The teens made their way to the Badlands and started to cut around the area. The sandstorm activity was thankfully nonexistent right now, far better than it was the last time they had been there, when Paradias had released Maleficent.
Carlos drained his water bottle. "This was definitely a great idea Jordan." He said as it refilled itself a moment later. "The endless water bottle, very epic."
"Glad you approve." Jordan said with a laugh.
Aziz glanced into the desert. "I am so glad this is the wrong area." He said to himself.
"Wrong area for what?" Jane asked him.
"My dad told me in the desert in Agrabah there was this shark that swam around in the sand like they normally do in the ocean." Aziz explained to them. "It was a tough little thing to capture apparently, and in fact the first time it got away from our dads. It apparently had treasure on its underbelly."
"Ooh, how nice." Jay said with a laugh.
"Shiny." Evie joked as well.
"I take it you guys have never actually seen a shark before." Ben said to the four isle kids with a laugh. "They're one of the most vicious sea predators out there, it's best not to underestimate them."
"We read about them at Dragon Hall." Mal answered with a shrug. "Hook talked about them all the time. But we never really saw any."
"I think some people were afraid that somehow despite the lack of magic someone on the island would figure out a way to make like some vicious shark things and attack Auradon." Jane volunteered. She shrugged. "Sounded kind of unlikely to me then but now I'd say anything could have been possible."
"I wonder why that thing didn't wind up on the Isle of the Lost?" Carlos reflected.
"It's not evil." Jordan answered simply. "I mean, it's not good either but it wasn't intentionally evil. It was just following its nature."
"It's not exactly common knowledge but despite everything a few villains managed to escape being taken to the island." Jane said. "No one knows how."
"Paradias may have had something to do with it." Carlos reasoned. He figured that it was reasonable since he was enough of a threat for Zordon to have to help them out after all. He didn't say it though because Gregory was not aware of their status as power rangers.
"How far do we have to go again?" Audrey asked.
"A few more miles." Ben answered.
Audrey sighed. "Too bad we're not going through the forest." She mused softly. "At least it's prettier there."
"Because aesthetic is all we're worried ab out." Mal teased her second in command with an eye roll. Then she smiled a little. "Actually I agree with you for what it's worth. Something about the Badlands just gives me the creeps."
"Which is implied in the name." Jordan pointed out. "But really, it's been this way for almost ever. Even my dad doesn't know how it got the name or what brought it to this condition."
Mal frowned a bit as she recalled the underground tunnel they had followed Paradias, Nerissa, and Chad to that had led to the area he had brought Maleficent back to her original form at. It had also contained a dragon monster that they had to defeat. Of course some part of the Badlands also had contained the Auradon Falconzord and the Auradon Battlezord. We really need to get a team in to look at these caves. She mused silently. She also reflected that in hindsight they should have found another way for Gregory to get his message out, either that or told him the truth. Half of the things they needed or wanted to discuss was kind of limited because of it.
They continued on for a little bit. Without the flow of conversation it seemed a little creepy out in the Badlands. Jane remembered seeing in her mother's texts from Zordon's world about a place called the Desert of Despair, and it included horrendous wailing sounds that could be heard as the desert was traversed. It didn't make her feel any more comfortable about the situation.
"I wonder if someone in the isle is responsible for this." Evie mused as she glanced around. "Maybe some last minute corrupting of the land before being exiled."
"It'd have to be some kind magic." Mal replied as she glanced around. "I'm not in your urban class after all E, but most of the time the kind of damage we see here is something that would take a long time to come to pass."
"Not necessarily." Ally said now. "There is one other way non magical way, but equally as frightening." She took a deep breath. "Someone, or rather some group of people, brought this area to this state of existence naturally."
Jordan nodded in thought. "Dad told me that almost all of the areas of worlds like ours were once full of lush vegetation, but over time various factors can erode those climates to ones like where we are now." She looked around a little. "But he said not all of those were natural. Sometimes it's done by the people of the lands through ignorance or greed. But other times it's done intentionally by far darker forces that are looking to cause suffering and even end life."
