Needless to say the idea of Ally's mother losing her head didn't sit well with the young blonde. It took everything she had not to go into hysterics. After a few more minutes of the tea party the group excused themselves. At that point they weren't even sure hatter noticed.
"Do you think my mother is dead?" Ally asked softly, almost not sure she wanted to know the answer.
"I don't think she is." Evie answered, trying to sound as confident as possible. The blue haired girl wasn't sure if she was as confident as she was hoping to sound.
"So what's first and how are we going to kill it…you know, as powerless as we are and all." Jordan asked with a slight droll in her voice. She knew they weren't powerless, eight of them had powers presuming they worked like Jane thought.
"I think we should deal with the wasps first unless something else decides to show up." Mal said. "Maybe we can get some weapons from them while we're at it."
"I'm sure they'll be willing to share." Ben said with a small smile at Mal. She smiled back at him.
"I think we're talking more the beat them down until they give up kind of willing." Jay emphasized. "If talking with them worked this wouldn't be happening."
"Something about what Hatter said is bothering me." Mal confessed.
Carlos laughed. "Shouldn't that be like most of what he said?" Carlos questioned. "I mean it was either bordering on insanity or scary, sometimes both."
"What is that bothers you specifically Mal?" Audrey asked her.
"Hatter was babbling about a seed." The purple haired girl answered. "And I remember my mother talking about seeds when I was younger. She called them Seeds of Darkness and she said she had them."
"Could Maleficent be responsible for this?" Aziz asked her.
"It's possible." Mal said.
"But Hatter said that this happened after the Island of the Lost was established, your mother would have been there at that time. On top of that their borders were up so no one could cross into Wonderland." Ally reminded her.
"That might not stop Paradias or Nerissa." Ben replied. "Maybe it's their doing. Maybe they got Maleficent in somehow. That would explain why she seemed so familiar with them."
Mal stopped at a tree and pointed a little way up. "That branch looks pretty sturdy." She said as she looked at her team. "It would make a great makeshift staff." She added pointedly.
"So what?" Aziz asked. He of course wasn't aware that Mal used a staff as her weapon and was pretty good with it, even if he did have suspicions about what they did outside of school hours.
Jordan zapped the branch off the tree and Ben picked it up and gave it to his girlfriend. She weighed it in her hand and nodded. "I think it will work." She confirmed.
They heard some buzzing above them and they all looked up. "Good to hear that Mal, because I think we've got company." Jay announced.
"The wasps found us." Aziz said.
Jordan saw the six teens reach for their iPhones, and Jane reach for the magic wand, before remembering they were trying to do their best to not use their powers and expos their identities. Instead they got prepared to fight as best they could.
An arrow shot out, aimed straight at Ally's head. She gasped and dodged it. Jay and Aziz charged where the arrow came from and found the wasp archer again and double teamed it, knocking it out. Hay took the bow and arrow set and tossed them to Audrey.
"It's not as pretty as mine." Audrey said, trying to lighten the mood. "It also isn't as sturdy." That was a more valid observation even though there was only one way to change that.
"We have to work with what we have." Mal replied as she twirled the staff. She missed her staff though.
Another wasp tried to jump Mal, this one wielding a katana blade. She raised her staff and blocked it, though it wasn't nearly as efficient as her own staff was. She kicked the thing in its abdomen hard and then brought the staff down hard on its head. "Ben." She called out as she kicked the hilt to him.
Ben picked it up and then raised it just as another wasp tried to attack him. He clashed with his opponent for a moment before taking its appendage off with the sword and then he kicked the thing in the chest hard. It hit the tree hard. "Jay!" He shouted out now and kicked the sword in his direction.
Jay caught it and knocked an incoming arrow off course. The wasp that shot at him took aim at him again before getting pierced in the chest by a shot from Audrey.
Another sword wielding wasp approached Jane and Carlos and tried to take off their heads, but the two teens dodged under the strike. Carlos caught its appendage while Jane brought her elbow up into its chest and sent it back.
Another approached Lonnie, swiping at the Asian girl's head. She caught it and kicked the wasp in the leg and as it fell she slammed her knee into what passed at its jaw.
