she had finally realized that until recently her daughter had not really been very social with other students.
One of the tools slipped from her hands and she turned to retrieve it only to find herself looking up at the knight. He had entered the command center, which seemed odd to her as only those in Auradon could enter the command center without setting off an alarm, and even then only select faculty and even more select students knew about it in the first place.
The knight lashed out and struck Fairy Godmother hard, knocking her out. He then raised his sword and unleashed a stream of energy into each of the consoles, causing many to blow apart, a few lucked out and merely short circuited. Very little of the area was intact.
With that the knight started toward a smaller hidden staircase to the side of the command area and descended down it for his next objective and completion of the mission.
"You really think this will work?" Jane asked curiously. She knew of course that initial idea would work, that much had been proven during Lonnie's hip hop act. The challenge came from the idea that they had to add in a separate chemical for effect that wasn't simply show and then get it placed into their powers matrix.
"I don't see why not." Evie replied with a shrug. "I think I already know how to mix in the needed chemical for this."
"That should be a snap for you Evie." Mal said with a smile. "You're great at this kind of thing, I think you're better at this than Doug is."
"I wouldn't say that." Evie replied but couldn't hide a small smile after the given compliment. It especially felt good to hear after her nightmare where the purple haired girl, practically a sister, had rejected their friendship. "But maybe someday. Anyway, we'd have to convert that into a gaseous state but that should be easy enough."
"Once that's done I can figure out how to overlay that in the power matrix easily enough." Jane noted and smiled a bit. "You're right, I think we can make this work."
Carlos interrupted the girls when the pizza showed up and they had started over toward it when Mal frowned. "Guys, hasn't Ben shown up yet?" She asked.
In truth of course no one had been paying attention since Carlos was busy with Dude, Jay and Audrey had been trying to make small talks in between sips from their water bottles and the rest of them had been hammering out the details for Lonnie's idea. It was Audrey who shook her head. "It doesn't look like he's here."
"You two check the locker room, maybe something happened in there." Mal instructed Jay and Carlos. The two boys nodded and headed off with Dude after them. She looked to Doug and the girls. "Could something have happened that required the king?" She asked.
"Anything is possible." Doug answered. "But honestly I don't know of anything scheduled."
Moments later the two boys came back. "The locker room is empty." Jay announced.
"I'm going to give Ben a call and see what's up." Audrey decided as she pulled out her iPhone.
Carlos realized something and pulled out his iPhone as well and frowned. "I think something is wrong." He announced.
"Monster attack?" Lonnie asked.
"I don't know, and that's the weird thing." He answered as he showed them his phone. "I had my iPhone's sensor app going when we were dealing with the nightmare thing and forgot to turn it off. I went to sign off now but it can't access the application."
"I know mom was working on trying to cover the blank spots in our grid." Jane revealed. "She wanted me to come help but said if we won and I was asked to stay for the celebration that I should do so."
"No answer from Ben's phone." Audrey said worriedly.
"Is that related to the app problem?" Jay asked.
Jane shook her head. "It couldn't be. At the heart we all still have iPhones. Your six phones have simply been modified to make use of the crystals that serve as the source of your powers. Ben, Doug and I have a regular iPhone, barring of course the unique apps we need for our jobs."
"I don't know if it's just a sensor glitch or not but I think we should go to the command center and see what's going on." Mal stated. There were nods of agreements from her team mates, ranger and civilian alike as they ran off.
A feeling of dread started to envelope the team and soon Jane was ahead of everyone else as she grew very concerned for her mother. She was the first into the center and let out a scream of alarm as a console ruptured in front of her.
The others were right behind her. "What happened here?" Lonnie gasped.
"Mom?!" Jane called out in a panic. "Where are you!?"
Mal just barely made out a figure under some of the panels. "Oh my gosh, over there." She exclaimed. "Jay, give me a hand." The two teens made their way over and pushed off the panel to reveal an unconscious Fairy Godmother.
Jane knelt beside the still form of her mother. "No…I should have come here…maybe I could have prevented this." She said softly.
"She's still alive." Mal promised her, and as if on cue they saw her chest rising and falling.
"If you had been here then there is also the chance that Mal and Jay would have had to unbury you too." Carlos said to Jane as he placed his hands gently on her shoulders. "You can't blame yourself for what happened."
"What did happen here?" Audrey asked as Doug disconnected the consoles from the power to eliminate the random surges that were still going on.
"Who could have attacked the command center?" Lonnie asked.
"Paradias?" Jay asked.
Jane shook her head to focus her thoughts. "No." She finally answered. "If Paradias or any of his monsters even managed to set foot on campus without panicking everyone, coming into the command center would have."
"Is there even any reason to come down here?" Evie asked. "I mean aside from the obvious."
No one had an answer for that, which made sense since the secret room the knight entered had only been known about by Fairy Godmother…and somehow Paradias.
Then one of the few surviving consoles working off battery power went off, which connected to the screen. On it were a bunch of soldiers and they were surrounding Ben, who was bound to a post in the ground. Then the knight came forward. "Rangers." He announced. "I know you can hear me. If you don't show up and confront me in ten minutes then you will be looking for a new ruler of your precious Auradon." Then the screen went blank.
"That was the canyon just shy of the beach." Audrey stated. The class had gone down there many times during the weekend though it hadn't happened since Mal and her chosen siblings had come to the school.
Mal stood up. "Doug, get Fairy Godmother to the infirmary. Then come back here and help Jane get things going again." She looked to her friend and frowned sympathetically. "I know you're worried about your mom Jane but if she were able to she would tell you to focus on keeping everyone safe and that means you have to start restoring these consoles."
