"You know when you look at all of these records, our chances of destroying these rangers really are rather abysmal." Gregory noted with disgust from one of the consoles on the bridge of Paradias's ship. "All of their opposition has had mass armies with a vast array of monsters at their disposal against a handful of people, usually no more than six or seven and perhaps a few assorted allies and yet those rangers always seem to win."
"I'm forced to agree that the records are woefully one sided." Maleficent admitted. They had recently bought these records from a bounty hunter long thought dead. "But what's important isn't the MANY," The evil fairy rolled her eyes for emphasis. "Losses but to be able to cherry pick the wins out of them."
"And we have just done so." Paradias added with a satisfied gleam in his eyes. The generals rose as Paradias beckoned them and Maleficent to follow him. "As much luck as we've had putting their zords into an inoperable state, it's rather common for zord's to be either destroyed or encounter a power that makes them obsolete." He continued. In truth he was working on just such a contingency to for that as well. "Even the loss of powers wasn't unheard of until recently. But very few have happened at the same time."
"You mean that's ever happened?" Chad questioned.
"Yes. One of the first recent occurrences was in fact sadly resulted in the ranger's receiving help against the Psycho Rangers." Paradias answered. "A space pirate by the name of Divatox used one monster to destroy the Turbo rangers' zords and arsenal, followed by the destruction of their power chamber and the loss of their powers. Only finding the KO-35 red ranger allowed for the powers to be restored."
"How did she do that?" Gregory asked now.
"With a monster named Goldgoyle." Nerissa answered now beside Paradias. "He was the one who crushed those zords. Their arsenal was destroyed in the process of their destruction of the monster. And now we will replicate their success with his little brother GoldSheiva." With that they revealed their newest monster. He looked exactly like Goldgoyle did but he had four arms instead of two, which Maleficent knew would be of benefit since there were now twelve rangers to contend with.
"Your task should be simple enough as they've already had two battles today already." Paradias said. "Destroy the power rangers." He looked to Chad, Reviveslime, Gregory and Marcellus. "And be ready with the warzord as will be using it to demand Auradon's immediate surrender."
"Your wish is my command Paradias." GoldSheiva promised.
"I just wish we could repair your zords as easily as we repaired the dragon's eye." Amy reflected as they walked back to the command center where they planned to spend most of the day working on aforementioned zord repairs and seeing what they could do to find other ranger powers. The fact that she didn't come with a zord sort of upset her as she knew that was what the team seemed to need. The fact that she was needed to help take back the warzord was beside the point.
Audrey seemed to be right about looking to other places in Auradon for the other ranger powers but that didn't mean they had the time to personally visit them all to try to find them. Even if they found a power source that didn't guarantee a holder. In fact she and Ben would be working with Fairy Godmother to review student files to determine eligible ranger candidates. If Amy had turned down being the rose ranger they would have already needed to find someone for that power and they needed candidates for anything they found, including taking back the gray ranger powers.
"We'll make it work Amy, don't worry about it." Jay said and then shrugged. "Besides if it were easy anybody could do it." He added with a laugh.
"Sometimes easy would be a good thing." Carlos noted.
Audrey looked between Ben, Mal and Amy and hoped that everything was okay. In almost two hours they had all come close to losing Mal against Truesdale and Mal had almost lost Amy because Reviveslime had blasted her into a volcano. It was kind of an eye opener if ever there was one.
"How are the repairs coming along?" Will asked Doug and Jane.
"Could be going better." Doug said with a slight shake of his head. "I hadn't realized how much of the damage was internal. We're looking at another day at least."
"Is there any way Amy and I can take the warzord on our own?" Will wondered.
"I'm afraid not." Jane said. "There are at least three different places that need to be filled up and that's not including dealing with the generals inside."
"Told you we should have asked one of the ranger teams to stay for a while." Carlos stated, which earned him looks of annoyance from some of them.
Amy yawned a little bit. The day had started earlier than even she would have liked and they had already been into two fights. She hoped there wouldn't be any more today but Mal had already expressed doubt about that one.
The monster alarm went off again and Aziz sighed, "Maybe Paradias's plan is to wear us out so we eventually don't have the energy to fight." He mused.
"It's been tried before." Jordan said as Jane brought up the monster on the view screen. "Speaking of tried before, something about that monster seems familiar." The genie girl mused.
