"I'm glad you two are alright." Belle said to Mal and Amy as she embraced both of the girls that night. "I heard about what happened and was so worried."
Part of Mal still felt a little embarrassed about being hugged, though she did return the embrace. Amy had no such problems with doing so though.
Belle pulled back and gave them a smile, though tears were in her eyes. Ben remembered his mother telling him a couple times she had always wanted to have a daughter too and he wondered why his parents had never tried to make that happen. He could actually remember a conversation he had had with Tommy and Jason the night of their return from the isle while waiting for the girls to show up.
"You know it's weird to me that there are so many people in your team and yet only Mal and Will have siblings." Jason had noted. He had been tugging a bit uncomfortably on the neck of the tux and the young king suspected the ranger's didn't attend many sessions like that.
"I've always had the impression that the kids on the Isle weren't exactly well loved." Ben said a bit sheepishly. "I don't think many of them had more than one kid because of it. It seems to be like Maleficent wouldn't have even had Amy if she had a choice."
Tommy had looked at him. "Yeah but what about here in Auradon? You don't have a brother or sister, Audrey doesn't have one. None of you do, except for Will's little sister Whitney." They had met the youngest Darling when Ben had introduced Wendy and Cinderella to them, the two mothers' getting close because of their daughter's friendship.
"I guess…I guess things were just really busy for our parents or something." Ben had concluded with no other evidence to go by. "Any way, how often do you guys have siblings of your own?" He wondered.
"I guess not too often." Tommy had to say. "I mean I have a brother named David but we were separated at birth. You already know of course about Andros and Karone. The red galaxy ranger does have an older brother who is the Magna Defender." He mused.
"Don't forget that Ryan and Dana of the Lightspeed Rangers are brother and sister." Jason added. "And Madison and Vida are sisters. Hunter and Blake from Ninja Storm are brothers."
"They're not siblings but Nick, Undonna and Leanbow are a family and hold powers." That amazed Ben a little as so far none of their parents held powers. Not that he wanted to think about any of his isle team mates having parents with ranger powers. "And Jayden and Lauren from Samurai are both red rangers and siblings."
"Don't forget about Emily and her sister Serena." Tommy added. He shrugged. "Still it's a good point. Everyone we named has siblings but became rangers. So far none of them have had siblings who didn't become rangers." He wasn't aware that Chase of Dino Charge had a sister who was not a ranger. They had however seen the glint in Mal's eyes that day and suspected that she wanted Amy to take the rose ranger powers they had recently come across.
Jason shrugged a bit. "I guess it really isn't that weird." He amended when he considered the number of rangers there really were out there. "Still out of all the places to do it, somehow I feel as if Auradon would the one to have more instances of cases like Will and Whitney."
Ben was about to open his mouth to ask his mother why they never had another child when the door opened and Adam came in. "Hello girls." He said to Mal and Amy with a smile as he walked over to Ben and placed his hand on his arm. "Welcome home son."
Belle stood now. "Come on, you three can join us for dinner." She said.
As dinner went on Ben forgot to ask his question. Mal and Amy told them about Alex and Ellie being there, which they had known about as Queen Elsa had contacted Adam to tell him her and Anna's children were coming to the school. They told them how about their powers and how they had used those to help drive Gregory away.
"What was he doing there anyway?" Belle asked as she reached for her glass of water.
Amy hesitated a little and then told her, "He wanted me." Her voice came out soft and even a little bit afraid. As Belle reached over to stroke her hair Mal wondered if she needed Amy and Audrey to have another talk. Audrey had spent a couple months knowing Chad wanted her.
Then Amy perked up a little. "It was so brave, the way that Alex and Ellie stood up to Gregory though." She said with enthusiasm. "I mean yeah they have those powers and we're not even sure how Alex got his, but if Gregory had transformed into the gray ranger I don't know if they could have stood up against him, but they still protected us."
"No one ever really figured out where Queen Elsa's powers came from either." Adam recalled as he cut into his pork chop. "Though I assume Ellie inherited her powers from her mother."
"So they've joined our magic class in hopes to learn how to control their powers." Mal said to them. "Amy has already been put into a position where she's going to be helping Alex control his powers since she can control fire too. It's Ellie that will be a bit harder to figure out I think."
Meanwhile back on campus Evie worked in the chemistry lab to learn a bit more about the plants they had managed to save from Nerissa's attempted extermination. Fairy Godmother wanted to cultivate them and reintroduce them. She also wanted to do the same thing for the plants that had inadvertently caused the mess in the first place. Some had objections to it but not Evie.
She had learned that that particular plant was actually key to a medicine that Auradon used regularly for a nasty flu virus that would often strike the elderly in the summer and was also part of a vitamin used during pregnancy. She wasn't sure what Undine added to make the neurotoxin that she used on Mal and Amy but clearly it wasn't fair to punish the plant for it. She did know though that the command center's computers were breaking down that compound.
