"Oh no." Ben gasped as he saw the dual attacks that sent his girlfriend flying. Though not as scientifically gifted as the blue haired blue ranger was he too could see which way the wind looked to be blowing after that attack and he felt sick at the knowledge he could do nothing for his girlfriend.
"Looks like you're about to have a purple pancake." Mirage noted with cruel amusement. "Even if you win this fight today, it will have cost you one of your own to take it. A worthy sacrifice in my eyes."
Even Genie grimaced, unsure he could get there before it was too late.
Jordan was right there as well and felt her father's uncertainty. "Maybe I…" She started.
Mal tried to brace herself for the bone crunching impact, but she hit something much softer and then felt herself getting just the slightest bit motion sick as the angle changed rapidly. "What just happened?" She asked herself.
It was a bit more obvious from down below. "Alright, way to go Carpet." Aziz exclaimed as he saw the same magic carpet that his father had found in the Cave of Wonders fly in from who knew where to save Mal from a very painful and possibly final ending.
"I wondered where that sucker went." Jordan commented with relief evident in her voice.
"M, are you okay?" Evie called out even as Carpet was bringing her closer to her chosen sister and her second in command.
"I'm fine E." Mal answered as both Evie and Audrey hugged her in relief. She returned their hugs and looked to Carpet. "Thanks to you." Carpet seemed a bit embarrassed at the praise.
"Thank heaven you're okay." Ally said as she hugged her now. She could see the relief in Jane and the guy's body posture as well.
Ben breathed a sigh of relief, wishing he could be there right now. He heard Genie say, "Way to go Rugman."
"End this Mirage, now." Aladdin demanded of the feline enemy.
She only laughed at him. "Sorry, but that isn't going to happen. Your precious Agrabah will fall and there's nothing you or those rangers out there can do about it." She replied.
"Don't underestimate them." Will said to Mirage. "Lonnie and my friends will stop you."
Jasmine caught the fact the young man named Lonnie specifically. She wondered if Mulan knew the about the affection that seemed to be brewing between her daughter and this brave young man.
"If we activate the neon armor we might be able to get another couple of minutes of protection." Jane said to her team mates. "We'd basically have to get in, strike this thing and get out before its effect get to us. Once we weaken it enough we might be able to destroy it."
Mal nodded. "Great idea Jane." She said. She noticed several of the Mamluk's had made their way out toward them. "We're not alone anymore." She noted.
"Don't worry about it." Aziz said. "Jordan, Jane and I will deal with them." He looked to Ally and spoke with unintended but genuine affection. "Stay with Mal and the others and help them deal with this thing."
"Alright." Ally agreed. "Be careful please."
Jay placed his hand on her arm gently. "You too." He said.
If possible Decay seemed less than pleased that Carpet had saved Mal. He seemed to step forward more menacingly than he had before. "He doesn't look happy." Audrey noted.
"Then let's give him another reason to be unhappy." Mal said to her team. "Time to activate the neon armor." It was brilliant idea Lonnie had had that had taken weeks for Jane, Doug and Evie to get implemented but it proved to be worth the wait. In a flash the team stood in neon colored versions of their suits though with Ally's it was hard to tell the difference.
In an attempt to distract Decay for the prelude to close quarters combat Ally released her crystal cards to zoom around and gash at the mummified monster. Mal found her weapon pretty fascinating since they were so small and numerous, but more importantly it seemed to require a certain degree of psychic ability to use, something that no one had ever really directly displayed; yet the blonde did so effortlessly.
Jay and Carlos moved in and attacked Decay. It didn't seem to do too much and the black ranger was forced to wonder how much of this monster was anything more than bandages. It made sense that some part of the head was judging by the eye that had shot Mal almost to the wall with such force. Beyond that was anyone's guess.
Mal and Lonnie were next two to move in and attack Decay with their weapons. Again it stumbled backwards. "It's like an ugly lumbering beast." Mal mumbled annoyed.
"You haven't seen any classic monster movies have you?" Lonnie questioned as they stepped back out of range.
