At lunchtime the eleven warriors and Doug sat around the table, just after the isle kid's first swim class. "I think I have hydrophobia." Evie revealed to the group, though it was mostly just sarcasm. It was true that the idea of getting in the water kind of scared her but she had faced it bravely.
"I think I'm allergic to chlorine." Carlos said as he wrinkled his nose. He still couldn't get the smell out of his nose. "It smells horrid."
"That's just a natural effect for chlorine." Jane tried to assure him with a small smile. "I always preferred swimming at the beach over swimming in a pool."
"Although technically it's more hygienic to swim in a pool than in the ocean. That's part of the job of the chlorine, not to mention the pool filters." Audrey reminded them. Jay however got distracted with the idea of the brunette princess in a bikini.
"How did you fare in swim class Mal?" Ben asked his purple haired girlfriend as he looked over at her eating a strawberry, something she usually had with her for lunch.
She finished her current strawberry before answering her boyfriend. "Alright I guess. We're really starting at the basics, so we're at the shallow end right now, where we could just basically stand around." She replied.
"You know most bodies of water aren't going to be something that can just be stood in right?" Aziz asked her innocently and then laughed when Mal shot him a sarcastic glare that seemed to say 'no kidding, really?'.
"I hear that we're getting some new students transferred into Auradon Prep." Lonnie said conversationally as she picked up a puffy cheeto from the small bag she had. At some of their questioning looks she added, "Not from the island, things haven't moved that quick." Now that Lonnie had said that it was clear there were some people who they did not recognize around the campus.
"Maybe one of the new students can take the place on the Tourney team that Chad's departure created." Audrey tried to say nonchalantly but her voice caught a little at the mention of former friend that had not only turned into a bitter enemy but her own personal stalker. Jay hugged her against him softly as Ally reached over to gently take her hand.
"I'll have to find out if we're doing a mid-semester tryout." Ben said. "It rarely happens here in Auradon Prep. We had to make the exception for Jay and Carlos recently since the last normal tryouts happened before you guys were brought here." Though Jay often found himself as the MVP of the games Ben was the overall captain.
They ate in peace for a couple of minutes when they saw a guy they didn't know rush on by in roller blades, reaching out and stealing a sack lunch from a couple of guys that had been friends of Chad. Both of them yelped out in protest as he said, "Thanks for the return guys." He was off before they could get him.
"What was that about?" Lonnie wondered. "Who was that?"
"Never seen him in my life." Doug said.
"You have to like his style." Mal said with a snicker. She had never seen anyone use roller blades on campus as they were basically against school policy. And stealing was universally known to be against school policy, though sometimes proving it was hard to do. Being who she was Mal could appreciate that kind of rule breaking though. Jay seemed to as well.
It wasn't long though before they saw him being taken to the head mistress by a couple of hall monitors but there was no sign of the lunch he had taken. Each of them exchanged more looks of confusion.
"What do you suppose happened to the lunch?" Ally asked them.
"Maybe he ate it already." Jordan suggested. "I mean some people can eat pretty quickly when they want too."
"If he's one of the new students then mom will not be happy with his first day at all." Jane remarked.
"I promise you that your mother will not be happy with his first day, or any other of his days for that matter." They heard a strong voice say behind Jane. They turned to see another guy standing behind them will his own finished lunch in hand. "Always been a troublemaker, that one."
"I don't think we've been properly introduced." Ben, always the diplomat due to him being the King of Auradon despite being in school and being the Auradon Knight. He stood automatically and gave a bit of a courtly bow before offering his hand. The guy took it. "I am Ben, king of Auradon. This is my girlfriend Mal and our friends Audrey, Evie, Carlos, Jay, Jane, Lonnie, Jordan, Ally and Aziz." He introduced.