"I don't think that would Paradias's aim." Audrey pointed out. "He seems to want to conquer our lands for himself. Even Chad couldn't be behind world destruction, right?" She seemed a bit dubious about that last part.
Some of the other ranger weren't quite sure they could agree with Audrey on that one but they had no proof of that she wasn't right either. Domination was still a far cry from extermination. Still there was one thing that Mal pointed out, "Let's not forget about Sermaya too. I doubt he's looking to destroy the world but that doesn't rule out the idea that there could be plenty of other evils in here." Again the fact Gregory was there made things difficult, but like Paradias in general, or even Chad in general, Sermaya was no secret.
"Not just here." Jay added. "Remember the Psycho Rangers that we de…heard the rangers dealt with." He had to do an abrupt swerve there that got a snicker from Carlos. "Those didn't come from our world…er, that we know of."
Will glanced at Lonnie and she simply shrugged. She couldn't exactly explain to him right now all the details they knew that couldn't be said in front of Gregory.
Jane jumped just a bit as she thought she heard some kind of grunting sound. "Did anyone else here that sound?" She asked.
"I didn't hear anything." Jordan said.
"Maybe it was the desert wind." Jay suggested.
Jane frowned uncertainly. Ally glanced into the desert and said, "I don't think so." She pointed toward a nearby sand dune. "I thought I saw something duck behind that sand dune."
The others stopped and looked toward it. The sand was starting up over there and Gregory frowned, "Sorry Ally, but I think you're seeing things in the brewing sandstorm." He said.
"I swore I saw something." All insisted.
Aziz nodded. "I'll go check it out." He said.
Ally stopped him, placing her hand on his arm. "Wait, the sandstorm is starting up. I don't want you to get hurt because of the fact I might be seeing something." She replied.
"Can you take this a second Audrey?" Jay asked the brunette princess. She nodded and took his duffel and then he came to Aziz. "Come on, let's check it out and make sure that Ally's not seeing anything." Ambushes were all too real in their lives.
"The sand's no big deal Ally." Aziz promised her, handing her his duffel and squeezing her hand gently. "Be right back." Then the two boys started toward the sand dune.
"Who would have thought that Jay and Aziz, whose fathers are basically mortal enemies, should be not only team mates but good friends?" Mal said to Audrey and Evie with amusement in her voice as she put an arm around each of their shoulders.
"No kidding." Audrey agreed with laughter.
Ben and Lonnie shook their heads in amusement. Despite Maleficent basically trying to get rid of Aurora, which if successful would have guaranteed Audrey had never been born, their two daughters had eventually managed to form a bond similar to what they were now noting about Jay and Aziz. The young king wandered over and wrapped his arms around Mal's waist, kissing the back of her neck gently.
The two boys had to shield their eyes as they got closer to the sand dune. Aziz even turned back to make sure they could still see Ally and their friends, as if they couldn't then he would suggest they turn back. But he could still see them. As they got closer though from the top of the sand dune they saw a dozen of Sermaya's oxen warriors. "Ah shoot." Aziz mumbled.
"Time to turn around." Jay said and the two boys turned to return to their team mates but found some more coming around them.
By that time so had the others. "The oxen creatures." Lonnie said. "What are they doing here?"
Will was sure that the others would have to transform. He looked to Gregory. "We should make a rush to the docks and see if we can get some help from the guards there." He suggested.
"We can't leave them all out here." Gregory snapped, misinterpreting the fact that staying was actually making things harder for the others rather than doing them a favor.
Doug wished he knew exactly what to say. "Look, we should just all retreat." He said. "If we can."
By that time the rest of the team had dropped their duffels and were heading into the desert to help Jay and Aziz as they started to fight some of the oxen warriors. That was drawing the attention of those over the sand dune.
Then to make things worse, the two boys had a blast of energy hurled at them and they landed hard. When they looked up they saw what looked to be a sand colored sphinx heading toward them. His face looked more human than anything else but the hands were in fact sharp edged claws and hind legs. He had no tail though.