Aziz took up a branch, longer and thinner than what Mal was using but almost as sturdy. He slammed the end of it into the wasp's face and as it recoiled back he used the other end to trip the wasp, whose head hit the ground hard.
A few others tried to attack Ally, Carlos and Jane but Jordan was there and sent a small shockwave and sent them flying backwards. "Like a bug repellor." She said with a small laugh. "Sometimes I love this."
Evie dodged a strike from another wasp and as she rolled up she saw it coming toward her again. She kicked it in the abdomen but it started to come at her again. Then her chosen sister came in from behind and knocked it in the back of the head.
"Are you okay E?" The purple haired girl asked as she held her hand out.
The blue haired girl took the offered hand and accepted the help up. "Yeah, it's just a lot harder to fight without my mirror shield M." She answered.
Mal stepped closer to her. "Do you think it's time to morph?" She asked quietly.
Evie bit her lip and then shook her head. "No, I don't think so…yet." She replied.
They realized that no one else had come out. The wasps had either been defeated or retreated, they weren't sure which one. "Does anyone else feel like we've just been tested?" Lonnie asked.
"If we did, I hope we passed. Put a little bit of fear into them." Jay answered.
"They'll likely report back to that Queen Wasp, if she didn't already know on some collective level." Jane commented. "We might need to be ready for more."
Jay walked over to retrieve a few fallen arrows and then walked over to Audrey and handed them to her. "I guess you're actually going to have to find arrows and use them this time." He remarked.
"Yeah, the only thing more annoying than the fact I don't have my real bow." Audrey replied. "We should have at least replicated our weapons for this."
"We probably would have if we had really expected this much trouble." Jay said. "We still have that option, but we have to make sure if it comes to that it's for the right reasons."
The group got together and again continued their journey. It began to grow colder. Soon the found they were indeed out of the forest but were instead facing a large area of open water like the Antarctic.
Jane shivered a little and Carlos wrapped an arm around her. He was just as cold as she was.
Audrey leaned against Jay. "Think our suits would protect us from the climate weather?" She asked.
"Maybe." Jay answered as he pulled her against him with one arm. "But it wouldn't help Ally and Aziz. Don't even know how much that would help Ben."
Mal leaned against Ben for warmth. "Mom used to say that my heart should be as cold as ice, but somehow I never thought that expression had any real meaning. Guess now I know otherwise." She remarked. Ben wrapped an arm around her.
"Unless you guys would rather continue to cuddle," Jordan interrupted lightly as she saw Aziz wrap an arm around Ally. "I could simply give us all snow gear."
"Probably a good idea." Evie agreed. She really didn't have anyone to cuddle since Doug hadn't come with and she knew it wouldn't really help them anyway.
Jordan replicated snow gear for the eight warriors in their colors, Ben looked more light gray than silver. Jordan had coated herself in gold while Jay wore silver. Ally wore a very light blue, kind of like crystal.
"Sweet." Aziz remarked. "Are you going to bring us a boat now?"
"That could be a bigger problem." Jordan said. "I mean in theory I could do it but I don't know exactly what could happen. Simple things are easy but in Wonderland I could create the Flying Dutchman or something."
"The what?" Audrey asked.
"It's a legend." Jay answered her. "It's a ship that's cursed to roam the seas. Anyone they find are either forced to join their crew and sail the seas with them or they kill them." He looked to the brunette princess. "The vessel is dead, and even if someone joins the living can't live on a ship for the dead."
Audrey felt a chill at that moment that had nothing to do with the weather conditions.
"Okay, so we don't want to make another Dutchman." Mal agreed. "But we do want to get across, so what are our other options?"
"We don't know that we need to cross this." Aziz reminded. Though in truth he didn't see another alternative either.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to cross this if you wish to reach the mountains where the Wasp Queen lives." They heard. They turned to see a penguin waddling up to them. "At least I assume that's where you are headed. The mountains are a barrier for the Red Queen, along with the Wasp collective."
"Where will Jabberwock be?" Ally asked.
"No one knows." The penguin answered.
"Guys, the penguin is talking." Carlos said quietly. "That is so bizarre."