She heard the doors open and saw Doug come in with a medium pepperoni and sausage pizza. "Dinner's here." He said with a smile. He set the pizza down and then placed two grape sodas on the table.
"Great, thanks." Evie said as she gently pushed the microscope back and smiled as Doug sat down across from her, opening the pizza box. She stopped him from taking a slice. "A moment to reflect." She said with a smile and then leaned in to smell the pizza, which smelled wonderful. Then she pulled back.
"Are we good now?" Doug asked and Evie nodded. He took a slice and placed it on a paper plate and handed it to her before getting one for himself. "So how's the botany coming?"
"Pretty good." Evie replied after swallowing her first bite. "Both these plants are needed for important things here in Auradon though I'm sure most people don't realize it. Letting either of them become extinct would be a horrible mistake."
Doug opened up the cans of soda before taking a drink from his own. Then he set it down again. "Tomorrow afternoon after magic class I guess Fairy Godmother will go with a few of the other teachers and find a good place for those plants." He said.
"That's good." Evie said with a smile. She watched Doug take a bite of his pizza and then reached over to grab a napkin so she could wipe some excess sauce off of his lips. He looked slightly embarrassed and she giggled a little.
"Evie." Doug started.
"I know, I know." Evie said with a small sigh. "You don't need me wiping sauce off your face."
"Well technical yes, but that wasn't what I was going to say." He reached out and took her hand. "I wanted to say how beautiful you look in the light." That made her blush a little. Without thinking about it she leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips. He responded to her kiss after only a moment of surprise.
Their first kiss was drawn to a sudden halt when the door burst open and Jane and Carlos came in. They both looked slightly embarrassed and apologetic to have interrupted them but the look on Jane's face made them realize this was an emergency. "What's wrong?" Evie asked.
"We have a problem." Jane said as she held up a sample case and went to the microscope.
"Do you think I'm foolish for wanting to do this?" Audrey asked as she walked with Jay in the woods outside of the school hand in hand.
"It's a great idea Audrey." Jay promised her with a light squeeze. "And I get why you don't feel comfortable being absolutely alone these days." He really did, she had called him up twice in as many nights, swearing she was hearing Chad's voice calling out to her. He had done more to hurt her than even she realized. He wished she would talk to some of the other girls about it though as they would probably have an easier time helping her cope with it.
They approached a candlelit area where Lonnie was setting a table for four. Will was by a small campfire putting the finishing touches on a couple of salmon that he was making over the fire. He had said that it was best when the salmon was freshly caught but the double date had been thrown together so quickly there hadn't been time for that.
Jay sat the small basket in the middle of the table. "French bread and butter, courtesy of…well Audrey's mom but you get the idea." He said with a laugh.
Will chuckled. "Who do you think paid for the salmon?" Will questioned them lightly as Jay pulled the chair out for the brunette princess.
"Or gave me the rice?" Lonnie added as she took a small pot from the side of the fire and brought it to the table. She had little soy sauce packets already on the table. She set the rice down. "Not that I don't like the idea of a double date, but I never thought of you as wanting to do something like this." She said to her friend. "Why the change?"
"The lounge is closed tonight and I wanted to have a date where we weren't alone." Audrey explained. Lonnie suddenly wondered if she and Jay were having problems and glanced subtly at Jay and Audrey laughed. "No, we're fine. It's…just I find I prefer being around more people rather than less right now."
Will came over and set the freshly made salmon on the table before pulling out a chair for Lonnie. Once she had sat down the two boys sat down next to their girlfriends. They left the campfire going as it was getting pretty dark, that and the candlelight was all they had to see by. "It smells really good." Audrey said.
"Thanks." Will replied as he started to cut into the salmon. "These are boneless, but if we had done it the way I always did it growing up we'd have to watch out for that." He added.
The cut up salmon was placed on the four plates along with some rice. Lonnie and Jay immediately mixed the salmon and the rice together while Will and Audrey chose to eat the two foods apart. They had gotten halfway through dinner before they heard a scream. It didn't sound human, more like an animal, but the four of them were already up and heading toward the sound.
The noise seemed to startle the figure and they saw a deer making a break away from the area. When the figure turned they saw it was Reviveslime. He looked over at the rangers. "What are you doing here?" He asked, though his voice sounded slurred.
"We could ask you the same thing." Jay said as they too fighting stances. "I figured picking on forest life would even be too low for you slime head."
"I was hungry." Reviveslime said enigmatically. "But perhaps ranger would taste better than venison." With that he leapt out and grabbed a hold of Audrey. She let out a gasp and seemed to flinch for just a moment. The boys lashed out and kicked him in the chest hard, and something felt wrong to them too.