"Looks like Sermaya knows we were going to do this." Audrey stated. "Unless he's out here looking for something else instead."
"He always seems to have a new monster, something that strikes me as odd since he claims to have no civilization around." Lonnie said. She wondered if the information they were going after would have those answers, which in turn would explain why he might not want them to get it.
"Mal, we have to morph." Carlos said to the purple haired girl. "Last time we fought these oxen they all but beat us. And we have that monster to worry about as well."
"But then Gregory will know we're rangers, and after what Fairy Godmother said..." Ally started.
"We might not have a choice if the alternative is dying." Jordan reminded her.
"We'll see how this plays out." Mal said. "And worry from there."
The team started to fight against the oxen warriors. They still found them tough but they didn't seem as insurmountable as they had the first time when they had fought them at the village. Ben surmised it might be because they didn't have the feeling of guilt weighting on them the way they did when Sermaya had distracted them for that invasion.
One tried to bring its axe down on Lonnie's head and she dodged it. She flinched though as she realized it managed to skim her arm. It didn't look that bad, something that Jordan's healing potions would deal with easily enough, but it still stung.
"You're right, we have to help." Will said to Gregory as he saw that. He dropped his duffel and then ran over, jumping up and kicking the oxen in the head before he landed next to Lonnie. "You okay?" He asked her.
"I'll be fine." Lonnie promised.
Gregory followed suit and he helped Mal take one out that tried to attack her from behind. That got him a grateful look for Ben.
That left Doug to keep their stuff safe, and try to contact Fairy Godmother to get advice or help in case this went bad.
"Letting civilians fight your battles for you now?" The monster asked them and laughed. "You're going to find passing your fights on rather hard against me, the Sphinx Guard." He then shot a wave of energy at them all, forcing them to land hard again.
It was weird for a moment as it Will wanted to protect Lonnie because he liked her and Lonnie wanted to protect Will because she was the power ranger and because she liked him. The end result was she had her arm in front of him while his hands were on her shoulders in case he needed to pull her in front of him.
Mal thought it might have been cute under other circumstances. She herself was slightly in front of Ben and she saw both Jay and Aziz were slightly in front of the girl's they cared about. Carlos was in front of Jane while Jordan and Evie were standing together near Mal.
"We have to do it M." Evie said to her chosen sister. "We can't beat that thing otherwise."
Mal looked to her friends and saw that they agreed with Evie. Just as important, she agreed with Evie. Gregory learning who they were was just something they would all have to live with, regardless of the consequences. "Let's get to work." Mal announced, her typical morphing call, which she also knew Audrey had adopted too.
Her friends nodded. Now Lonnie stood up closer to her team. Ben looked to Gregory a moment and then formed his sword and shield, which seemed to startle him a little. Then he combined them to become the Auradon Knight. Jane used the magic wand to transform. The nine other rangers took out their iPhones, input their numbers and transformed into power rangers.
"I did not know they could do that." Gregory said with some astonishment. He looked to Will. "Did you know they could do that?"
"Just learned it myself." Will replied.
The oxen warriors and Sphinx Guard stood ready to go against the Auradon Knight, the gold ranger, the blue ranger, the purple ranger, the red ranger, the black ranger, the yellow ranger, the white ranger, the crystal ranger and the silver ranger.
The oxen warriors charged the ranger team with their axes raised. The ranger's met them with their own weapons. Ben took them out with his sword. Audrey used her elemental bow to cut through them as she couldn't use her arrows in close range. Jay cut through them with his soul scimitar. Carlos used his earthquake claw daggers to deal with them. Lonnie cut through them with her aptly named hurricane tessen's. Jordan found her lamp cannon was a great blunt instrument to use in combat since she had the same problem that Audrey had. Aziz used his spiral spear to take out the warriors. Ally used her crystal cards, alternating between using a couple as close range weapons and tossing others. Evie was glad that her mirror force shield was now an offensive weapon, sticking primarily with her blazing option.