"Not at all." Mal replied. "Maybe I should."
Audrey and Evie decided they didn't want to get to close to Decay anyway. At least they had the option as Audrey used her elemental bow to unleash a flurry of electric arrows at the monster while Evie released the storming mirror on him.
Mal looked to Jay. "I have to impressed that Evie does that and doesn't destroy a single crystal card." She noted sincerely.
"How do you suppose she does that?" Carlos wondered amiably.
"This thing is still standing." Audrey said to them. "We have to figure out how to do something to this monster that will last."
Mal had to decide what they should do quickly and decided they needed to go one step at a time here. "Let's try the Triangle Spark." The purple ranger said to them. "If we have to we'll move onto the blaster." They've never had to do that before but this Decay monster seemed to be the toughest creature they'd had to beat without the zords.
"I'm afraid to ask what happens if both of those fail." Carlos noted grimly.
Mal hesitated before she admitted, "Yeah, I'm not looking forward to having to deal with that either because I have nothing."
"Let's worry about that if we have too." Ally suggested, still directing her crystal cards rather well. "Try to take that thing out guys."
Audrey, Evie and Lonnie stood together. Jay and Carlos hopped onto their shoulders. Mal then hopped onto the shoulders of the two boys. The six of them drew their blasters and aimed the energy blasts in the middle to direct it at Decay, unleashing the Auradon Triangle Spark.
The attack hit Decay and he flew back, only to get up again. "Plan B?" Evie guessed as Mal and the two boys landed behind the three girls.
"Plan B." Mal confirmed as she struggled to come up with a plan C in case somehow this one failed. So far she had nothing.
The six rangers summoned their weapons. Mal laid her dragon's eye staff down, and then Audrey placed her elemental bow underneath it. Evie placed her mirror force shield behind it as the compact around it unfurled. Jay placed his soul scimitar, followed on either side by Lonnie's hurricane tessen's and Carlos's earthquake claw daggers. With the Auradon blaster they unleashed its energy attack on Decay.
It was with a mixture of annoyance and helplessness that they saw Decay start to get up from the attack.
"Okay, what's Plan C?" Carlos asked Mal as they separated their weapons and faced the rising mummified menace.
"I don't have one." Mal answered simply. "I am officially open to suggestions."
"We could try again, this time channeling our neon armor energy and our animal spirits into the blast." Carlos suggested.
"It already shrugged off our animal spirits." Audrey reminded him with a shake of her head. "We have no reason to assume it won't do the exact same thing again."
"We could still try channeling the neon armor." Lonnie said.
Evie frowned a bit though no one could see it. "Channeling the armor's energy isn't nearly as powerful as us just using it ourselves." She replied. "We wouldn't gain much out of it, certainly not enough to take out something that has already shrugged off the Auradon Blaster."
"What about if Jordan, Aziz, Jane and I were to blast that thing with the Lamp Cannon while you guys used your Auradon Blaster?" Ally asked. She thought it might be a good thing that the Decay monster seemed to be a slow, lumbering thing. Of course the problem came when it got close enough to strike, and that was minutes away at most.
By that point some of the palace guard's had come out to fight the Mamluk's so that way the three other rangers could come over and confer with them, Decay was still the priority target and it was still being assumed that taking out the mummified menace would send the zombie like creatures scurrying away.
"Where do we stand?" Aziz asked as he came up next to Ally.
"In the middle of ground zero and out of options." Jay told him with a shake of his head. "Nothing we have right now channels enough concentrated raw power to take that thing out."
"Then we have to come up with something fast." Jane commented. From anyone else that might have drawn a sarcastic comment but from the white ranger, who had bailed them out with her ideas time and again even before becoming a ranger herself, they let it slide assuming she was already working on an alternate idea for them.
"Not to rush you or anything but we're running out of time." Jordan said.
"Okay, the Auradon Blaster and the Lamp Cannon provide their own unique energies, cumulatively they aren't strong enough here." Jane said to herself. She looked at the blasters on their hips. "Their energies aren't unique though, regardless of who got powers when or from what source."
