Lunch had come around and again Jordan had whipped up something that would make them whatever they wanted for lunch. Mal selected cheese ravioli and a strawberry shake. Ben selected beef ravioli with a chocolate milkshake. Audrey had selected a chicken Caesar salad and orange juice. Evie had selected a chicken and steak quesadilla with and bottled water. Jay selected a double bacon cheeseburger with fries and Pepsi. Carlos had selected a taco platter and a Pepsi. Amy had selected chicken tenders and a strawberry shake (like her sister), Jane selected veggie lasagna and bottled water. Jordan had selected an exotic and spicy dish from Agrabah that no one else but Aziz had been able to pronounce. Aziz selected roasted chicken and mashed potatoes with a Pepsi too. Ally had selected spaghetti with mushroom sauce and an apple juice and Will selected chicken fried steak and au gratin potatoes with a Pepsi. Fairy Godmother had gone in to pull some records for review, at least as much as she could without violating any sort of confidentialities and Doug had accompanied her.
"I have to say it feels like we deserve this." Jay noted as he picked up a French fry. "We've been in three fights in the last six hours."
"And gotten beaten down in the last one." Carlos added. Ben frowned slightly as he cut into one of his raviolis as he recalled that Mal had been all but gutted during the first fight of the day too. Amy had also almost taken a one way trip down into the mouth of a volcano as well.
"I wonder what the Highlands ranger is eating for lunch right now?" Amy mused to herself as she picked up one of her chicken tenders.
"Raw fish." Carlos speculated jokingly, based on the fact she had a bear zord and a bear animal spirit. He and Jay exchanged snickers before falling quiet at Audrey and Jane's looks of annoyance.
"They might be right." Mal said and when Evie looked at her in some shock she waved her hand. "I don't mean raw E." She said a bit snappily. "But I bet she's the kind of girl who can go hunting for her own food, clean it and cook it to a fire camp perfection."
"I bet Mal's right." Will agreed. He used his fork to take some mashed potatoes from his plate. "When I was younger one of the guys in the village taught my sister and I how do to do things like that. It's kind of fun actually."
"I can't say it would be my thing." Audrey said with amusement as she speared some of the salad on her fork.
"Maybe we can go out overnight some time." Lonnie suggested to Will.
"That might be fun." He agreed. They both exchanged smiles.
"Oh, gag me." Mal said with a roll of her eyes and that received amused glances from everyone else who knew that Mal and Ben still took the cake in what many people would call sickly sweet romance.
Will received a text and he checked on it and then sent something back. Then he looked to them. "That was Whitney. She wants to have dinner with Callie and her parent's tonight. She asked if mom and I wanted to come." He explained.
"I'm glad that Whitney's been so good for them." Audrey said with a soft smile. Amy was surprised again to read feel something unexpected from the attitude she tried to show; she had a soft spot for little kids. "After Chad left, my mom would spend hours trying to assure Cinderella that she had done nothing wrong, that it was all on Chad. And Callie was starting to withdraw into herself."
Ben remembered that he and his parents, along with Audrey and her parents, had been there when Cinderella had had Callie. He did fondly remember that after her own parents Audrey had been the first to hold the newborn girl. He knew then, just as he knew now, that when the time came she would be a good mother. Audrey had likewise told Ben that he would be a good father when the time came. It struck him now that they had never said they would be good parents together, making him think that perhaps even then they subconsciously realized that they weren't likely to end up together.
A flash of anger passed through the team at Chad. "To turn against us is one thing," Evie mused sadly. "But to turn on his family, to turn his back on them, it…" She drifted off. "I guess we have no room to talk." She glanced at her isle companions. "One could argue we turned our back on our parents."
"I don't think it's that simple." Lonnie replied. "You're pursuing what you want and it's not hurting them, unless you count the fact that Maleficent is still trying to follow her evil ways by joining forces with Paradias. They haven't made any effort to contact you despite the fact that they technically could." It occurred to them that no one knew what had happened to Cruella, Jafar and the Evil Queen Grimholde as they had not been seen in the small time they had been on the Isle of the Lost. "Chad has hurt Audrey several times now and even though he could easily come to visit them he doesn't."