"How do we cross this? Does someone have a boat?" Audrey asked the penguin. She had to blink a moment as if reminding herself that she was talking to a penguin.
"You might try Walrus's cruise line." The penguin answered. "He has cruisers going between the locations three times a day and I believe it will be leaving in about ten minutes." The penguin pointed left. "Go that way about half a mile and you should find the dock, with luck Walrus hasn't left yet."
"Let's go then." Jay said.
"Be careful though." Penguin advised. "Lest you cross Snowblaze, the ice guardian that Jabberwock was rumored to have left behind years ago. No one has seen him in a while but the rumors persist."
"How do rumors persist if no one has seen him?" Evie asked.
It was Lonnie who answered the question. "Because anyone who has seen him hasn't returned to warn others. But someone would know if anyone who ran into this Snowblaze didn't show up."
"Then we'll have to keep an eye out." Ben said. "We need to go there and cross so we can save Mrs. Liddell."
"Going to rescue Alice, are you?" The penguin asked. "I'm glad to hear that, I just hope the poor girl is still alive to be rescued."
"Thanks for your help." Audrey said as they started off, Aziz again placing a comforting hand on Ally's shoulder.
They started off in the direction the penguin indicated. Again Carlos questioned, "Does anyone else realize that we're taking directions from a talking penguin?"
"Yeah, we figured that out about two minutes ago." Mal replied as she rolled her eyes. "You're having a really hard time with the concept of magic doesn't have to make sense as long as it works and that animal talk here in Wonderland aren't you?"
"Wouldn't all of you be weirded out if Dude started to talk to us?" He questioned back.
Each of them paused to wonder about that. Finally Evie answered, "Maybe a little but again this isn't our world. We all know enough to realize that what we expect in our lives isn't what we should expect from this place."
"Not just here." Ally interjected. "We have to remember that everything that has happened in the last couple of months goes above what most people expected to ever happen in Auradon."
Mal had to give her that one. Becoming a ranger was even more unexpected than even discovering that she wanted to be good. To realize that her boyfriend was the evil knight they were fighting was one of her most bizarre moments ever, even if it was accompanied by the fact it was done without the young king's knowledge.
They also had to remember the love potion that Mal was under…they still didn't quite know who the original target was, just that it had been placed in Lonnie's water bottle but she had let Mal take some water at her request. Had Nerissa known who the water bottle was supposed to belong too? Had she meant to do that to every water bottle and Mal inadvertently ruined the plan? They'd never know. What they had known was that it made her fall in love with Chad.
Perhaps even worse were the nightmares that had Mal, Audrey and Evie had been forced to endure. It had all caused them a good amount of anguish and the truth was that while Mal and Evie seemed to have gotten over most of those effects, the purple haired girl having been assured by Ben several times while the blue haired girl had been assured by Carlos and her own chosen sister, Audrey still seemed to have at least part of still lingering within her. Aside from her surprising fear of losing her friends there was still something else in there that only Jay even suspected was present.
And no one had forgotten what Red Magi had done the first time, or even with his somewhat mysterious ascension to the Crimson Sage. Magic none of them had understood and only had barely been defeated had been used to trap their parents and several students inside the conference hall, where they had been conned into giving up their iPhones and Ben into giving up his sword and shield. Only Jane becoming the white ranger and outsmarting their adversary had allowed them to recover their powers, rescue their parents and save the day.
"Is it me or is it getting colder?" Lonnie asked as she wrapped her arms around herself. "More snowy?"
"It is." Evie agreed. "It's like a blizzard is starting to move in."
"Do you think we've found this Snowblaze?" Ally wondered.
"Maybe." Jane said. "I would think with a name like that it might foretell blizzard conditions." She held up her hand a moment. "And we seem to be getting that."
A gust of wind picked up and all but blinded them for a moment despite their attempt to shield their mitten clad hands with their eyes. Then Carlos cocked his head. "Guys, I think I hear a snarling sound."
"That you Ben?" Aziz asked him jokingly.
"Not me at all man." Ben answered.