"Are you okay?" Audrey asked Lonnie.
"Yeah, I think so." She answered and then seemed to struggle a bit. "Why are we out here Lonnie?" She asked. It almost seemed to be a struggle for her to remember who she was talking too.
"Guys?" Lonnie inquired as she looked to the two of them.
They didn't seem quite as shaken but still looked a bit uncertain. "What did he do to us?" Jay asked.
"I don't know." Will admitted. "It almost felt like he tried to drain us."
Lonnie helped Audrey to her feet and the brunette princess reached for her iPhone. "It's time to get…" She started to announce but was interrupted by a voice message from Jane. "Everyone get to the command center now, we have an emergency situation."
"More of an emergency than this?" Jay wondered as he looked to Reviveslime. But the slime general looked to them and then leapt into the skies.
"What's going on here?" Lonnie wondered.
A half hour later the entire team was in the command center, most having been at the school already. The longest wait came from Ben, Mal and Amy coming from the castle though the double daters hadn't been too close either.
"So what's the problem?" Ally asked them. She noticed that the command center's center held Evie, Doug, Jane and Carlos.
"Reviveslime is dying." Jane answered simply.
Jordan let out a derisive sound. "And that's a problem why? He's been nothing but a pain in our necks since the day she showed up." She retorted.
"Ye will have to be a bit more detailed than that." Miranda agreed with a small shrug. She didn't have the experience with the slime general that many of the others did but she wasn't sure why this was a big deal to them either.
"It's not the prospect of him dying that's the problem, aside debatably from the scientific aspect of it." Doug told them.
"Come again?" Melody asked.
"Despite the name Reviveslime himself is not slime at all." Evie said, primarily for the benefit of the two newest rangers, three if one wanted to count Amy though she had already heard some of this. "Reviveslime is actually what is called a coalescent organism."
They stared at her blankly.
Jane took over. "A coalescent organism is usually microscopic in size and mimics a life form by coming into contact with something and killing it by absorbing and breaking down that life form. It can even absorb the memories of the host." She explained.
That was new information to everyone and it explained one piece of the puzzle. "That's why you couldn't remember we were on a double date after he grabbed your arm." Lonnie said to Audrey.
"Might as well be magic as far as I know." Miranda commented. She didn't pretend to be a scientist.
They were surprised when Melody interjected, "I've heard of them but most of the ones that even known about don't live that long. That survival rate is only a matter of seconds." She said.
"That's the tragedy from the scientific end." Doug told her. "Because somehow Reviveslime managed to absorb something that gave it a life of its own, even if it has involved harassing and trying to destroy us."
"I'm still lost here." Aziz said.
"Reviveslime is breaking down." Evie said to them. "Whatever it is was that gave it life this long is pretty much gone."
It was Amy who gave voice to the problem. "Reviveslime has to absorb someone or something else again if he wants to continue living." She gasped.
Jane nodded. "That's the problem we have." She confirmed. "We have to find Reviveslime and at least prevent him from absorbing anyone else until that time." She looked around them all. "For as complex as Reviveslime is, for an organism I mean, he's not going to be happy with something random. He'll want to go for a person."
"They why did he try to eat that poor deer?" Audrey asked.
"Probably a delaying tactic, to buy himself more time to find something more appropriate." Doug guessed.
"Okay how do we track him then?" Mal asked. "He could be anywhere on Auradon." She wasn't even entirely sure he couldn't find his way onto the Isle of the Lost.
"I've modified the sensor app to track him, since we've encountered him so many times before." Jane said. The three of them now joined their team mates. "We have to find him before it's too late."
"I'm going to monitor things from here." Doug said. "And let's hope things don't get to hectic." He looked to them all but saved a last and most warming glance for Evie. "Be careful out there."
"We will be." Evie promised with a smile of her own.
"Let's get to work." Mal announced. The team transformed and then continued along, following Jane's lead.
As they moved into the forest they could see where Audrey, Jay, Lonnie and Will had had their date. Will had put out the fires before they had come to the command center but they found owls getting to the rest of the rice and the salmon. "Hope they enjoyed it as much as we did." Will said deadpan, which still drew a laugh from Lonnie.
Evie told Mal and Amy about what had happened in the chemistry room, including her kissing Doug. Amy let out a happy little sound and Mal smirked a bit. "About time." She said.
"But I didn't mean to." Evie said.
"You don't like him?" Mal seemed surprised. "I could have sworn you did."
"I do like him." Evie tried to explain. "It's just…it's just not how I pictured my first kiss is all." She sighed a bit. "I mean I expected something more romantic and me wearing something more flattering than my usual school clothes, and it wasn't meant to be in a chemistry room at school."