"He is a wanted fugitive." Ben pointed out to the Asian princess. Several people there alone would have loved to teach Chad a lesson for all that he had done.
Amy thought she understood what Lonnie was saying though. "If Mal had been able to come see me even though she wasn't necessarily welcome on the isle anymore I wouldn't have told mom." She revealed. "I bet anything Callie feels the same way." She couldn't say what Cinderella would think, say or do.
Mal thought about the party they had had in honor of the power rangers of Earth and how Whitney had interacted with Callie and even Cinderella. Then she thought about her interactions with Belle and the fact that her sister also seemed to like her, and Belle seemed to like both of the sisters as well. She was going to say something but it was like Ben had read her thoughts. "Maybe in a way it's for the better for them though. Sometimes family isn't just about blood."
"No it isn't." Evie agreed with a smile as she looked at Mal, Jay, Carlos and Amy. She also thought about Snow White. Neither was blood related to the other simply by law, but they got along very well.
"So what did you tell your sister?" Jane asked Will.
"I told her I'd be there as long as I'm not held up." He answered. They had decided to tell Whitney about him being a ranger since if something happened to him it would affect her. It was no different in its own way than Callie learning what her brother was now doing.
"The way things have been going today that might be a real possibility." Jordan lamented with a roll of her eyes. "We've had three fights in the last six hours and none of them have been simple."
They were very nearly finished with lunch when the last thing they wanted to hear went off; namely the alarm that indicated a monster. Jane was already up and at the consoles with Jordan not far behind her. "Oh, no." Jane whispered.
"What is it now?" Aziz asked.
Jordan brought up the images on screen. The walls of Auradon Prep were being overrun by these hideous two legged bull creatures with axes, and right behind them were two huge baboon creatures and another beast looking warrior. "Oh my pink, that's an army." Amy gasped and then cocked her head a bit "What are those things?" She asked.
"Those are the battle oxens." Lonnie told her ranger counterpart for lack of better terms. "And three of Sermaya's generals Gottomas, the Forest Defender and Forest Archer."
"We need to get out there before they hurt someone." Ally said.
Mal nodded. "You're right. Let's go." The team left the command center and up the stairs. Finding trouble was not hard and they were actually attacked by two battle oxen's as they came up the stairs.
One swung at Will and he dodged under it and delivered an elbow into his stomach, then came up with a hard uppercut to the jaw.
The other swung at Carlos but Jay caught him by the wrist and twisted enough to the beast drop the axe it wielded and then swept its hooven legs out from under it, where it went crashing down the stairs it had come from.
"Let's get to work." Mal said and they all took out their iPhones as Ben formed his sword and shield and Jane took out the magic wand. They all transformed.
"Where do you think Sermaya is?" Aziz wondered as they looked around. "And that freaky mage of his?"
"I don't know." Mal answered. "We're going to have to deal with that after we've made sure the students and faculty are safe." She knew that Jane had to be worrying about her mother. Doug was with her too, so Evie was probably more than a little worried.
Almost as if Will had read their leaders mind he voiced, "I'm going to go find Doug and Fairy Godmother and escort them back to the command center." Mal nodded her approval and the green ranger headed off toward the administration office.
"They might be here for the scroll that we brought back from Agrabah." Ally realized. They had traveled to Agrabah to get a scroll that Jasmine had found pertaining to Sermaya in Agrabah's library, where the green and gray ranger powers had been discovered. But between the attack on Agrabah, the appearance and commandeering of the warzord, the spell that nearly wiped out all of the Auradon rangers knowledge and the events of the last day alone they had not been able to examine the contents.
Jordan and Aziz knew the crystal ranger was right. "The three of us will head toward our archive room and defend it." The genie girl announced.