"We already tried the blasters and those weren't strong enough." Carlos reminded Jane as he came up stand next to her with his own blaster. Jay was about to tell his friend that wasn't helping him but was stopped by both Mal and Audrey, who realized that he was the second smartest among them and that it might help Jane to work it out.
"Right." Jane agreed. "The six of you did try that. But now we could try using the combined blaster power again, but this time with all of us."
"I don't think ten of us can make a good triangle here." Carlos replied and then after a second added, "Okay, we actually could but I don't know how safe or smart that would be, especially if this idea doesn't work."
"We're not going to make a triangle Carlos." Jane said. She looked to Mal. "We have to position ourselves around Decay in a decagon formation." When she got uncomprehending looks from the others, except for Evie who seemed to glance at the monster as if trying to work positioning out, she elaborated; "It's a ten sided polygon, we need to surround the monster on ten sides."
"Oh, of course." Audrey tried to make up for that lack of knowledge.
"So obvious." Lonnie tired as well.
Jay didn't bother to try to hide the fact he didn't know what she was talking about in that regard. "Okay so we surround him on ten sides, then what?"
"We use our blasters, all of us." Jane answered as she took hers out of her holster. "And we have to combine our blasts right at Decay."
"How will that help us?" Ally asked. "Won't we be just shooting regular beams of energy at him?"
Mal nodded now a little confused. "Yeah, Ally is right. Our powers aren't actually combining the way they do with the Triangle blast." She replied.
"That's the easy thing to change though." Jane said with a smile. "Everyone hold out your blasters please." The other rangers did as she asked and the white ranger raised the magic wand and cast an enhancement spell on the blasters that added a small silencer like piece at the tip of their blasters.
"Neat." Carlos said. "Refractors."
"What?" Aziz asked now.
"Refractors." Jane told him. "We can vary the shapes of our lasers." She looked to Mal. "We can channel all of our blaster powers around us before launching the combined energies on all side right at our target, in this case Decay." She moved her refractor two clicks to the left.
"Sounds like a great idea." Mal said. She hoped this worked or else they would need a plan D and they were running out of arsenal here. "Everyone get in position." The other rangers followed the movements Jane had done with her refractor and then spread out to cover around Decay as much as they could.
For its part the monster seemed unsure which direction and which ranger to face. When they were in its face it was easy enough to decide who needed be attacked but it didn't seem to have the intelligence to make a decision based on its current situation.
With the refractors activated the rangers fired their blasters, the beams crisscrossing together into a tightly spaced together seemingly endless array of energy that seemed to encircle Decay before moments later impacting against the mummified monster and causing it to explode, but this explosion was not the typical one they associated with the end of Paradias's or Sermaya's monsters. This one was coated in black that seemed to envelope them all.
Will saw the attack going off and he couldn't help gloating to Mirage, "It looks like your monster is finished."
Ben nodded happily. "With that your plans done." He agreed.
Mirage didn't seem to be all that upset and if anything seemed to be downright pleased with how this had worked out. "Oh, so you think it's done, do you?" She asked and then with a sound that seemed very much like a very angry cat she leapt.
Aladdin and Jasmine couldn't believe what had happened but first they had to find out what had happened to their son and the rest of his team. "I'm going to go help the guards check on them." Aladdin said to Jasmine. "Check on our people and…we'll have to deal with everything else a little later after they're okay."
The Queen nodded and Genie called out, "Right behind you Al." Before following his longtime friend…and of course he had his daughter to worry about too.
Mal opened her eyes and had to blink to adjust to the sunlight. She felt kind of stiff all over. The last thing she remembered was Decay blowing up. "Talk about an explosion." She mumbled to herself. She looked around to find herself in what she had to assume was her room in the palace. It was bigger than any place she had ever had to herself and she reflected how opulent some of the well to doers in the world were.
