"I think it's time we incorporate a swimming class into your schedule." Fairy Godmother said to the four isle kids as they sat around at the command center the next day. She had not failed to notice that Audrey sat with her back against Jay's side and that his arm was around her shoulder. Likewise Mal chose to sit on Ben's lap. Evie and Doug were sitting next to each other, though they had not reached the point of coupleness, nor had Jane or Carlos who were still sitting side by side. Lonnie was sitting next to Evie and Aziz, while Ally was sitting next to Aziz. Jordan chose to levitate cross-legged above the floor a little in typical genie fashion.
"That's probably a good idea." Ben agreed as he rubbed Mal's back with one hand gently. "At some point that might become important with this job."
"It already could have." Evie reminded them. She had been swept away in an underground rapids recently as had only been rescued by sheer luck, in this case by Doug's family and her older half-sister Snow White. The only two positives of that encounter had been the chance to form a relationship with her and that she had gotten a sweet upgrade for her weapon.
"We're going to start implementing those on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons before lunch." Fairy Godmother said. Jane, Mal and Jordan took magic classes in the afternoon. So far despite having the option Evie had not wished to take the classes. She looked to Audrey, Ben, Lonnie and Ally. "Meanwhile I want you four to start a unique extracurricular activity in that time."
"What's that mom?" Jane asked. She was usually up on this kind of thing. She had known about the swimming classes, she and Ben had been the ones to address the issue with her. Whatever this one was she was in the dark on it.
"The four of you will begin combing through the archives for anything that might help us learn more about Sermaya and his civilization. We know so little about it, and knowledge is power. I don't want to be caught powerless the next time he chooses to strike." Fairy Godmother replied.
Ally had home economics that semester and was happy to drop it, she had learned most of that from her mother Alice Liddell anyway. Lonnie had an art class but understood the importance of this. She decided to pick it up again next semester when she had finished her own home economics class. Ben had his chemistry class then but he agreed to move that to the morning and lose his free period. Audrey meanwhile was not exactly happy about the idea of spending an hour looking through dusty material but understood the reasoning for it; she was more than happy to drop her Trigonometry class for it.
"Jane, Jordan, Doug." Fairy Godmother said now. "In that time, you will officially be taking a class called Cybernetics 101." She smiled just a bit. "Really it's just the cover for allowing you extra time in the command center for upgrades, repairs, or whatever else has to be done." One of those was the search to see if their new gold, silver and crystal rangers had a zord somewhere out there like Mal and Ben had.
"How convenient that you're the headmistress so these changes won't draw suspicion." Jordan noted coyly. Anyone else making this kind of schedule change would have had a hard time justifying some of this to their headmistress.
"So this will become the new schedule starting tomorrow." Fairy Godmother said. She handed each of those students actually doing something school sanctioned a small folder containing room number and some initial supply lists.
"Hey maybe you'll be a natural at swimming." Jay said to Carlos as he patted his shoulder affectionately. "They say dogs are really great swimmers, and you can't be any worse at that than you are tourney." He laughed at his own joke and Aziz laughed a little too.
Ben had a small chuckle at that but then said, "Hey, lay off Jay. He does just fine."
Audrey elbowed Jay a little in the side. "Yeah, behave yourself young man." She scolded half-mockingly. Carlos for his part shot Jay a look of semi-mock annoyance and let the subtle but kind of rude comment drop.
The command centers alarms went off and everyone rose to their feet, all thoughts of jokes and romances put onto the backburner to deal with the newest crisis. Jane and Doug were already moving to the consoles of the command center with Fairy Godmother right behind them. A few moments of checking and Doug announced, "I think I found our problem, or rather problems."
He brought up on the view screen an image of not one but two monsters that reminded Lonnie of a cross between a bull and a wildebeest. "That doesn't look like a typical monster of Paradias's." She noted dryly.
"But it does look like typical monster that would be used by Sermaya." Ben filled in grimly. Despite the beast gene being a part of him he had not figured out how that made Sermaya think of him as special, at least at one point. That seemed to change when he became the Auradon Knight.