"Go ahead." Mal agreed with her. "We'll call you if we need the help." She hoped Will would join them soon enough and in the meantime they had Amy to help them out, Sermaya didn't know about the rose ranger for whatever that was worth. Nor did he know about the Highlands ranger, again for whatever that was worth. The three split up and the rest headed down to deal with the battle oxen.
The team immediately summoned their weapons and began to fight through the battle oxen. They however were the least of the problems. "Look what we have here." Forest Defender said. "The power rangers."
"Yes." Forest Archer agreed. Being the predator that their kind were he noticed the newest ranger, who was also the smallest and therefore in his opinion the weakest of the pack. "Looks like another pretty pink princess. Let's see what we can do about that." He took out his long wooden bow and aimed it Amy.
Amy didn't even notice. She had learned some things since becoming a ranger. Soldiers were mindless, she could get nothing on them. Her empathic powers were great with people who were open to her or were at least human on some level. Even her mother had been readable to her most of the time. Paradias's monsters were not. She could only attribute that to their alien nature. While she could feel something from these beast warriors the sensations she experienced might as well have been alien to her, essentially making reading them useless. She thought in time she could learn to sort through it for something useful, but she needed time.
So the rose ranger was unaware of the large arrow that was shot right at her. Audrey however had heard it and she quickly raised her elemental bow and unleashed a fire arrow. Though her arrows were smaller than Forest Archer's were the fire consumed it quickly. Only when it was ash did Amy notice something bad had just been prevented.
Forest Defender let out a roar and then landed on the ground. He charged toward the red ranger, knocking over several of their own minions as well as Carlos and Jane in the process. He smashed into Audrey hard and she fell with an ungraceful roll. "You ruined my brother's shot." He glared at her.
"Better than seeing one of my friends turned into ashes." Audrey noted with a grimace as she began to stand up. "Roses might smell good but that doesn't mean we have to kill them to get that scent."
"And they smell a lot better than you creeps do." Jay added as he moved in and slashed at Forest Defender. He brought up his arms in enough time to take the majority of the attack but the intensity in itself was enough to force him back further from Audrey.
Forest Archer took aim again, this time at Jay. He pulled back on the bow string only to hear a roaring sound. He turned and was only just able to dodge a Quaking Mirror Force attack from Evie. When he landed on the ground he was approached by Mal. "First you go after my sister and now one of my friends?" The purple ranger asked. "That doesn't seem like such a good idea to me."
Then Gottomas was in front of her. "Attacking us doesn't seem like a good idea to me." He confronted her and then grinned. "Looks like you and your little friends have upgraded your weapons." He added with a gleam in his eye.
Mal remembered that the last time they had fought him he had stolen their weapons. If not for the Jungle Fury rangers showing up to help them they might have very well lost the day. Of course that was when they had learned to harness their spirit animals. "Too bad the only way you're going to know is when we use them to destroy you." She said.
Gottomas swung a huge long sword down at Mal. The purple ranger raised her staff and was barely able to block it. She grit her teeth with the effort as these beasts did have strength over every one of the rangers, even those like Will and Jay. She barely knocked the sword to the side and lashed out to slam the staff into his chest only to hit the flesh with very little effect.
He lashed out again and struck Mal hard. He moved in lightning quick to try to plunge it into Mal's chest but Ben was in front of her then with his shield raised. It struck the metal object hard and it took the young king everything he had to maintain his balance, but he did it. Ben shot his sword straight out and struck the general, drawing some brackish looking blood from the wound.
By that time Mal had recovered and had retrieved her staff. "I don't really like our odds here." Mal noted.
"I don't either." Ben agreed.
Then Gottomas released a stream of energy from his sword and both of them had to roll away from each other to avoid the strike. It was then that a fist connected hard with Ben's face. It probably would have shattered his skull had he not been transformed. He looked up to find himself face to face with the creature that had once called him his brother; Sermaya himself.
"We meet again boy." Sermaya said. "For the last time."