"We can figure that out later." Mal said to Jordan. "Right now it's time to get to work…again."
They left the command center and up the stairs, leaving Auradon Prep. "I'd like to tell you this isn't common." Audrey said to Amy. "But my luck they'd start doing this just to make me a liar." Amy gave her a small smile in return, she had to appreciate the fact she was trying to make Amy feel comfortable in the team.
Ben formed his sword and shield and transformed. Jane took out the magic wand (she still refused to see it as hers) and transformed. The rest of the team took out their iPhones, input their numbers and transformed as well.
They didn't have to look far as the monster had been looking for them so that he could follow Paradias's orders. "Greetings rangers." He said to them. "I feel as if I should introduce myself; I am GoldSheiva and it will be such a pleasure to destroy you all." The four arms of the monsters seemed to pulse in anticipation.
Jordan frowned. "Something about that name…" She mused again.
"I'm afraid the pleasure would be all yours if it were going to happen." Mal said as she summoned her dragon's eye staff. The rest of the team summoned their weapons as well. The monster in turn summoned his own blades and charged right at them.
Audrey tried to see if she could cut him off before he even got there by raising her elemental bow and unleashing a hail of arrows right at him. With lightning quick reflexes he used his blades to cut down or deflect the incoming arrows. "Okay, so much for that idea." She muttered.
"It was a good idea." Mal promised her. Most monsters probably would have been taken down by that tactic. "Get ready guys, here he comes."
Jay and Will took the first attempt with their respective swords, Jay's being a scimitar really and Will's being a curved blade with four sharp points; two on either end. Jay tried to strike at the chest while Will tried to strike at the midsection. GoldSheiva blocked with the upper right and lower left arm and then used the free arms to strike the two rangers hard.
Aziz and Ben moved in now as they drew energy into their weapons; the silver ranger with his spiral spear and Ben with his Auradon sword. The four armed monster caught the weapons in between his own as they dove in for the attack and then unleashed a beam of energy from his eyes that sent them recoiling back.
"Um, should we rock scissor paper for this?" Carlos asked in slight panic.
"Come on Carlos, we can do this." Audrey tried to encourage him. Together the red and yellow ranger started toward the monster. Audrey again released a hail of arrows, this time with the hope that she and Carlos could cut him down while he was busy dealing with the arrows. The energy beams from the eyes dashed any hopes of that and then he rushed forward to slam his blades into the two rangers, two at a time.
Jane extended the magic wand with magic so that it almost served like a sword as Lonnie stepped up to her. "We should try flanking him." She suggested to the pink ranger. "I can use my magic to get behind him while you attack from the front."
Lonnie nodded. "Good idea Jane." She said to the white ranger. "Let's do it."
Jane disappeared with a flourish as Lonnie started toward GoldSheiva. It seemed for a moment as if he were too focused on Lonnie to pay attention to where Jane had gone too. The white ranger appeared behind him and as Lonnie moved in expecting him to block, Jane moved in to attack him from behind. Then he started to rotate from the waist up and he extended his arms, slashing the two girls with his arms multiple times and sent them reeling.
"I don't think I want to get in close to him." Evie noted after seeing that dizzying 360 degree display.
"We don't have too." Ally replied as stepped up to the blue ranger, Jordan came up on her other side. "We know he can handle arrows, but let's see what he can do if all three of us attack him together."
Evie unfolded her mirror force shield and pressed the appropriate button to release her storming mirror force as Ally let loose with all of her crystal cards and Jordan unleashed a stream of energy from her lamp cannon. The combined attack headed toward the monster.
"There's no way he could stand up to that." Amy said. It almost sounded like a prayer from her twin sister as far as Mal was concerned. She just hoped the prayer was answered.
Sadly it wasn't as GoldSheiva raised all four of its arms and used his blades to act as a shield when the attack struck. It pushed him back a few inches but ultimately he withstood the attack and then unleashed it right back at the three girls, sending them back in a flourish.
"Let's see what we can do with a little bit of twin magic." Mal declared as she twirled her dragon's eye staff.
"Right." Amy agreed as she raised her rose lance. Both of them had a slightly horrible feeling about this. The sisters tried to attack the four armed monster but he used those extra extremities to his advantage as he used his blades to catch in between the long lengths of their weapons and flipped them over his heads and onto their backs on the ground hard. As they started to stand up he slashed them hard and sent them reeling backwards.