Mal skipped all of that to make sure the Sphinx Guard didn't get a drop on them, engaging him with her dragon's eye staff. He seemed to have some kind of staff of his own as he was clashing with the purple ranger in a similar fashion.
"These things seem so endless." Gregory noted.
Will glared a bit at the oxen. "Just like when they invaded my village and kidnapped my mother and sister." He said coldly. He hadn't told anyone that he and his family lived there when Sermaya had taken over the village, that his mother Wendy and sister Whitney had been held in the government building as he had tried to protect some of the elders of their village. He had heard about the ranger's rescue and had been grateful to hear about it, even more so when he learned who they were. He didn't want to tell Lonnie though for worry that it would impact their budding relationship. He reached down and picked up one of the fallen axes. "I'm going in." He said.
Gregory reluctantly took up an axe as well and followed him in.
Lonnie noticed it and couldn't help but smile to see two people who didn't have too coming in to help, just as she had agreed to a long while ago, just as Jordan had even before she, Ally and Aziz had found powers in Wonderland. The fact one was a boy she liked a lot helped matters too.
Audrey noticed too. She saw Mal doing a decent job clashing against the monster but she was pretty sure that Mal couldn't handle the monster on her own. "We need to go help her." Audrey said to Lonnie and their leader's chosen siblings.
"Go ahead." Will said. "We've got your friend's backs."
"I'll keep your boyfriend safe." Jordan teased Lonnie and was sure the pink ranger blushed underneath her helmet.
The five rangers went to join Mal as Ben, the three newest rangers, and the two boys continued to fight it out with the oxen. Audrey was sure if they got rid of the Sphinx Guard than any oxen would leave them alone.
The Sphinx Guard caught Mal's staff in his own and released one of his paws from the staff to slash Mal hard. She landed hard but found Lonnie and Evie on either side of her ready to help her up even as Audrey shot arrows at the monster though he blocked the attacks with ease.
"Now let's see how you deal with all of us." Jay said.
Sphinx Guard slammed his staff into the ground and directed an earthquake at the six rangers, knocking them all off balance. He then charged right at them but Carlos brought up his claw daggers to block the staff coming down at them.
Jay and Lonnie moved in and slashed the monster together and as he stumbled back Evie unleashed another of her attacks, this one the storming one, at him to launch him back even further.
"Let's bring our weapons together." Mal said to her team, and the other five rangers nodded. Mal set her dragon's eye staff, with Audrey's elemental bow underneath it. Evie's mirror shield went behind it, again the compacts extended around it. Then Jay's soul scimitar was placed, with Lonnie's hurricane tessen's and Carlos's earthquake claw daggers were placed to form the Auradon blaster. They unleashed their attack on the Sphinx Guard but he raised his staff and worked to try to deflect the blast back at them.
"I'm going to see if I can distract that thing with my own weapon." Jordan said to Jane, Ally and the boys. "Hopefully we defeat that thing and we get these freaks to run away." The seven of them nodded and Jordan moved past the oxen warriors to draw her own lamp cannon and fire at the Sphinx Guard.
It struck him hard and he looked uncertain of what to do. Jordan could do damage to him over time but if he turned his attention away from the six rangers and their blaster then that would finish him for sure. The ranger's moved around to get past his attempts at blocking and were able to destroy the monster.
As they figured the oxen took off into the desert. The sandstorm was starting to pick up and none of them really wanted to pursue the beasts into the Badlands desert anyway. They instead powered down and turned to face Will and Gregory.
"I guess you know our secret now." Jay said to Gregory. "I hope we can count on you to keep it that way." Audrey swore she heard a bit of a warning tone to his voice. It wasn't exactly the most diplomatic way of doing things but she agreed with the sentiment.
Gregory nodded. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone what I just saw." He promised as he dropped the axe into the sand. Will did the same thing.
"Jordan, Lonnie needs a bit of healing." Will said as he came to her side. She didn't seem in danger of passing out or anything but she was still bleeding and he already had his hand on her back in case she needed the support.