Ben twirled his sword around. "I can't agree more." He said. "It's time to put this little dance to an end." He swung the sword around at the beast warrior but he dodged it far swifter than he had any right too and then caught Ben by his arm. He lifted him into the air and tossed him hard into the wall.
"Ben!" Mal shouted out and started over to her boyfriend only to get a huge elbow delivered into her lower back courtesy of Gottomas. She landed hard and just rolled out of the way of the approaching large booted foot aimed at her skull. "Ben!" She called out again even as she started to rise.
The young king had had the wind knocked out of him. He was only starting to get air back into his lungs when Sermaya stood over him. He reached down toward him and Ben prepared to try to knock his arm away but he instead picked up the sword Ben used to transform. "Let's try this again. But first…" Sermaya placed his seemingly massive hands over the sword and snapped it in two.
"No, my sword." Ben started even though it was far too late to matter. It fell to the ground in three jagged pieces and to make matters worse Ben felt himself power down against his will as his powers seemed to be lost to him.
"Ben." Audrey gasped now and raised her elemental bow to try to snipe Sermaya but had several battle oxen get in her line of sight. She then glared in frustration as she called out, "Jay, Ben is down."
Jay saw the situation too but was unable to get past Forest Defender. He could also see that Carlos, Lonnie, Evie, Jane and Amy were too busy with the massive army of battle oxen to be able to do anything.
Ben started to his feet shakily but he didn't know what he could do about it. Then he had to duck quickly to avoid a fist to the face that surely would have killed him. "It's over Ben. I told you that you would regret not joining me when you had a chance. I didn't say for how long."
"Leave him alone." Mal demanded even as she tried to slip by Gottomas. She wasn't quick enough and received a knee to her chest for her efforts. She fell to the ground hard, the staff again slipping from her grip.
Then a flash of green struck Sermaya and he turned to see himself face to face with a new ranger. Will twirled his recursive sword around. "Before you can take out the king, you're going to have to go through me." He warned him.
Even as Mal let out a sigh of relief she had doubts that Will could take Sermaya out on his own any more than they could have.
Sermaya swung at the green ranger but Will took a step back and brought up his weapon and two of the ends scraped his arm. The beast warrior growled in annoyance at that. He tried to bring his fists down but Will rolled to the side and kicked him in the leg hard enough to unbalance him slightly. He then leapt into the air and used his right leg to deliver a kick to his chest, causing him to fall back even further.
Gottomas was now going after Mal again. He swung his sword and she blocked it with her dragon's eye staff. It was hard to maintain the block on his weapon.
Forest Archer was still in a spot to see everything in front of him, including the fact that he had a shot at Mal that none of the rangers could stop since they had their own problems. He raised his long bow to do just that. Amy caught it out of the corner of her eye and was about ready to try to yell out to her sister for whatever that was worth.
Then she saw the same light purple blur with green flashes in it and the Highlands ranger appeared behind him. He heard her appear behind him but even as he turned to find out what had shown up she brought her swords down, destroying the long bow. She then performed a spinning reverse kick and knocked him off of the wall he had been standing on. The thudding landing was heard by everyone, and both Sermaya and the weapons master turned to the sound.
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything." The girl said as she landed on the ground gracefully. "But I can't as I like what I'm seeing here."
Sermaya was not happy to see another new ranger here. And he didn't even know about Amy. "Gottomas, finish off this interloper." He ordered simply before turning back to dealing with Will.
The weapons master knocked Mal back hard. She recovered instantly but found herself being blocked by the Forest Archer who was currently lacking an archery weapon thanks to the Highlands ranger.
Gottomas turned to face the Highlands ranger. "You humans keep showing up, dressed in your fancy colored costumes and brandishing your shiny little weapons." He said patronizingly as he started toward the unknown girl.
"Oh ye like the shiny weapons do ya?" She asked with amusement. "I'll be more than happy to give you a taste of these then."