"Where are they?" Evie asked. She didn't recognize the region though between the Badlands, several forests, the mountains where the Auradon Megazord lie, and even the torii near the water's edge that legend said would lead to the underworld, the blue haired girl wouldn't have been surprised to know that were more unknown regions in Auradon.
"They seem to have originated from the swamp lands." Doug said. It seemed obvious to them what that place was supposed to be until he added, "Judging from some of these readings I'm guessing that they had to emerge from near the volcano."
"Wait a minute, there's a volcano near the swamps?" Mal asked in a little bit of amazement. She was from a geology expert but somehow that didn't seem normal to her. She held up her hand and shook her head. "Wait, scratch that. We don't have time for that. We need to put these two monsters down."
The eleven warriors ran up the stairs and out of the command center and as soon as they had crossed the gates of Auradon Prep Mal called out, "Let's get to work." While Ben formed his sword and shield and Jane took out the magic wand, there rest of the team took out their iPhones. As Ben combined his weapons the other teens input their numbers and they all transformed.
Getting to the swamplands took a moment and Jordan was already trying to figure out some way to get them around faster, to be discussed with Jane and Doug at their first 'cybernetics' class tomorrow. They found the two beasts coming out from some of the foliage in the area, and right behind him was in fact Sermaya.
"Ah, I knew you kiddies would be showing up to try to stop us." Sermaya said with a sneer. "You're just in time. I'd like you all to meet Lava Guard," He inclined toward the crimson looking beast "And Swamp Guard." That was to the sickly green looking beast.
"It's time to crush us some rangers." Lava Guard said.
"Make their bones into our bread." Swamp Guard added.
"That is one kind of bread I don't want to try." Aziz noted with revulsion.
"Wait a minute." Evie interrupted. "We're missing someone here? Where's that one guy, the mage?"
Ben knew Evie was right and that Chiron was not present. But right now they had two new beings in front of them to deal with.
Mal knew it too. "Worry about him later." She said. "Right now we have more immediate problems."
Sermaya charged at Ben and the young king had to bring up his shield to absorb the brunt of his attack. He then slashed the primal creature hard in order to back him up off of him. "Still having issues with me huh?" Ben asked him.
Sermaya let out a laugh. "Not at all boy." He responded. "You have made your choice and you shall pay for it with your life." He tried to bring his meaty fists down on Ben and he barely dodged it.
The rangers meanwhile found themselves divided between the two monsters. Mal, Evie, Jane, Carlos and Jordan found themselves fighting Lava Guard. Audrey, Jay, Lonnie, Ally, and Aziz found themselves fighting Swamp Guard.
Each monster wielded enormous clubs that were heavy and backed up with enormous amounts of strength, as Evie and Ally learned when they received the first strikes. Jay attacked Swamp Guard with his scimitar (so far a regular one) only to be blocked while Mal swiped at her (so far normal) staff that Lava Guard took to the chest with almost no problem whatsoever.
The two Guard beasts let out a earsplitting roar that forced each of the rangers, and even Ben who was fighting Sermaya, to clap their hands over their ears. They were each bull dozed over by their respective opponents, making them land hard.
"I hope that doesn't cause permanent damage." Jane said as she started to get up.
"What was that?" Jordan asked her, though with the lack of persistence to the question it was hard to tell if the genie girl was displaying dry sarcasm or was being serious.
"I think it's time to bring out our upgrades." Evie thought she said to Mal, though in truth it was shouted because her ears were ringing.
So were Mal's the point that she almost didn't hear her chosen sister's words. She did catch the word upgrades and thought she understood what was being suggested to her. "Good idea." She replied but when she wasn't sure she got her point across the purple ranger nodded in agreement.
"Don't know what these power ups are but I don't think I want to know." Lava Guard said as he looked to his counterpart.
"I agree with you." Swamp Guard said. Together the two beasts slammed their fists into the ground. The dual impact traveled underneath the ground and struck all around the ten rangers, causing an odd explosion of steam and lava to send them flying backwards.