Slowly she got out of bed, stretching her muscles. She actually thought her back cracked a bit and winced. She rubbed her left arm, which still felt sore and she assumed she must have landed on it. She took a deep breath and left the room. "Wish I'd gotten a better idea of who was staying where." She said to herself. She actually thought it weird to be even talking to herself but one thing growing up on the isle and being in Auradon had in common was that it usually wasn't this quiet.
The first room she found was empty, but she saw on the bed was Audrey's bag. She had had a bigger one than anyone else but at least it had been enchanted to float along beside whoever was with the bag so it didn't weigh anyone down. It looked to her though that Audrey had not been in here at all, even the bed seemed undisturbed. "What is going on here?" She wondered.
Next was Evie's room, and it was the same situation. Following that was Carlos's room which also seemed to be empty. "Okay, where is everyone?" She wondered, somewhere between nervous and even a little bit irritated, like it was a joke that was being pulled on her. "And I must be going crazy if I'm talking to myself."
"I'd be more worried about if you started to answer yourself." Mal heard from behind her and turned to see Jane coming out of what Mal assumed was her room. She rubbed her lower back a little as she stepped out. "Are you okay Mal?"
"I don't know." Mal confessed. "You're the first one I've seen since I woke up and the last thing I remember was defeating Decay." She gestured to the room she was just in. "No Evie, no Audrey, no Carlos, and no signs they had ever been there." She added.
Jane's face showed her worry a little. "Maybe they just…made their beds and are in the throne room or something?" She suggested.
Mal laughed a little. "I don't know about Audrey but like me Evie was never big on making her bed." She revealed and then a bit more embarrassed she added, "And Carlos…never really had a bed."
They continued on to check some of the other rooms. "Why didn't he have a bed?" Jane asked.
Mal wasn't entirely sure it should even be brought up, let alone by her but the purple haired girl answered, "I had it pretty easy on the island, all things considered, as mom…well I don't necessarily want to say she couldn't care less but it sure felt that way at times." She opened up the door to Ally's room and found it in the same condition. "Evie was almost treated as a princess by her mother, probably because of her own upbringing prior to her trying to eliminate Snow White."
Jane opened the door to Jay's room and at least saw evidence he had been there recently though it was empty now. "Jay is somewhere around here at least." She mused.
"Good to know. We have to find the others." Mal said and then continued on. "Jay was kind of like me, his dad barely noticed him outside of what he could do for his 'business'." She air quoted that word. "Jay always thought he was never good enough for the former vizier. But Carlos…well he was treated almost like a slave."
That brought a look of astonishment to Jane's face and Mal smiled a little at the look in her eyes as she thought of him that way. Mal reached out and placed her hand on Jane's shoulder. "He never even had a pillow until Evie gave him one, she was friends with him before me or even Jay." She laughed a bit. "I think if we hadn't been pulled into Auradon, if you and Doug weren't in their lives, they would have ended up together."
"Funny how things work out." Jane said with a small smile. "I can't imagine life without Carlos, without any of you for that matter."
Mal hesitated a moment but realized that was true for her as well. "I can't either. Even Audrey has become important to me." She replied.
They heard footsteps and turned to see Aziz, Will and Jay coming up the steps. They looked relieved to see the two girls awake. "About time." Jay said a bit harshly but they could see that it was worry and fear in his voice, not anger.
Mal stepped up to him. "Yeah, I'm sure." She bit off and the two exchanged a brief but genuine smile. Sometimes they just had to poke fun at each other because they couldn't with Evie and Carlos. "Are the others okay? Are they downstairs with Ben, Doug and Gregory?"
"Jordan's downstairs with her family." Will answered her. Mal swore he seemed upset…had he been crying at some point? "We should go down there."
"What about the others?" Jane asked. "Where is Ben anyway, why didn't he come up with you guys?"
The three boys started downstairs and the two girls followed. "They're gone Mal." Jay told his oldest friend. "It seems like when Decay exploded, the Mamluk's grabbed them." He revealed to her. "Audrey…" He shook his head to calm himself. "Audrey, Evie, Carlos, Ally, Lonnie. They were gone."