"It's nice to meet you all." The guy said. Audrey would not have been surprised if he had some kind of royal blood in him, he sure seemed mannered enough for it. "My name is Gregory." He nodded a bit toward where the other boy had been taken. "I apologize for the Will, my long time classmate. He's always been a bit of a, shall we say motley sort."
Mal exchanged looks with Evie and both girls had to resist the urge to giggle at him. Even Audrey at her worst never described anyone as motley. Still, they had to grant that he had made a better first impression than his classmate had, all things considered.
"It was nice to meet you all." Gregory said. "I have to go meet with the science teacher before class so that I can get the books for the semester." He waved as he walked off.
"Well he seems nice enough." Ally noted.
Surprisingly it was Audrey who replied, "You're right he does seem nice, but come on 'motley'". She rolled her eyes. "Who ever heard anyone use that word to describe someone?"
"Oh gosh, you must have been reading the same page as Evie and I." Mal said gleefully as she reached over and hugged Audrey gently. "You're totally becoming one of us."
"My biggest ambition." Audrey drawled but the slight smile and slight delight in her eyes showed that the comment meant more to her than she would ever admit to.
There was a scream from one of the girls and they all turned to just in time to see her fall to the ground as an inky black mist was seen seeping out of from a corner of the school. A moment later their iPhones went off, the noise belonging to the monster app.
"Who wants to bet that the black mist is coming from whatever monster is on campus." Carlos said.
Then in the middle of the common area a large clawed, orange winged creature appeared. "Don't even bother 'getting to work' there kids." He said with a wave of one of his claws at the rangers. "We wouldn't want to spoil the game." He then unleashed a stream of energy at the rangers and Doug that sent them all flying against the lockers.
"Doug, get to the command center." Jane said to their civilian friend as she noticed more students passing out. "We have to find out what's in that fog and reverse its effects."
"On it." Doug promised and ran off.
"I guess we know what's causing all of this mist." Audrey noted. "It's got to be that monster."
"Very perceptive." The monster said mockingly. "You're just as smart as the boy said you were." That made her flinch just a bit and Jay glare angrily at their adversary.
The inky mist was making its way around the commons rather quickly. The eleven warriors were starting to get up but the mist overtook Ally and Aziz and the two of them collapsed just as a few of the students prior to had.
"I guess we know we're not immune to whatever it's doing." Jordan noted. "Not exactly a good thing."
"We have to get somewhere and transform." Lonnie stated. She started to move to a door but felt a breeze behind her and there was the monster.
"If you feel the need to leave so badly, allow me to assist you." The monster said and then slammed her across the commons hard and through the door she had indicated. Then he turned to the rest of team.
"Out of our way." Jay demanded. He swung at the monster to try to distract him while Audrey and Evie tried to move past him but he used his arm to block the swing and brought his wings out and down on the two girls. At that point the mist enveloped the three of them and knocked them out.
"We're running out of people here." Carlos said as he looked to Mal. The two of them, along with Ben, Jane and Jordan were the only ones standing. "If we don't transform now no one might be standing to fight this thing."
"If we transform here our identities will be exposed." Ben reminded him.
"It'd be better than people dropping like flies." Jordan replied.
Mal was about to give the order to morph when the monster flew right at them at ramming speed.
Lonnie was almost sure she blacked out for a moment before opening her eyes and felt pain in her left arm. She looked down to see a nice sized gash in it that she was sure would require stitches if Jordan's healing potion wasn't a part of the equation. First she had to get to Jordan though.
Then she heard someone come up to her quickly. She looked up to see Will landing on his knees beside her and pulling off his jacket. "That's a nasty looking gash, what's going on out there?" He asked her.
"There's a monster out there, attacking the students." Lonnie answered and tried to get up but flinched in pain. "I'm Lonnie by the way, nice to meet you." She added with a small but kind of pained smile.
He smiled a little back at her. "Will." He answered, unaware that he had already been talked about. Will then placed his hand on her uninjured arm. "Settle down and let me take care of your arm as best as I can." He chided her as he tore apart his jacket so that he could use it to form a tourniquet for her arm.
