"What just happened?" Mal asked.
Jane was already messing with buttons. "I don't know, nothing is responding."
Audrey tried her phone and discovered the map app was working find and a quick text to Ally revealed that as fine. "It's not the whole grid, it's just us." She revealed.
"This isn't a good time for that." Jay said. The view screen was still working and he pointed to it where Reviveslime had grown and was now entering the city. "He's entering town right now and he's going to cause all sorts of destruction."
"I know." Jane said in between messing with the consoles and trying to figure out what happened. "But until that happens there is nothing we can do."
Evie hesitated and touched Audrey's arm. "I wanted to say thank you." She said softly, but her eyes seemed lighter than they had in recent days.
Audrey wanted to point out now wasn't the time but she was curious and concerned. "For what?" She asked softly.
"For letting me go in and rescue Mal." Evie answered and her gaze shifted downward. "My nightmare…I dreamed my friends turned against me, but Mal was the instigator and she was the cruelest of them, throwing all of our time together against me and dismissing it like it was nothing."
"And this helped you to come to terms with that." Audrey surmised.
Evie nodded. "She reminded me that we were sisters first always and forever." She said and then gave Audrey a smile. "Regardless of who else we let into our bond." The blue haired girl added, giving the young princess a sense of relief to hear that she was just as much a part of their bond in a different way.
"Glad it helped you." Audrey said sincerely. "Now let's hope we all live long enough for it to matter."
One of the students let out a scream as the giant monster blasted one of the bell towers. Jordan flinched at the impact. "What the heck? Where are they?" She asked. Then she thought no more as one a huge debris would have landed on Ally. With a flash she appeared and took the blonde girl from harm's way.
"Thank you." She said to Jordan in her light British accent. "What's going on? Where are the Power Rangers?"
"I don't know." Jordan answered grimly. "We have to help get everyone to some kind of shelter, the gym is probably the safest place and it can hold everyone." She looked around and snapped at some of the other members from various sports teams. "Everyone calm down and let's get everyone into the gym." She started to herd a couple of younger kids in that direction.
"Good call Jordan." Said Aziz, the son of Aladdin and Jasmine as well as one of the team members on Auradon's tourney team. Then he turned around and shouted, "Everyone, we have to get to safety. Start toward the gym now." He stopped a young man from stumbling and righted him quickly. "Go." He said.
"Watch your step." Ally called out. "We don't want anyone to get injured while all of this is going on." She saw a young woman hobbling, she had obviously twisted her ankle. She helped the girl under her arm for a moment until a bigger guy scooped her up in his arms. Ally nodded her thanks and said, "Come on everyone, there's no time to waste.
Jordan watched these Ally and Aziz, among others, who were trying to help just because they should, even though they didn't truly know the score like she had just learned it. She hesitated only a moment. Then she made a choice. As soon as she knew the people were safe she was going back to the command center. She wasn't sure what she could do but she was suddenly resolute to make this her fight as well. "Come on everyone, double time it before we get another after shock." She called out.
Carlos, Doug and Jane were working furiously. The five rangers watched the assault on the city with growing anxiety. They could not see Jordan, Ally and Aziz working to help the innocent. Finally Jane made a gasping sound and said, "These electrodes shorted out, it disrupted all the currents. No wonder, they shouldn't be attached to these ports."
Doug realized that was the console was working under before the team had come searching for Ben, really Reviveslime in disguise. "Sorry about that." He said. He quickly found two more electrodes and handed them to Jane under the console. "I guess my technical skills leave something to be desired, but I really am a scientist after all…sort of."
"Don't worry about it." Jane said as she took the electrodes.
"We all make mistakes Doug." Evie said. "It's alright." A moment later the power was restored in the command center and the iPhones started their faint glowing in their signature colors.
"We're online again." Carlos said happily.
Mal nodded and looked to her team. "Let's get to work." They activated their iPhones, input their numbers and then transformed. This was followed by the Auradon Megazord rising from the mountains. The rangers, minus Mal at the moment, boarded their zords.
"Look, the Power Rangers have finally come out to play." Reviveslime said mockingly. "And just when your little mice down there were probably convinced you and run away in terror."