"You will indeed." Gottomas laughed and then leapt forward, intending to take the swords away from her as he had from the rangers last time. But as he drew closer there was a roaring sound and the bear spirit she was bound to emerged and brought its paws down on him hard, bringing him down with a crash.
"You forgot to watch out for my partner." She said with laugh at him. "With that I'll never be fighting alone regardless." She slashed at him with her weapons, though he was able to dodge it. He struck back with his sword and she brought her blades together to block strike against her.
Will was barely able to meet Sermaya's strength with his own, making it hard to protect Ben and almost impossible to mount an offense against the beast king.
Mal struck out with her staff at the Forest Archer and he caught it hard and lifted the staff up, and the purple ranger with it. She swung back a bit and then brought her feet into his face hard, making him recoil and drop her. It wasn't the softest landing ever.
"You seem to have quite the numbers advantage." The Highlands ranger noted as she pushed the beast general back a little. "Let's see what I can do about that." She decided even as she back flipped out of the way of the attack and raised her blades.
"There's nothing you can do girl." Gottomas retorted.
"Want to take bets on it?" She asked and then gathered energy into her swords and released them. Gottomas prepared to block them with his own sword and possibly reflect them back at her but they completely bypassed him and started to strike the battle oxen from behind, much as she had done to the Paradias's soldiers in the first battle she had assisted the rangers in.
"Awesome." Jay said with delight and then announced, "I'm going to back Will up against Sermaya to keep Ben safe."
"I'm coming with you." Evie said to him.
"I'm going to help Mal." Lonnie decided.
"Me too." Amy agreed.
Audrey and Jane hadn't forgotten there was one foe that wasn't going to go down with that sword strike as they turned to face the Forest Defender. "I'm really glad my bow has sharp corners for close combat." The red ranger noted. Arrows wouldn't cut it against this big beast.
"I'm glad that the wand can be a bladed weapon in times like this too." Jane agreed.
"Don't worry, I've got your backs." Carlos reminded them as he got ready to fight with his claw daggers.
"What is you even want here?" Ben asked Sermaya despite the fact the best course of action should be to run. He could only assume that Will had gotten Fairy Godmother and Doug to the command center or at least some place safe, which is where the young king should have been now that his powers seemed to be out of commission for the moment.
"I've come for what I need to restore my civilization and end yours." Sermaya replied as he tried to bring his fists down on Will. The green ranger dodged the strike.
"Good luck with that, you can't even get your goons past the front gate." Jay noted as he leapt out and struck at Sermaya, forcing him to fall back a few inches and allowing the black and green rangers to stand side by side.
"Oh no." Evie gasped. "Where's the mage guy?" She wondered.
"What mage guy?" Amy asked. She didn't know about Chiron. This was her first encounter with Sermaya and his brood. She had her rose lance out and tried to jab at Forest Archer though he batted the small weapon aside with only a few cuts, almost nothing for his enormous size.
"Evie is right, where is Chiron?" Asked Lonnie now as she was able to finally see from the mostly cleared area that the centaur like thing was not to be found.
The blades returned to the Highland Rangers sides as she got ready to go up against Gottomas. He swung his sword in arch meant to decapitate her but she bent backwards far enough to avoid the slashing attack and then let her body fall, her hands catching the ground to kick the beast general with both of her feet hard. Gripping her weapons she rose to her full height as he started to stumble backwards.
"Let's end this then." She stated and drew energy into her blades again. This time she didn't throw them; instead she stepped up and double slashed him across his chest and then flipped over the monster, landing ready to face the Forest Archer and Sermaya even as the beast general fell back and was destroyed in a blaze of glory.
"You destroyed my weapons master!" Sermaya exclaimed, somewhere between shock and fury. He turned his back on Will, Jay and Ben as he turn to shoot the mystery ranger a murderous glare. "For that I shall tear you apart with my bare hands!"
He had taken a few steps forward to attack the Highlands ranger and for what it was worth she seemed ready to try to take him on when he suddenly stopped, as if something was said that only he could hear. Well, that wasn't quite true as it seemed to attract the attention of the two Forest baboons as well.