Mal and Amy came to a stop and saw the rest of the rangers had regrouped around them. Ben helped Mal to her feet as Lonnie helped her fellow pinkish ranger to her feet. "What do we do now?" Ally asked.
"Let's try to use our blasters." Jane suggested. "With thirteen of us we'll generate more power than we have on either of the two occasions with only ten of us."
"It's worth a shot." Mal agreed as she looked the approaching monster. "Spread out guys, keep out of his reach." With that they all did as the purple ranger commanded and then drew their blasters. Ben didn't actually have one of his own but he could add his energy into the stream without a problem.
"What is it you've pulled from your sleeves now?" GoldSheiva asked with amusement.
The ranger's activated the refractors on their blasters and then fired the energy expanding as it hit the reflectors. Ben added his own energy as well and then they unleashed the torrent of energy building around him right at the four armed monster.
To their horror the four armed creature caught the torrent of energy and released it upward into the sky with a huge explosion that probably shook up half of Auradon and woke anything that was asleep right now.
"At least he wasn't able to reflect that back at us." Carlos said. "One small blessing for us."
"Yeah but we'll need about another two dozen small blessings if we want to defeat this thing." Evie noted with dismay.
"We haven't even scratched him yet." Amy noted in a worried tone.
"Is that the best you've got?" GoldSheiva asked mockingly.
"Not by a long shot." Mal bit off. The truth was that all they had left was the Auradon blaster and Auradon cannon. If he was able to deflect those or even use the attacks against the team they were out of luck. She already knew the neon armor would only make the recoil damage even worse for them.
It was as if Audrey had read her mind. "Do we try them?" She asked simply. It amazed Amy a bit how the red ranger and purple ranger were such polar opposites that they could easily clash with each other and yet they seemed to think on the same wave length, especially when the situation called for it.
"I don't see that we have a choice Mal." Ben interjected softly. "Without that attempt we've all but lost anyway."
Mal knew her boyfriend was right. "Let's bring them together." She told her friends though to Amy there was a subtle undercurrent that suggested she suspected it was going to be a futile maneuver.
Mal's fully repaired dragon's eye staff went first, placed underneath with Audrey's elemental bow. Behind them Evie's mirror force shield was placed, the compact of the mirror unfolding. Jay placed his soul scimitar in the middle, followed by Lonnie's hurricane tessen's, Carlos's earthquake claw daggers and Amy's rose lances. They all got together to aim the blaster.
Jordan raised up her lamp cannon. As Ally's crystal cards were placed in the spout and Aziz placed his spiral spear around the lamp, Jane placed the magic wand in the top of the lamp.
Ben and Will exchanged glances. They didn't really add to either of the weapons formations. Still they decided to take a page from the book of the generals and combine their bladed weapons together to unleash a stream of energy at the same time as their friends did.
Together the three separate but combined units unleashed their strongest combined attacks on GoldSheiva. The monster raised its four arms and allowed the energy to collect against it before unleashing it straight back at the ranger's sending them flying backwards and landing hard. Their weapons fell to the ground as well.
"That was our best shot." Ally lamented softly. "And then some." She added as she realized normally Ben and Will didn't use that kind of attack either. "And we still couldn't get through him."
"Foolish amateurs." GoldSheiva gloated cruelly. "For all of your battles, all of your attempts, all of you were nothing more than untrained infants jumping into the deep end of the pool. You can't hope to defeat me."
"We can't give up guys." Mal said as she slowly rose to one knee. "We have to think of something. We can't let this creep beat us." She wished she knew how to make her words more than just that.
Several soldiers appeared around GoldSheiva. "Perfect timing boys." The four armed monster said. "I'm going to need help to take these rangers apart." They started to move in on the slowly recovering rangers.
A streak of purple with green electric highlights suddenly appeared out of nowhere as it took out two of the soldiers on the right, and then with the same flare took out two the soldiers on the left. Both rangers and creatures turned to follow with their eyes as the streak landed and coalesced into another power ranger.
"Mom, Doug, are you seeing this?" Jane asked over the intercom helmet.
"We're seeing it dear one." Fairy Godmother answered her daughter. "But…I don't know what else to tell you. We didn't send this ranger."