Jordan went over and took a spray bottle out of her duffel and a cloth. Where their belongings and Doug were the sandstorm had not touched them. "I made some spray stuff for smaller things." She told them and tossed the cloth to Will. "Want to take staunch the blood again doctor?" She asked jokingly.
Will was able to clean the wound up and then used another cloth with some of the spray potion applied to the wound to heal it up. They took a few minutes to rest up as well from the fight, each of them finishing the water bottle they had and again were grateful that the genie girl had made it so that it refilled automatically.
They made their way to the docks afterwards in relative silence. They had to wait another hour for the boat and so they moved out a little bit. Mal and Ben sat on a bench watching the waves, the young king had his arm around his girlfriend running his hands through her hair, while she had her legs underneath her and her head on his shoulder. Gregory had gone inside the building.
Audrey and Jay drifted closer to the shore and both of them sat in the sand together. Jay let Audrey talk about the times she had gone to the beach with her parents as he just enjoyed her closeness and the slight ocean breeze. He especially was trying not to think too much about their destination, a home his father had been exiled from no matter how just it was. And that he had been exiled from.
Evie, Doug, Jane and Carlos sat down at a small table and began to talk amongst themselves, a cross between technical talk and chemistry talk. Sometimes they weren't sure there was always a difference.
Jordan had given her lamp to Aziz to hold onto so she could rest a little, then she promptly went inside of it. Ally and Aziz sat under an umbrella. "It's actually kind of ironic, considering the history of your fathers, that she would give her lamp to you." Ally noted.
"Jordan and I were never that close despite the fact that we grew up together." Aziz revealed to her as he took her hands in his. "We'd see each other a lot and we were able to get along but I wouldn't have called us friends."
The blonde couldn't say she was entirely surprised to hear that. Jordan hadn't always been the most social person at Auradon Prep, and that only improved a little bit since she had started to help the rangers. "Has that changed?" Ally asked him with a slight cocking of her head.
Aziz had to think about it a moment. "Maybe a little." He replied. "I mean going through life changing events and helping save the world tends to bond people." He squeezed her hand a little. "No matter how close they were or were not beforehand."
"I have often wondered that if some of the people my mother knew from Wonderland, like the Hatter, if they had children would I get along with them just because my mother was friendly with their parents." Ally admitted. "I guess two sets of parents knowing each other doesn't mean their children will get along."
On another part of the beach Lonnie and Will sat together watching the ocean waves themselves. Then Will took in a deep breath. "Lonnie, I think there's something you should know before…before anything else happens." He said.
The Asian princess wanted to tease him about assuming anything was happening between them at all but is seemed both dishonest somehow and the wrong time to be teasing him when he sounded so serious. "What's that?" She asked him.
"The village that you guys liberated from Sermaya a few days ago." He started.
Lonnie could guess some of it. "You lived there."
Will nodded. "With my mother and my sister Whitney." He confirmed. "The attack separated us, I was protecting some of the elders of our government from being captured, and we were in some of the surrounding woods running and fighting the oxen things. My mother and Whitney were captured when they attacked and destroyed the school."
"Which necessitated you and your sister to transfer to Auradon Prep." Lonnie said. "Where is your mother now?"
"The king…Ben's parents were nice enough to provide lodgings for those whose kids transferred as a result of the school's temporary destruction." Will answered with a grateful smile. "I just…didn't want you to think that anything going on between us was as a result of simply being grateful for what you guys did for my village and my family."
In truth part of Lonnie realized if she had known it sooner she might have made that conclusion. And part of her worried that maybe that could still be the case. But another part of her realized that was just doubt that she didn't need to worry about. "I believe you." Lonnie said to him. "And I don't think what we…what we're…nothing about the time we're hanging out together has any influence over that liberation."
"I just thought it was important that you know that." Will said to her. "I didn't want that affecting any aspect of whatever happens next."
The time seemed to pass quickly for the couples and friends and the boat arrived to take them down the river and into Agrabah.