Sermaya shot a murderous glare at the girl. "You've gotten yourself a reprieve, but make no mistake. The next time I see you I will tear you apart myself." With that the three beasts took a tremendous leap, getting onto the slightly destroyed walls of Auradon Prep, before leaping off into the forests.
"Reprieve?" Audrey wondered.
Mal was already reacting. "Jordan, Ally, Aziz, come in." She ordered frantically.
Jordan's voice came back sounding decidedly bored. "You finally need some help out there Mal?" She asked, and at the point the purple ranger could detect some annoyance in the gold ranger's voice. "We might as well be guarding a cemetery for all the excitement we're having."
"Wait a minute." Evie now said as they could all hear the conversation. They weren't too clear on rather or not the Highlands ranger could hear it or not though. "You're bored? But didn't they take that scroll we got from Agrabah?" She asked.
"We haven't seen any beast warriors of any kind here Evie." Ally answered the blue ranger. She at least seemed far less edgy than Jordan had. She was probably more grateful for the lull in action that either her boyfriend or the genie girl.
"Then what exactly caused Sermaya and his goons to retreat?" Will asked curiously.
"Spread out and search the area." Mal said to the rest of the team. She turned to talk to the Highlands ranger only to see she had disappeared again without a trace. "Dang, she's good at that." The purple ranger mused.
It didn't take long to find out what had happened. The school library was in shambles. Since some of the students and faculty had fled there, there were several injuries though none of them were fatal. Luckily, or not depending on point of view, one of them was Whitney and she gladly told the green ranger everything that had happened. "This thing with the legs of a horse and body of a man came in." She said, unable to remember the term centaur. "He had those oxe things with him and they were tearing apart the shelves until they found this one book, red backed and really thick." She had taken a deep breath. "It was in the section on the ancient cultures in the desert."
"You're okay though, right?" He had asked his little sister, voice full of concern.
She nodded. "I'm fine, green ranger sir." She replied. Lonnie and Mal repressed small chuckles as each recalled when Dark Mist had attacked and Mal had been unable to transform. When Lonnie had shown up as the pink ranger the purple haired girl had addressed her in much the same way.
"I'll review the archives and see if I can figure out which book was taken." Jane said to them.
They returned to the command center, powering down after they got there. As Jane got to work on that Mal was sitting by Ben as Doug examined the broken sword. He sighed. "I don't think this can be repaired Ben." He lamented.
"What do you mean it can't be repaired?" Audrey asked a little hotly. Under the circumstance Amy found she couldn't really blame her for it.
"Of course it can be repaired." Lonnie also replied. "Can't your father or uncles do it? If not I can take it to my father, he's got a blacksmith…"
"Let me be more precise." Doug interrupted after he had cleared his throat. "The sword itself can undoubtfully be repaired in a day or so in the right hands." He knew that his Uncle Bashful could repair the sword himself, and that Lonnie knew someone who could do that too. In fact Ben's own father had a swordsmith in his castle. "The repair itself isn't the issue, it's the power that was inside the sword that I can't guarantee is still there."
"What about a new sword?" Ally suggested.
"We'd have to find something pretty good." Jordan replied now. "I mean it took the Maledict blade to restore Chad's powers. I don't know much about it but I felt the power in that thing when Maleficent worked the spell to try to wipe us out. I don't know if we can find anything that comes close to it."
"We have to try." Mal said as she squeezed Ben's hand gently.
"Mal." Amy said. Her older twin sister looked at her. "I don't think we have anything in our world that can do that." She looked like she might be ready to explode at her little sister for the first time in forever until she added, "We need to ask the Earth rangers for advice. Maybe they have something."
"This had better be worth it." Sermaya said as he held the book. "We've lost Gottomas in this raid and they must pay for it." The fact he had destroyed Ben's source of power was of no consolation as far as he was concerned.
"I promise it is exactly what we need my lord." Chiron said to him.