They started to rise again, the ranger team swearing they heard Mal say something about trying to pull it together but their hearing still seemed shot. Jane even said something to Doug and her mother about it over their intercom helmets but if they responded to her she couldn't hear it.
Ben still had his sight, and luckily Sermaya was not a small opponent because right now there was no way he could have heard the beast king coming. Even one on one fighting a battle without being able to hear was a challenge.
The rangers were quickly learning that two Guard beasts seemed to be work very well together, and that was posing a problem for them. The two combined their club like weapons and unleashed a stream of energy at the rangers. They landed roughly again and then Swamp Guard grabbed Lonnie roughly by her neck while Lava Guard grabbed Carlos roughly by his neck.
Both teens struggled against the monsters holding them but seemed to be having little effect. They noticed Sermaya grab ahold of Ben and toss him hard into a boulder. Mal let out a cry of alarm that she wasn't sure anyone heard anyway, deafening as the screeching had been. The beast king turned and let out a slamming of mighty fists to the ground that sent them flying backwards. And then Lonnie and Carlos were blanketed in white.
"Not exactly the kind of thing we see between yellow and pink rangers." Said a voice. Lonnie and Carlos looked up and swore they saw a figure like the one Jay had described, sans the accent. "Aren't they like supposed to be best friends or something?"
"That hasn't always been the case, moron." Said another that had the accent Jay described. "You know how things have changed since this all started."
"We weren't exactly friends when we first met." Said a feminine voice. This one belonged to a long curly haired blonde in a black uniform though it had streaks of pink in the fabric.
"You can say that again." Another voice agreed, also feminine. She had shorter brunette hair but wore the same black uniform with a streak of yellow in the fabric. "None of us were exactly, but we made it work."
"Just as they have." Said another ethereal voice. They vaguely recognized the voice that Jay had tried to describe and had even suggested that it had been Zordon, though he had been gone for many years now. "Just as all have, for the sake of each other and the worlds you protect."
Lonnie tried to ask if this was Zordon but found no words escaped her lips. She wasn't entirely sure if she this was real, or if she was hallucinating from lack of oxygen, or if she were dead. An exchange of looks with Carlos confirmed the same things she was wondering, along with wondering why if they were dying they would see the other.
"Do not fret, you two are not dying." The ethereal voice said. "In fact you have been brought here, as your friend was, so that you may receive aid to help you in your fights." At that the two women who had spoken about not getting along at first, in some ways paralleling their positions as isle teen and Auradon teen despite Lonnie being much more accepting than most of the others aside from Ben had been, took a step forward.
The curly haired blonde seemed to throw something toward Lonnie but it went through the air almost slowly, as if literally being carried by the wind. By contrast the something was released by the short haired brunette that literally seemed to travel through the white ground.
Still somehow at the same time it seemed to envelope both teens at the same time. "You have what you need to stop end this fight." The ethereal voice said. "Let the power protect you all."
"Go get them guys." They heard the first voice say as they found the white light enveloping them again.
Jane looked in fear as her friend and her crush were getting choked out by the two brutes. She raised her wand to try to find a way to help them. Then she realized that, like Jay had when he was about to be stabbed by Chad not long ago, the two of them started to glow.
"What is this?" Sermaya wondered with amusement. Unlike Paradias and his minions he had never seen this before.
Lonnie's tessens formed in her hands. Somehow they felt lighter in her hands but she felt more power radiating from them. Even better she realized she heard Sermaya's question. Whatever had happened to her restored her hearing. She brought the tessens up and then up, twisting them around and driving them into Swamp Guard's arms hard, forcing him to release her.
Carlos too could hear, as judged by the roar of annoyance the monster gave out. He realized his clawed daggers, which seemed much more powerful than before, had been summoned too. He slammed them hard into Lava Guard's arms and the monster howled in rage and pain. Carlos realized that the fact his opponent was a monster was probably the only reason the arms holding him had not broken.