It was clear that this newest ranger was female. It was a unique oddity for their world to have more female rangers than male rangers if they had thought about it. This ranger wore purple like Mal but her shade of purple was lighter, almost pearly looking. Interspersed throughout were dark green streaks, almost like the vine decorations around Amy's legs. Unlike the rest of the rangers though she had a shield a silver shield on her chest that looked very much like the Zeo Gold Ranger, though they wouldn't know that as they'd never met him.
"Looks like it's time to even out the odds around here." The new ranger said. They could detect a strong accent in the voice but none of the team could identify it. The only accent they'd heard was Ally's British accent and Kat's Australian accent ant it wasn't one of those.
"One ranger against us?" GoldSheiva questioned and laughed. "This has got to be joke."
"Not at all." She said seriously. "Let me give you a demonstration." With that she formed two swords in her hands, about the size of Ben's. She brought them up and dashed toward them.
"Take her out." GoldSheiva ordered the soldiers.
For a moment time seemed to be normal as the soldiers charged toward the new ranger. Then it was almost as if time stopped as there seemed to be a roar from out of nowhere. The team could barely make out the images of the new girl slashing her way up, down, and around the soldiers until she stood behind them, ready to face the four armed monster, and the soldiers exploded.
"Wow." Amy said. "That was almost like time manipulation." Though time manipulation was not something she could do, she had empathic powers, control of the elements (though she had only demonstrated two of them) and the ability to walk through objects. She would have ideally limited the knowledge of who knew that but it was hard to keep that a secret in battle.
"I think we're one on one now." She said to the monster.
"We may be one on one, but I think I've got a couple more advantages over you." GoldSheiva declared and attacked her. He tried to bring all four of his blades down on her but she blocked it with her two and then lashed out with her foot to send the monster sprawling back. She then leapt up and delivered a kick to his chest before bringing her swords down on him hard.
Mal had to blink a moment. She swore those moves looked almost like Amber's. Of course the accent was very nearly proof enough that it wasn't the purple space ranger. Not that vocal noise couldn't be fabricated but she was still sure it wasn't Amber.
He tried to attack her with his swords, one arm after another, and she step backed, dodging each strike. Then she finally caught the two upper arms in between one of her blades. She lashed out and kicked him back hard.
"Nice moves girl. But it seems to me we're too evenly matched." He said.
"We have to get in and help her." Lonnie said.
"Hang on." Mal said to her. The pink ranger looked confused but Amy held up a hand as well. "She can do this." She promised.
"Ye might be right." The girl relented. "But your friend are gone. Mine aren't."
"Your friends don't look to be in much rush to help you out." GoldSheiva retorted.
"It wasn't them I was referring to." The ranger replied and then called out, "Let's see how you like this." Twirling her swords in her hand she unleashed a blast of energy toward him, but as it drew closer it started to take the shape of a spirit animal.
"That's a bear." Audrey said in surprise. "A grizzly if I'm not mistaken."
The spirit of the bear lashed out with its paws. GoldSheiva tried to block it only to come to an unpleasant realization that as a spirit it couldn't do so. The bear spirit slashed him once across the face, a second time across the chest, and a third in an upward strike that sent the monster flying into the sky.
She leapt up and brought her swords arcing upwards. The rangers were amazed to see the new ranger take off the lower arms of GoldSheiva. Then she brought her blades down again on the monster and sent him crashing to the ground hard even as she landed gracefully on her feet.
"Now that's impressive." Will said and Lonnie could do nothing but echo, "Very impressive."
"I won't let you beat me." GoldSheiva snarled. "I have a legacy to uphold, and uphold it I shall."
"Funny because we have one to uphold too." Mal said to him. "And something tells me that with her help our chances of continuing to do that are a lot better now."
"Ye can say that again." She agreed. She drew energy into her swords and tossed them. They angled straight and true as they destroyed the blades in the monster's remaining two hands, then they twirled around and slashed him hard again. As the blades angled back to their owner she called out, "Feel free to end this now."
Mal, Audrey, Evie, Jay, Lonnie, Carlos and Amy again combined their weapons to form the Auradon blaster even as Jordan, Aziz, Ally and Jane formed the Auradon Cannon. Will and Ben retrieved their swords and together the three units again unleashed their attacks on GoldSheiva, this time destroying the monster.
"Yes!" Carlos exclaimed. "We did it, we won."
"Thanks to our new ally." Mal said as she turned to her…well her purple ranger counterpart if she wanted to be honest, just as Amy was like Lonnie's counterpart despite being a darker rose color. "Who are…" She started.