One thing Audrey learned in her archery class was how to spot things at longer distances, even if that was a skill she didn't always employ. So it was the brunette princess who first saw the large crystalline snow beast bearing down on the group. "Incoming!" She called out as she raised her bow, took an arrow and placed it, then fired straight at it. The arrow bounced off harmlessly. "Oh, come on."
The snow beast crashed right into and right through the team, forcing them to all land hard in the snow.
"It looks like ice." Ally noted with some awe.
"It's harder than ice." Audrey added. She hadn't really gone into details about her archery training but her father had once had her shoot an ice sculpture from a long distance. She had doubted a single arrow would destroy it even she hit it. But she had done as her father had asked and she hadn't been sure what surprised her more; the fact that she hit it or the fact that it had shattered into lots of pieces.
"We'll just see how hard it is." Jay declared as he had the borrowed sword out. Aziz stood right with him, which Mal thought was kind of ironic that both boys would get along well enough when their fathers were, and probably still would be, mortal enemies. The two of them charged the snow beast and brought their weapons down on the monster.
Aziz's makeshift weapon shattered on impact while the sword Jay had scarped in the ice and got stuck there. Snowblaze slapped both boys aside and then pulled out the sword. It demonstrated its strength by breaking the sword into two in its large icy hand.
"Okay, so what chance do we have?" Mal asked as she looked at Ben.
Audrey again drew an arrow and shot an arrow at the Snowblaze. This time he caught the arrow and tossed it toward the brunette princess at a rapid speed. She brought up her arms to protect her head but the arrow shattered the bow she held. With slight shock she dropped the broken weapon and took a step back.
"I guess we're going to have to give this a shot." Ben said to his girlfriend dubiously. The truth was he too had his doubts about this. Nothing was different between what he and Mal were about to try and what Jay and Aziz already had tried.
Mal shook her head a little and said, "Alright, here we go."
The two of them launched their attack, but as both Mal and Ben expected it was the same result; a shattered staff and a sword that was crushed. Snowblaze slammed a huge fist hard into the ground and the shockwave shook up all of them, even sending Mal and Ben against the snow hard.
"We're out of weapons." Ally noted. "What do we do now?"
"We give magic a try." Jordan announced. "If it's ice than it's really going to hate this." She powered up a fireball and launched it straight at the monster. It melted the snowflakes around it and even melted some of the snow underneath it. But when it struck the monster itself, it was like it dissipated into nothing.
"What just happened?" Mal asked.
Evie bit her lip as she thought quickly. "Its internal temperature must be really high, I mean low in order to take the fireball like it was nothing." She revealed.
"At the very least it would have to be negative double digits." Jane added. "And probably lower than that."
Snowblaze swung again and the team barely dodged it.
Mal had about had it and was severely tempted to morph. She was trying to remember though that they were trying to use that only as a last resort so that they could keep Ally and Aziz as safe as possible. It wouldn't matter though if this snow beast got its hands on them.
"I think it's time to make a run toward the docks." Aziz said.
Audrey took a few steps back and then nearly fell back into a snow draft. "Wow." She gasped and then shook her head. "I just found a snow drift behind me." She revealed. "If one of us found one those while trying to run then that would be a problem for us."
Jordan brought her hands up and spread them, subtly picking up each of the team. "Hold on." She advised them as she started to use her magic to get them in the air and start to levitate them away as fast as she could.
They only got a foot or so before Snowblaze jumped up and descended straight down in the middle of the group. It sent them flying. Jordan herself flew hard and hit her head against a snow covered tree.
Aziz landed hard on the ground, Ally landing right beside him. Something, perhaps a stray icicle on the ground, made a small gash on the side of her head.
The eight warriors landed hard. Carlos reached over and started to help Jane up. Jay started to help up Audrey. Mal was already on her feet, as was Lonnie. The purple haired girl helped up her chosen sister as Lonnie helped her king to stand.
"Mal, I don't think we have a choice." Audrey said to their leader. "Without a miracle we can't stop this thing without our powers." She glanced around at the icy woods and the blizzard. "And I don't see a miracle coming our way."
The purple haired girl bit her lip in thought, knowing she needed to make a decision.