Lonnie wanted to protest. "My friends need me." She said, but she knew that right now she would be of very little use to her if the wound wasn't at least staunched. She had to resist the urge to pass out though as he started to apply it.
As the monster was getting ready to attack they heard a sound from above and saw Gregory jumping off the second floor area of the commons and landing right on top of him. As he fell the guy rolled to the side and stood up. "Who is this guy?" He asked.
"We have no clue." Mal informed him. She had to admit the moves were impressive.
"You can call me Dark Mist." The monster introduced with a slight bow. "Feeling a bit outnumbered are we?" He laughed. "That will change very shortly. You will be joining them."
Typically at that point they received a text. Jane was able to glance at it long enough to see it was from Doug who had written that he was working on a way to reverse the mist's effects. The best way to reverse it though was find the source and destroy it, and that transforming would protect them from the effects. "If we could do that we gladly would." She commented to herself.
"Any magical ideas?" Ben asked the three magic users of the team.
"I could generate a wind storm to try to blow the mist away but it wouldn't wake anyone else up." Jordan suggested.
"Like I would give you that chance." Dark Mist pointed out and released another stream of energy. Jane, Carlos and Jordan were thrown to one side closer to Gregory while Ben and Mal were landed on the opposite side of them.
The pain subsided as Will got the tourniquet applied to Lonnie's arm. "You should have that looked at by the nurse soon." He told Lonnie as he finished it up. "The longer you delay that the more chance that you could have lasting damage."
Lonnie felt a bit confused. He sure didn't seem to be the troublemaker that Gregory had made him out to be. "Thanks, but it's going to have to wait." She told him. "My friends need me." She thought quickly. "Go find the headmistress and tell her what's going on. We're going to need some kind of reinforcements here in the school to get rid of this thing."
Will nodded. "You're right, but be careful." He said to her and then ran back up the stairs.
The Asian princess gave it a minute to make sure she couldn't hear his footsteps and then took out her iPhone, flinching a bit at the pain. She hoped transforming and the adrenaline of the fight would minimize the pain until she could get Jordan to take care of her. She input her numbers 4363 and transformed.
Mal was getting frustrated at their inability to transform and fight this monster and now they were kind of separated as well. "We don't have a choice." Mal started. "We have to…"
"Incoming." They heard from behind them. The pink ranger leapt out with her tessens and struck him hard. She only flinched a bit at the small amount of pain that she felt despite being transformed. She looked to Mal and the others. "Clear out guys."
"Yes, Ms. Pink ranger." Mal drawled with a smirk. "I hope some of your team mates get here quickly." She added and then looked to Ben. "Help get Gregory out." She instructed.
The young king reluctantly nodded and started over to lead him out the same place that Lonnie had come out of as Mal pretended to go one way. Jane, Carlos and Jordan pretended to go another way but as soon as the four teens were clear they transformed.
Dark Mist lashed out and struck Lonnie hard in the arm that he knew he had hurt and she let out a gasp of pain and dropped the weapon she held in that hand. He grabbed her by the neck and lifted her up. "You shouldn't be fighting injured pink ranger, it might lead you to other problems." He gloated and released her to be tossed into a wall.
Or that is what would have happened at Jane not sped by, using a combination of her wings and her dove spirit, to catch Lonnie before the impact. Then he was met on three sides by Mal, Jordan and Carlos, all morphed.
"So there are five rangers to contend with." Dark Mist mused with a shrug. "I still have reduced your numbers."
"Even if we only had one of us we'd still work to take you out." Mal promised as she summoned her dragon's eye staff.
Jane landed by Jordan. "Take Lonnie and our friends to the command center." She told her. "See if you and Doug can take care of them. We'll have to deal with this thing ourselves."
The gold ranger nodded, took hold of Lonnie's uninjured arm and then vanished in a sparkle, along with their unconscious team mates.