Jane took a moment to fight back her tears. The old Jane, as it were, probably couldn't have handled this. The Jane she had become since taking up helping the ranger's would find a way. "I'll get on it." She promised but added, "Please, be careful."
"We will be." Mal promised. Then she looked to her team mates. "They can try to kill me, they can give me horrible nightmares and put me under love spells. That's fine. But they mess with my boyfriend and they pay the price." She gave them an almost cold smile. "Let's get out there and make that knight pay for this." Her team mates nodded in agreement.
They made their way to the canyon and just short of it stopped, took out their iPhones and after experiencing a moment of joy that their morphers worked despite the damage to the command center they entered their numbers and transformed.
They found more soldiers than they liked and the knight waiting for them, with a bound Ben in the back. "We're here, now let my bo…our king go." Mal ordered the knight.
"You want him back, then you're going to have to get him." The knight replied and then pointed his sword at the rangers. "Get them." All the purple skinned green eyed goons charged toward the teens.
The six of them formed their weapons and started to battle back. Very soon the knight made his way into the heart of combat and systematically started to attack each and every one of the rangers even as they did their best to take out the soldiers. It actually reminded Lonnie and the boys of the amounts they faced down to defeat the Invader of Nightmares.
"I hope you appreciate what I did to your command center." The knight gloated to Mal as he slashed at her. "Maybe your little fairy godmother will survive, if she's lucky."
"You did all that to the command center?" The purple ranger questioned in shock. "How could you? How did you get in there? Who are you?"
"I did it because my master Paradias commanded it to be done." The knight answered. "And who I am is a question that you will all take to your graves." He slashed Mal hard and she fell back, struggling to avoid being grabbed by the soldiers.
Audrey recovered from the latest assault and cut through some of the soldiers and then made her way to free her best friend when all of a sudden Ben and the post were gone. "What? Where did he go?" She asked as she then had to turn around to deal with more soldiers.
"Where is he? Where is Ben?" Mal demanded to know as she renewed her attack on the knight, but her focus was way off as she did so.
The knight blocked her attacks easily. "If you want to know where Ben is, you will have to defeat me. And you can't do it alone." He retorted.
The other five rangers were trying to make their way to Mal, each of them concerned about their friend as well. But the soldier seemed to be numerous and overwhelming. None of them were getting as close to helping their friend take out the knight and finding out about Ben.
Their opponent seemed to be enjoying their predicament and then finally called out, "Away with you all. It's time to see what they can really do." The soldier started to back up. "The last time we truly clashed I defeated you all."
"That was before our sixth ranger." Mal reminded him hotly. "And that was before you all got on my bad side for targeting my boyfriend."
"How little you understand." The knight said amused. "But I promise you, I might just make sure you understand before I put you down." He gestured for them to attack. "Let the battle commence."
Audrey and Mal, the rangers most connected to Ben, moved in to attack the knight first. He raised his shield and blocked both staff and bow attack and then pulled the shield to send their weapons off course before he took a savage swipe at both girls and knocked them back.
Lonnie and Carlos tried next, but he blocked the smaller weapons with his larger sword and then shield bashed Carlos hard, sending him sprawling. Had he not been morphed it probably would have broken his nose. Then he turned to Lonnie and brought the sword down hard on her shoulder, then kicked her in the chest and sent her flying hard, almost as hard as the landing was.
Now Jay and Evie moved in. Jay slashed at him with his scimitar and the knight dodged. He launched an attack but Evie moved in as the black ranger dodged back and she took the impact, intending to reflect it right back. He dodged the attack and leapt up, bringing the sword down against Evie hard and the shield against Jay hard. As the two of them fell back they were joined by their other team members.
"Why are we having such a hard time here?" Mal wondered, feeling upset, fearing if they couldn't defeat the knight she would lose Ben forever.
"Calm down Mal." Evie said, almost afraid that her purple haired friend would snap at her. Part of that came from the recent nightmare and part of it came from a slightly closer reality; Chad constantly attacking Audrey despite her attempts to be friendly.
Mal took a moment to touch her friend's shoulder reassuringly. "Let's try the Auradon Triangle Spark, that's what worked last time and we have Lonnie to help us now." Evie nodded in agreement, and a moment later so did the others.
"I'm waiting rangers." The knight taunted them. "Show me your true powers so that I may show you mine."
Evie, Audrey and Lonnie stood side by side, followed moments later by Jay and Carlos jumped on their shoulders, followed by Mal getting on the guys shoulders. They drew their blasters and fired their attack on him.
The knight laughed as he angled his shield to catch the blast and then kind of used Evie's own trick against them and sent them all flying in different directions. They landed hard and were forced to power down. He stood over them now. "When it really came down to it, we just got in the final proof. You are nothing." He stated.
"Give me back my boyfriend." Mal tried to demand, though it came out sounding weak.
The knight laughed at her. "You tried and you failed. You will never see your boyfriend again." He then disappeared.
"NO!" Mal cried out and tried to tackle him but the move was futile. She fell to the ground and felt tears falling from her eyes. Audrey and Evie knelt on either side of her, trying to console her. After a few moments she gently shook them off and stood to look at them. "No. We haven't lost Ben yet. We will get him back and we will make that knight pay."
"We've got your back Mal." Jay promised. "No matter what."
Dejectedly the team returned back to the command center. It was still in so much disarray. Jane and Doug were working on repairs. Jane frowned softly. "All I was told by the nurse was that she was breathing easily and that if something changed she would call me." She pointed to her cell phone on a console.
"Where's Ben?" Doug asked worriedly.
"Paradias still has him, we failed to destroy the knight." Mal informed them, her voice wavering between sadness, anger and even despair. "But we can't give up yet, we're going to get him back and we're going to stop that knight once and for all."