Her question was interrupted by a giant landing sound. They turned up to see the warzord glaring down at them. They could barely make out Chad, Gregory, Marcellus and Reviveslime in the cockpit. "This game is over." Gregory said. "This time we're going to end you all."
"You better pray you don't survive Audrey." Chad said with venom in his voice. "If you do, I'll make sure to make you wish you hadn't over years of time." Amy felt the fear and panic in the red ranger and despite the fact the rose ranger was still struggling to like Audrey herself, she couldn't help but want to try to reassure the brunette princess.
"Our worst fear come true." Jane whispered. "We can't stand up to the power of a zord."
"You won't be ending anyone today." The new ranger told them all. Then there was a loud roar like there had been when she had outdone the soldiers single handedly.
"No parlor trick is going to do us in." Reviveslime warned her. "Your reign as a power ranger will be very short indeed." The warzord raised its arms and started to gather up energy in an attempt to unleash it upon the rangers. The crashing sound stopped them as they turned to see a large bear zord leaping right at them, quite fast for its bulk, and slammed right into the warzord.
"No tricks here." She said to the four in the warzord. She leapt straight up and into the cockpit. Though the others couldn't see it she placed a gem the same light purple color against the console. She didn't know what the small slot for it underneath was, though it was the same size as the other zords had for the iPhone. "Time to convert to the Battlebear."
Much as the White Tigerzord shifted from tiger mode to warrior mode, the new bear zord did the same thing. It had no sword though its mechanical hands very much resembled Carlos's when he was using his claw daggers.
The warzord's arms and hands were replaced by blades as it moved in to engage the Battlebear. The zord responded by raising a hand and getting the blade twisted up in the claws. Then with the free hand it slashed the warzord hard, doing some damage but not the amount even she had been hoping for.
"There's a reason this is called a warzord girl." Reviveslime said with a laugh and then slashed the Battlebear. He grimaced though as he realized this zord was built thick like the hide of a bear. Penetrating it would not be easy.
Gregory glared down at his former team mates as he saw them getting up. Their zords were still down and couldn't help their new friend in this fight. But he wasn't stupid enough to count them out, especially since they might have had the numbers to take the zord from them, even if they lacked the rangers to pilot it. He reasoned for them a dormant zord was better than an adversarial one. "Forget this, but we'll be back Highlands ranger." He spat. With that the war zord took to the skies in a flourish of smoke and light.
"Why'd the run?" Jay wondered as he tried to brush smoke away from his eyes.
"They must have been afraid we'd try to take the warzord away from them even if we can't use it ourselves yet." Will speculated.
"Where's that other ranger?" Amy asked, catching a fleeting glimpse of Gregory's mind and what he had called her. "Where's the Highlands ranger?"
"The what?" Aziz asked.
Jane understood. It seemed to be a similar situation to what Time Force had experienced, where there sixth ranger Eric Meyers had been colored almost exactly like the red Time Force ranger Wesley Collins but had been called the Quantum Ranger.
"I think I see her." Audrey said. And for a moment she had as the light and smoke cleared. Then a particularly heavy smoke cloud passed and she lost sight of the newest ranger.
"I don't see her." Jay said.
"I don't feel her." Amy said, referring to her empathic awareness. Though she wasn't not trying to read any glimpse of emotions it was hard to edit out the general feeling of everyone around her. The loss one person's empathic awareness was easy to detect in limited surroundings. "She's gone."
This mystery lead them back to the command center where they reviewed the battle from an outside perspective. "Do you recognize the accent at all mom?" Jane asked Fairy Godmother.
"I'm not sure right off hand." Fairy Godmother answered. "It seems familiar but I can't place it."
"I'd like to know where she came from." Lonnie said. "And who she is?"
"She had her own zord." Amy said excitedly. "And it was able to stand up the warzord."
"Which is a good start." Mal agreed. "But in a real fight they won't have Reviveslime at the controls, they'll have him fighting with the warzord."
"And we can't forget about Jabberwock either." Ally reminded them all softly. Truth was he was starting to give her a few nightmares.
"We have to find out who she is sooner rather than later though." Audrey said as she took a few steps away from the group and then turned back to them with a grave look in her eyes. "Because if we're looking for her then we all know so are Paradias and Maleficent. And their intentions will be far less noble than ours."