"Reducing your numbers even more, now that seemed foolish." Dark Mist chimed. He then lashed out, his wings growing and striking Mal, Carlos and Jane hard. "Who would have thought defeating the power rangers would be so easy?"
"At least you did a good job with the tourniquet, it cut the blood flow way off." Jordan noted with approval as she worked as fast as she could to make a healing potion for Lonnie before the blood loss or the injury did long term damage to her. "Though leaping into a fight afterwards was kind of stupid.
"Not that I had a choice." The Asian girl commented pointedly. "As far as the tourniquet actually it wasn't me." Lonnie admitted to her with a shrug as she glanced over at Audrey, Evie, Jay, Ally, and Aziz as they lay unconscious on makeshift cots. "This was done by Will, the student that stole that sacked lunch."
"I guess he has one redeeming quality." Jordan said wryly. She looked to Doug. "How's it coming over there Dougie boy? We really need out full team going."
"I think I've almost got a gaseous solution that we can give to them." Doug answered as he worked on a chemical mix. "It'll be easier for you all to destroy the monster than it will be to do it for the entire school though."
"We'll get right on it as soon as we can." Jordan said. She set the potion in the mixer as the final step. "You hanging in there Lonnie?" She asked.
Lonnie took a deep breath but nodded. "I'm still here." She replied. She didn't want to tell her that it was just barely though.
Jordan finished mixing up the potion and gave it to Lonnie, who nodded rather gratefully in thanks. The genie girl suspected that she might have passed out if it had taken much longer. "I wish we could keep you out of this fight, you don't look so well." She said, reflecting on the irony of her wanting to make a wish.
"I owe this thing for that." Lonnie reminded after her first sip, grateful she could already feel the effects. "Being unconscious would be the only thing to keep me out of this."
"Speaking of unconscious…" Jordan started as she turned to Doug only to have an oxygen mask and a canister tossed at her. She caught it as Doug came down with another one.
"Help me revive the others." Doug said to Jordan as he knelt down in front of Evie to revive her. Jordan nodded and knelt down in front of Aziz. Lonnie worked to finish the healing potion so she would be ready to go with her friends. She also reflected Mal would have loved this one since it tasted like strawberry milk.
"We aren't done yet Dark Mist." Mal promised him as she got up and aimed her staff at his chest. He took a step back only to get slashed by Carlos's claw daggers.
He rolled up easily. "I have to give you credit for your persistence but you can't keep this up with only three of you."
"How about four?" He turned to see Ben as the Auradon Knight coming in and bringing his sword down on the monster. He rolled from the attack and then got up again. Ben tried to move in to try to continue the assault but now Dark Mist let the claws of his right hand get twisted in Ben's sword so that he could slash him hard with the left.
Mal came up to Ben. "Are you okay?" She asked, voice full of concern. When he nodded she said, "We have to keep it together; Jordan took Lonnie to the command center and hopefully Doug has worked out a way to revive the others."
Ben nodded. "Alright then, let's keep this guy busy until then." He said.
"It's too bad that when morphed your powers protect you from my mist." Dark Mist drawled. "Otherwise this fight would have been over before it began, not that your resistance has been all that worthwhile in the first place."
Mal gathered energy into her staff and unleashed it on Dark Mist, and he fell back but it didn't seem to be enough to do more than scratch him. She had never found herself missing her full team before.
Jane tried to use a magic burst from her wand to strike at Dark Mist but he evaded the magical strike and then lashed out at the four of them. They all rolled across hard and Jane even hit the edge of the stairs hard.
"This has still been easier than I thought." Dark Mist laughed. "Defeating you fools."
Then laser blasts struck at the monster and when the smoke cleared he found himself looking across at the remaining rangers. Audrey was helping Ben up, Evie was helping Mal up, Jay was helping Carlos up, and Ally was helping Jane up.