"We don't run from anyone slime boy." Audrey retorted.
Jay and Lonnie placed their weapons in the shared part of their console to summon the zord's sword. The battle zord got in a couple swings at the monster and he fell back, only to regenerate.
"We're almost there." Jane said excitedly to Doug. "With the power restored we can get the command center running." She gave a sad smile. "If only my mother would recover."
"She'll be fine Jane." Doug assured her.
"She may be but you will not be." They heard from behind them. They saw the knight standing right there again and slammed his shield into both of the teens, knocking them down. Doug was unconscious as his head hit a console and Jane fighting the darkness.
"Now to make sure this place never functions again." The knight said as he looked down upon the two stunned teens. He moved to the controls and began to work on them, trying to force the systems into overload.
"No…" Jane whispered softly. She tried to move to stop them to find her left side was not responding.
"Yes." The knight said gleefully. "It is now time to end this game."
"Hey." They both heard. The knight turned as Jane let out a hopeful gasp. In the doorway stood Jordan, having worked with Ally and Aziz to make sure the people were in the gym, she had went to the command center to lend her aid, only to find this. "You're the one who fried tore apart this place to start with."
"And I will finish the job now." The knight replied. "You have one chance to save your life, genie. Run."
"There has to be a way to cut this guy down to size." Evie said.
"I don't know how." Carlos said sullenly.
"We worry about that later, after we find out where Ben is." Audrey declared.
"You think you have the upper hand here, but you don't." Reviveslime said. From his already slimy looking back wings emerged and he hovered over the gym. A large blast of energy formed in his sword. "While you were out licking your wounds, these sheep, led by some very brave rams, moved into this place for sanctuary. They probably didn't know that I could get here so easily and ruin all their effort."
Lonnie caught on immediately. "The students and faculty, most of them must have fled into the gym for safety." She stated.
"Back away from them." Jay ordered the monster.
He only laughed. "Sorry, but that isn't going to happen." He cocked his head. "However, you can feel free to surrender yourselves Rangers. Then no harm need come to these innocent people."
"We can't surrender." Jay said.
"We can't let him kill those people either." Audrey reminded.
That choice would become moot as the monster was blasted from the sky from the skies. Then the purple dragon zord slammed into it with its body and he landed hard.
"Nice timing my friend." Mal called as she leapt onto its head. "Let's even up the odds." The dragon shimmered, again taking on alternate form of a Chinese dragon and forming the cockpit for Mal to take command.
The dragon swooped in again and slammed the slime monster with its tail before unleashing a wave of fire from its mouth, knocking it further away from the school and the city. As it rose it was accosted by both dragon zord and the Auradon Megazord.
"You think I'm scared by you Rangers?" Reviveslime asked. "Bring it on."
"You heard him guys." Mal replied. "It's time for the Auradon Champion Megazord."
"Let's do it." Audrey agreed.
The dragon zord lowered its head so the Auradon Megazord could jump onto it's back. The tail wrapped around the zord to give it more protection. Inside space was made for Mal between Audrey and Carlos and the rangers were six once more. "Auradon Champion Megazord, ready to rock." Carlos announced.
The battle zord unleashed a stream of energy at Reviveslime and sent in sprawling backwards with a crash.
"You don't have any other chances here." Jordan announced and summoned up as much power as she could before hurling it at the knight. He flew over the console and hit the wall hard. As he started to rise Jordan was now at the consoles and helped Jane to stand.
The girl had thankfully had feeling return to the left side of her body. She could only guess she had pinched a nerve, one that had not healed since she was still sore. She ignored it though as she pressed a button and trapped the knight in the force field. "That's that." She declared.
"No it isn't." Jordan said. "We have something else we need to do with him."
"We can't kill him, not until we know for sure what's going on." Jane said sternly.
"And we're not going to kill him." Jordan replied firmly. "In fact I agree, we're going to find out what's going on now." With that she placed her hands on the sensor console and directed all of her magic and her energy into penetrating the armor of the knight so that they could finally learn the truth.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Jane asked as she now knelt down to make sure Doug would be okay. "I thought you wanted to avoid this fight as much as possible."