The two rangers fell to the earth, landing on their feet. "I think it's time I give these two a shakeup of my own." Carlos said to Lonnie.
Lonnie nodded and smiled. "Good plan, meanwhile it's time for me to give our friends some aromatherapy." She replied.
Carlos brought his clawed daggers down on the ground hard, causing an earthquake to disrupt their balance and even causing them damage. Meanwhile Lonnie stood in front of her friends and raised her tessens, bringing them together and releasing a wave of energy at them, but this one was subtle and despite everything they heard what sounded like gentle chime ringing.
"That sounds so nice." Ally noted, and then realized she heard her own voice.
The others looked to Ally too. They had heard her as well. Audrey hugged Lonnie softly. "You did it, you reversed whatever it was those two brutes did to us." She said.
Lonnie laughed. "Thanks, but it's not over yet." She smiled now. "Carlos and I have some beasts to put down. Enjoy the show." She looked to Jordan. "Feel free to conjure up some popcorn." Then she ran up to join the yellow ranger.
Now two on two, Lava Guard charged at Carlos who dodged it expertly. Lonnie blocked Swamp Guard and then shot her leg out to force him backwards. She used her tessens to carry her up into the air and then unleashed a maelstrom at Swamp Guard, striking him hard.
Lava Guard released a stream of what seemed like molten lava at Carlos but he sank his clawed daggers into the ground and forced the attack right back at him. Then he gathered energy up into the clawed daggers as he leapt into the sky and then brought down the powered up claws right on the crimson beast.
Lonnie was still up in the air as energy was drawn into the her tessens and then she tossed them as if they were dual boomerangs straight toward Swamp Guard, both of them struck the beast twice. Releasing the weapons had set the pink ranger down on her feet gently.
Both rangers turned toward their friends again and started toward them as both Guard monster exploded and were destroyed.
"That was awesome." Jane had to grant with laughter.
"Really cool." Aziz agreed.
Mal thought so too but had another thought as she turned to check on Ben. She needn't have worried so much as Ben was on his feet and clashing with Sermaya well enough. He quickly noticed though that his beast guards were gone and the ten rangers came to stand with Ben.
To their surprise Sermaya laughed. "So you two have been getting stronger. I presume your little friends have as well. In fact, imagine my surprise to see three new rangers." He had looked toward Jordan, Ally and Aziz. That made Mal curious as he had not confronted them since before Jane had become a ranger. "But all of this has gone according to my plan. We'll be meeting again very soon rangers, I guarantee it." With that the beast king vanished.
"What did he mean by that?" Evie wondered. The team powered down.
"Are you okay?" Ben asked Mal as he came and took her hand.
"I'm fine Bennie-Boo. Are you?" Mal asked with a small little wicked smile at the use of the nickname. He laughed and kissed her gently on the lips.
"You know if you give me a nickname like that we're going to have problems." Jay remarked jokingly as he took Audrey's hand.
Audrey giggled a little. "Don't wear anything ridiculous," She eyed the clothes he wore now, which really were fine anyway but wasn't exactly what Audrey would have dressed him in. "Well, more ridiculous and you won't have to worry about it." She said teasingly.
"Hey, that was Halloween and we were like eight." Ben protested humorously to Audrey.
"And you were still the first and only child of the rules of Auradon." Audrey said with a laugh. "And the best ghost costume you could come up with was a white sheet with eye holes and the word boo! On the chest." She commented.
"Yeah, really man. That is kind of lame." Carlos agreed with a laugh.
"Yeah okay, okay." Ben said with a laugh. He placed his arm over Mal's shoulder and pulled her to his side. "So do you wand Lonnie want to tell us how you got your upgrades?"
"Looks like you got them the same way I did." Jay noted as he placed an arm around Audrey as they all started to walk back to Auradon. "Didn't see anyone around you after all."
So Lonnie and Carlos told them their story. Jay agreed that the ethereal voice and one of the other voices sounded like the ones in his…vision, hallucination, meeting, whatever. He hadn't recognized the other figure or the two feminine ones.