"Great to see all of you guys up and around again." Mal said to her friends and then looked at Lonnie. "Feeling better?" She asked and when the pink ranger nodded she said, "Now let's show Dark Mist what we're all about."
"No problem." Evie said. "We all owe this thing anyway."
The rangers summoned their weapons as Dark Mist moved in on them. Audrey and Jay moved in with their weapons and slashed him on either side with soul scimitar and elemental bow. When he went to rise from that attack he was accosted by several crystal cards. That was followed up by a spear strike and a sword slash from Aziz and Ben. He stumbled back and then was slashed by both of Lonnie's tessens.
"I think it's time we finish this creep off." Evie said.
Mal nodded in agreement. "Let's bring our weapons together." She declared. First came Mal's dragons staff, placed under it was Audrey's elemental bow, behind it was Evie's mirror force shield and the compact opened up to and attached to the back of the weapon, on the top Jay's soul scimitar, Lonnie's hurricane tessens and Carlos's earthquake claw daggers were placed.
"Uh, what is that?" Dark Mist asked. Neither Paradias nor his minions had seen the new and improved fully assembled Auradon blaster.
Jordan set her lamp cannon, Ally placed her crystal cards in the lamp's spout, Aziz placed his spear around the lamp and Jane had the magic wand in the top of the lamp to assemble their blaster.
Together the rangers unleashed their weapons energy against Dark Mist, which when struck there was a violent implosion of inky black mist before the area came out clear. The mist receded as well. They could see some of the students starting to stir.
"Did we actually defeat the monster this time?" Audrey asked a little dubiously. The last monster they had fought from Paradias, the Cybertech Overhydra, had not been defeated the first time but had instead only been lying dormant.
"I think so." Jane answered, wishing she could be confident about it as well. There was one reason to believe it had though. "I mean, that inky mist receded and the students are waking up." She pointed out. "Still I think once classes are done for the day I'll work on a search pattern for verification."
As it turned out it didn't take long as the afternoon classes were cancelled in light of an attack that had struck so close to the school for only the second time in their ranger careers. General checkups were ordered for all students that had been exposed to the mist which included the eleven warriors.
Gregory found them as they were waiting. "Thanks again for what you did back there." He said to Ben.
"Thank you for coming to our aid." Ben answered with a smile. "How are you, according the doctor?" He asked.
"Healthy thankfully. No lasting effects from the mist." He answered.
"That seems to be a recurring theme around here thankfully." Audrey informed him. "No one has shown any adverse signs since recovering." Right now both Lonnie and Jay were being looked at by the staff.
Lonnie was coming out just as Will was waiting for his checkup. "How's the arm?" He asked her with concern. He almost reached out to touch the part in question but stopped himself.
"It's better." Lonnie replied with a small smile. "Thanks to a combination of genie magic and your excellent first aid skills." She started to walk by him to go back to her friends, and he started to go into the exam room, when Lonnie stopped. "Will," She called and when he turned toward her she had to satisfy her curiosity. "Why did you take that bagged lunch earlier this afternoon?"
He gave her a small smile. "That wasn't his to start with." He told her bluntly. "He's been taking lunches from the middle school portion for weeks. That was my sister's lunch, and he took it from here. She told me about it the insistence of her friend Callie Charming and so I took it back from him." He explained.
For just a moment Lonnie was touched. The fact he did that was rather sweet in her mind and she found she wanted to make sure that both her friends and Fairy Godmother knew what had happened if they didn't already. And the fact that she heard something good from the Charming family was nice as well. "You…didn't get in trouble did you?" She asked softly.
"I'm sure the headmistress will have words for me over that, once things settle down." Will answered with a shrug. "But it doesn't matter, I know I did the right thing." With that he was taken by one of the nurses into the exam room. But Lonnie wanted to make sure that he didn't get in trouble for helping his little sister and countless others.
From the forest dark mist started to seep out of some of the stones…