"Oh no." Jane whispered in horror and almost tripped over the carpet. Will caught her, and it was only then why the two girls realized why he had seemed so somber. It was a feeling she, Jay and Aziz could all share.
"What does Ben have to say about this?" Mal asked, getting a little impatient about why they weren't telling her about her boyfriend.
"He's gone too." Will revealed softly. "Grabbed by Mirage before she left Agrabah."
"What?" Mal asked, horrified. "Why?"
By that time they had entered the throne room and saw guards standing around. In the center at the same table were Aladdin, Jasmine, Genie, Jordan, Carpet, Doug, and several guards. They had a map of Agrabah in front of them.
"You just told them I gather." Jordan said softly to Jay and he nodded.
"We think they're being held in the Black Sands, where Mozenwrath used to live." Aladdin told them all grimly. "We can only assume right now that Mirage has taken over the area for herself."
"Is there any chance that Mirage is allied with this Mozenwrath guy?" Mal asked after taking a deep breath to regain her composure.
"We wouldn't think so." Jasmine answered honestly. "Everything we've heard is that Mozenwrath ended up losing his life a few years after Aladdin last defeated him."
"A consequence of using that glove of his." Genie added simply. "It was basically eating away at him. Nothing short of Maleficent herself could have prevented that."
"Short of my mother, around here." Mal corrected. "There are forces beyond our world we don't understand." She took a deep breath. "I'm leading a team into the Black Sands to bring my friends back."
Aladdin shook his head. "No, I'm leading a team in." The sultan stated firmly. "They attacked my city and I intend to see to it that it doesn't happen again." The purple haired girl was about to protest and he held his hands up. "All of you are welcome to come with me." He smiled a little. "In fact I encourage it, but this is my expedition."
Mal thought about for just a second, seeing the sincerity in his eyes and imagining the same thing from Ben if it ever had come down to it. None of that stopped her from doing what she wanted; bringing her boyfriend, her two chosen siblings and her friends, really all of them family, home. "Fair enough." She answered.
"I'm ready to go whenever you are too Al." Genie said.
Aladdin shook his head. "I need you to stay here with Jasmine. You have to help protect Agrabah." He said to him seriously. "We'll have Jordan with us."
"I'll make it all work dad. I promise." Jordan said to him.
Genie nodded and hugged her tightly . "I know you will, sweetie. I know you will." He said and then looked to Aladdin. "You got it Al, good luck."
Mal looked to Will and Gregory. "I can't ask you guys to come and I can't make you stay here. What you do is all on you." She said to the two boys.
"There is no question." Will said determinedly. "I'm going with you to rescue Lonnie and our friends." The steely look in his eyes would have killed all arguments, but in that moment Mal loved him as fiercely as she did all of her friends, and fully understood what Lonnie saw in him. It was what she saw in Ben after all.
"Count me in too." Gregory said with a nod. "We'll bring them home."
The surprise now came from Doug. "I'm going with you guys." He announced. When the remaining rangers and the two warriors looked at him he continued on, "I want Evie and the everyone brought home safe and I can fire a blaster as well as anyone of you can." That was a bit of a lie but still something that would allow him to help.
"You sure about that man?" Jay asked. He also knew Doug was not a fighter.
"Positive." Doug said. The determination in his eyes more than covered up his lack of experience.
Mal held out her hand and Doug shook it. "We're glad to have you here." She told him, realizing that it was true. She hadn't thought much of him at first but he proved that you could be helpful even without using powers, and she had to admire his courage and the emotion he showed to her chosen sister.
"It settled then." Aladdin said as Carpet flew up to them as well, indicating the desire to go with them. The Sultan reached out and patted Carpet gently. He looked to a retinue of guards. "Let's move out. And bring our friends home."
Mal thought of Ben. Jay thought of Audrey. Aziz thought of Ally. Jane thought of Carlos. Doug thought of Evie. Will thought of Lonnie. After that, it was easy…