Jane pursed her lips in thought. "I wonder if that's a coincidence." She mused softly.
"If what is a coincidence?" Jordan asked her.
"Mal, Evie, and Audrey's weapons were upgraded by means of receiving an item, two in Audrey's case. They were also the ones affected by Invader of Nightmares so long ago." She started to explain. "Whereas Jay, Lonnie and Carlos had their weapons upgraded by some mysterious force that may or not be associated with Zordon and were the ones who helped to free those affected by Invader of Nightmares."
"No offense, but it sounds like nothing more than a coincidence to me." Mal replied with a shrug.
"I have to agree with Mal." Audrey added.
"I don't know what's scarier, the fact that these two agree on something or that I have to agree with that." Jay added as well.
Ally thought a moment. "It could be just a coincidence." She conceded. "On the other hand I suppose that could be possible. This was before any of us were actually rangers as well, and we don't exactly need the upgrades." Jane's weapon was basically magic in itself while she, Aziz and Jordan had just become rangers and didn't seem to need them right now.
"We'll have to ask your mom her opinion when we get back to the command center." Evie said.
They entered the command center ready to tell Fairy Godmother and Doug what happened, about Lonnie and Carlos getting their weapons upgraded. But that faded as they saw Doug working furiously and the grim look on the face of Jane's mother.
"Um, we just beat Sermaya's goons squad, shouldn't we grape cider abounds?" Jordan questioned as she and Jane made their way up to see what Carlos was doing.
"I'm afraid we've been had." Fairy Godmother said to them softly.
"Had?" Jay questioned. "What is it that we had?"
"I think that means we've been tricked." Evie corrected her friend. "But how were we tricked?"
"I'm not sure how we missed this yet, but this is what we missed." Doug told them and pulled a switch on one of the consoles. That switch actually tapped into the local news feeds, which came up with a report that was being given by Rapunzel; the mother of another acquaintance of theirs at the school named Ruby.
"Tragedy has just struck the village of Sevii, with hundreds reported missing, presumed kidnapped." Rapunzel reported. "It was invaded by two large creatures resembling baboons and numerous bipedal oxen. While many of the residents have been captured, presumably trapped in their homes, there are others who have escaped."
The view switched to one of those who must have escaped, who described the battle oxen bursting through the forests and breaking down the gates. These were followed by the two large baboons that had been described.
"Another viewer managed to obtain footage of this initial assault." Rapunzel revealed. "This has not been edited for content, so younger viewers should beware." They saw firsthand the way the monsters had smashed through the gates and immediately started to grab some of the people even as others fled into what they assumed was safe havens but were probably not. This was followed moments later by the two large baboons; one with a large axe and one with a large bow.
"Hold on, pause that a minute." Ben said. Doug did so and he pointed to the far right corner of the screen. "Can we enhance that corner?" He asked.
Jane made a few adjustments on another console and it magnified that section to show them the missing piece of the puzzle that had not been in the swampy area. "Chiron." Lonnie whispered.
"Where did those oxen and the baboons come from?" Aziz asked.
"I don't know, but clearly Sermaya planned on all of us going to oppose him and those two guard beasts." Mal said slowly and took a shuddering breath. "That was all a distraction for Chiron to bring about minions of his own and those two brutish looking baboons."
"Ah, no." Audrey whispered softly. She didn't want to point out that they seemed to have screwed up despite having eleven fighters, three of which Sermaya hadn't even known existed until now.
Rapunzel continued to report that over three quarters of the population was unaccounted for, presumably held hostage in the village of Sevii. Worried people were abounds as they worked to determine who had been trapped in the incursion.
Mal held Ben's hand tightly and looked at her friends. Audrey had leaned against Jay as he had an arm around her. Jane had drifted down to the others were Carlos had placed a hand on her shoulder. Aziz had both is hands around Ally's shoulders. "We have to stop them, drive them away from the village and rescue those people." The purple haired girl declared. She hoped that the eleven of them would be enough.