"Presumably you've noticed the giant slime bucket rampaging around the school right now?" Jordan asked archly and Jane rolled her eyes but nodded. "I…I helped Ally, Aziz and some of the others get the school populace to safety, and I, I saw them doing it because they knew it was the right thing to do without knowing anything else." She looked down, a little ashamed. "I realized that I know more and I have to step up to help stop this however I can."
Jane reached up and patted Jordan's arm. "It takes a lot realize that. This isn't the kind of gig one picks up just because. They have to really look at their surroundings, look at themselves, and really decide if they want to take up this fight." She smiled up at her now. "You did just that and you know what you want, and luckily for us it's to help us stop Paradias however you can."
Jordan laughed. "Yeah, genie extraordinaire at your service." She joked gruffly and then looked at the knight. "And my first service is to help you get to the bottom of this knight crisis."
Doug moaned. "Did someone get the number of that truck that hit us?" He asked.
"It was a knight truck." Jane answered softly. "But luckily for us and the command center we had genie nine one one to come to our rescue."
"I hope you got what you wanted genie." The knight said mockingly. "Because I have other more pressing concerns." And with that he vanished.
"Darn it." Jane muttered.
"I think I got what we needed." Jordan told her. "Let me get to work."
The knight appeared in the field but it didn't last long as the same green energy beams surrounded him and he grew again to giant size. Together Reviveslime and the knight prepared to face off against the Auradon Champion Megazord.
"We've never had to face two monsters at the same time before." Lonnie noted worriedly. "Maybe we should separate and go at it that way."
"We're more powerful this way." Mal said. "And we're going to need that to take out even one of these guys. The other we can simply beat down enough to have them tell us where Ben is." She glance around at her team mates. "I don't care which one we take down and which we interrogate, but one of them will talk to us."
The two opposing forces slashed at the Auradon Champion Megazord with their swords and the battle zord reeled from the impact. The dragon zord reared back its head and released a stream of energy but the knight's shield protected him while Reviveslime merely reformed from the impact.
The Auradon Champion Megazord brought the sword down on the knight who blocked with his shield. The two wrestled with their respective weapons, neither able to force the other to drop it which is what Mal was hoping for. Then Reviveslime jumped up and latched itself onto the Auradon Megazord, trying to force it off the dragon. It was causing a good amount of damage.
"We have to get this thing off of us." Carlos said. "At this rate it'll deplete the zord of energy in a few minutes."
"Let's give this a try." Jay said and used the controls to slam the back of the Auradon Megazord's head into the face of Reviveslime. He fell off the Champion zord and then laughed.
"This things laugh is really starting to get on my last nerve, not that his looks are helping matters either." Audrey groused.
Now Reviveslime lashed out and wrapped itself around the dragon part of the Auradon Champion Megazord. "Get off of my dragon." Mal couldn't help but say.
The knight jumped down now and slashed the megazord across the chest and even scratched some of the dragon as well. Then he channeled energy through his sword and shot it out at the battle zord, causing further damage.
"We have to get our advantage back." Audrey said.
"I'm not sure we've ever had the advantage in these fights as of late." Lonnie pointed out.
"Let's take this to the sky Mal." Evie suggested.
"Good idea." Mal replied. The Auradon Champion Megazord flew off into the sky and as soon as the sun was shining off of the dragon's tail the ranger's sent their zord on a downward spiral. As they were getting ready to otherwise crash land they angled up so that Reviveslime scraped against the ground and was forced to release the underside of the dragon.
The knight laughed and then struck the Auradon Champion Megazord in the back, forcing yet another harsh recoil from the attack. Then Reviveslime was right by the knight. They combined their swords and unleashed a stream of energy, damaging the Auradon Champion Megazord and forcing the battle zord to split back into two.
"We're going to unite while you fall apart." Reviveslime said maliciously. "Damage wasn't the only thing I was doing when I leached onto your battle zord." With that the blue slimed monster shifted to resemble a crude version of Mal's own zord while the knight took on the position of the Auradon Megazord. They then powered up their own energies and slammed right into the zords.
The six teens fell from their zords hard and hit the ground, forcing them to power down. Mal also heard a clinking sound as she saw the crystallized version of her dragon zord hit the ground. It meant that it had been defeated, and the fact it didn't move showed that it was also unconscious. "Oh no." Mal whispered as she took it into her hand and cradled it gently.
The five rangers looked up as the zord sparked and fell to the ground before being swallowed up by the ground. "The megazord." Lonnie whispered. "What happened to it?" None of them had ever seen anything happen other than return to the mountain.
The knight atop Reviveslime laughed with amusement and then vanished. The six teens made their way back to the command center despondently.
They entered the command center, barely acknowledging the fact that they had again been joined by Jordan. They all sat down and sighed except for Mal who stood with her hand over the crystal dragon and that hand pressed to her heart.
"What happened?" Jane asked worriedly.
"I think the megazord is gone." Carlos said to her gently. "When the knight and Reviveslime combined they took out both our zord and the dragon zord." He sighed. "They fell into the ground and was swallowed up."
"And my dragon is right here crystallized, not moving." Mal said, feeling near tears as she continued. "They've all started to outmaneuver us at every turn, and we don't even know where Ben is." Now her tears spilled over. "He could be dead for all I know."
Lonnie sighed. "Mal's right." She said, feeling glum for the first time since this had all started. She set leaned her chin in her hands. "Our zords seem to be gone, we're struggling to keep the command center active, and this knight keeps getting the best of us. It's over."
Audrey sighed now. "I don't know what else we can do now." She said glumly.
Jay sat next to her. "I want to say we can't give up, but I don't see any other options either." He said. "So much for fighting the good fight."
"Hey, I just got here." Jordan protested. "I sure don't think we should be giving up this easily. There has to be something we can do."
"Like what?" Evie asked. "Do you have a magical solution somewhere? Something that will allow us an instant recharge on the zords? Maybe a new power source or a new zord? Because what we have right now just isn't cutting it."
Doug gently placed a hand on Evie's shoulder. "Didn't you have some idea Lonnie?" Doug asked the Asian girl.
"Yeah but with everything that has gone down recently we haven't had time to implement it." Lonnie said dejectedly. "And now it's just too late."
"Even I'm not sure what we should do now." Lonnie said. "Mom is still out of it, the systems are getting up and running but it won't matter for much longer if the knight decides to make a third appearance."
"What?" Jay asked.
"Our armored friend showed up again." Jordan said. "Knocked out Jane and Doug before I got here."
"Are you okay?" Audrey asked as Evie reached out to caress Doug's cheek and Carlos reached out to rub Jane's shoulder gently. Both of them nodded.
"So I zapped the knight and trapped him in a field for a few minutes before Paradias must have bailed him out." Jordan said with pride. She patted the console gently. "Got his scans running through our system right now."
"I don't know what good that will do us." Lonnie said softly.
"We'll know who our better is I guess." Jay said.
"Oh come on." Jordan said. "Perk up you guys, we'll figure it out. I promise, I'll do whatever I can. We'll make boosts or new powers or something. We'll stop these guys." Sadly she could tell that wasn't helping them feel any better.
"I'd just feel better if I had Ben back." Mal said softly. "I feel like I've lost him without him ever having broken up with me."
"Was that part of your nightmare?" Audrey asked her.
The purple haired girl shook her head. "Yeah, it was pretty much a big part of my nightmare." She said bitterly. "Maybe it meant I was going to lose him by another way." She looked at her friend. "I obviously know you aren't with him anymore but was that part of your nightmare."
"Surprisingly no." Audrey said. "Mine involved losing all of you." She looked to Jay. "Until someone told me that it was silly and that I was one of you guys, rather I liked it or not." She sighed. "Which means we also get to experience defeat together."
"We're not beaten." Jordan said. "We can't be."
"How can we not be?" Jane asked now. "We don't have a way to stop that knight and I don't think we will have one before he and Paradias end us all."
The console Jordan was at beeped and the genie girl looked up. "You want to know whose responsible for beating you guys down so much?" She asked, sounding a bit fired up as if she thought that might help motivate them. "Then I found it. We can see the one behind that armor."
On the view screen they saw the knight appear and then the armor was slowly taken off piece by piece until they saw the man underneath the armored mask. They could all see the person on the screen, the person who had been fighting them since practically day one. "Ben?" Mal gaped.