"None of that matters." Amy told her simply. "What you wear, what you're doing, where it's at, what you're eating," She had noticed that Evie had mentioned the pizza but hadn't said anything about that being wrong. She personally thought her first kiss would probably be over chicken tenders. "What matters is that you were with the one you wanted to be with."
"She's right E." Mal said with a shrug. "As long as you're with the one you want to be with, all the other details just shouldn't matter."
"I guess you're right." Evie relented. "I was just always this huge romantic who pictured candlelight dinner and elegant gowns and the whole nine yards."
"I don't think life has turned out the way any of us expected it too." Mal said reasonably. "I mean here we are tracking through the forest during the early evening looking for large slime thing to make sure it doesn't absorb someone to stay alive and a threat."
"I have his signal." Jane said. "He seems to be in a clearing not far from here. As far as I can tell he's alone."
"We have to be careful, he can absorb us too." Audrey reminded them with a small shudder. "I mean I don't know if he can while we're transformed or not but I don't think we want to give him that opening if we can help it."
"We don't." Mal confirmed. "So let's be careful. Try to stick to long range attacks, no physical contact."
"That might be easier said than done." Carlos said with a roll of his eyes. Most of the guys had weapons that worked best with physical contact. And they already knew that Reviveslime would try to get in close to them.
"Welcome rangers." Reviveslime said. His voice didn't sound quite as slurred as it had when Audrey, Lonnie, Will and Jay had encountered him earlier. It suggested that he had managed to absorb something and Audrey hoped it wasn't that deer he had already terrified. "It seems to me as if we're heading toward our final confrontation."
"You've got that right." Mal said. "We know you're dying. All we have to do is keep you from absorbing anything else and you're history."
"That's where you're wrong purple ranger." Reviveslime said. "I can absorb something very easily. One of you." he turned to face them with his sword raised. "Or perhaps all of your powers. Wouldn't that be a nice meal? I would bet anything it would allow me to keep this form for a very long time."
"We're not going to let that happen Reviveslime." Ben promised as he raised the Praeleanthor blade.
"I'm sorry to tell you that you don't have much of a choice young king." Reviveslime said and then jumped right at them. Each of the rangers moved back to avoid being touched by Reviveslime. With a flash of his blade he slashed Amy and Miranda hard. As he started to approach them Mal unleashed a stream of energy from her dragon's eye staff and sent him flying backwards.
"Do we even know how long we have to do this?" Carlos asked.
"Jane, can we find a way to figure that out?" Mal asked the white ranger.
"Maybe if I run a cellular analysis." She reasoned. "I can do it here but I need him to stay off of me long enough to do it."
Mal looked to Carlos and Amy. "You stay back here long enough to give Jane cover for her scan. The rest of us will try to make sure you two don't have to be that last line of defense." She said. The two of them nodded and the rest of the rangers got ready to square off against Reviveslime again.
The slime general drew energy into his blade and unleashed it at the rangers. Most of them were struck and sent flying backwards but Will and Miranda managed to avoid it and leapt toward Reviveslime with their weapon extended and slashed him hard. Both had to resist the urge for a follow up kick.
The rest of the team was getting up now and Audrey launched a rain of arrows down on Reviveslime to keep him occupied. She figured anything that caused him to extend energy couldn't be a bad thing.
"Anytime now Jane." Carlos said a bit nervously. He didn't like the way that Reviveslime kept grinning despite the fact he was clearly on borrowed time and outnumbered.
"Almost got it." Jane promised him. She glanced up, feeling nervous herself. She thought something about this seemed almost off. Her iPhone beeped. "We need to keep him distracted for another twenty minutes before he loses his cohesion." She announced.
"Twenty minute sometimes feels like a lifetime on the battle field." Ally noted as she pulled out her crystal cards.
Reviveslime had overheard them and he laughed. "You think I have twenty minutes left to me?" He asked with more confidence than they thought he should have been displaying. "Then it turns out I have more of something than you do."
"And what would that be?" Audrey asked. "Aside from the need for beauty tips."
Reviveslime laughed at them again. "I have about ten minutes more time than you have." He announced and then slammed his sword into the ground hard in front of the ranger team. The ground below them started to shake as if it weren't as solid as they had thought it was.
Then they felt the ground underneath them give way. For a moment it seemed as if it were a bottomless pit but that quickly changed as weird looking blue translucent things, like tentacles or strings, wrapped around their bodies, from their neck all the way to the ankles. It slowly raised them all back up to a grinning Reviveslime.
"As you so eloquently put it Mal, I am dying. Losing the ability to hold myself together." He said as he approached them, sheathing his sword. "I have nothing to lose by using every trick in the book that I can think of."
Jay tried to pull at the objects holding him in place. They certainly didn't seem like tentacles, at least not the ones he was used too, having felt a couple of Undine's on his arms once or twice. And it was too thick and heavy to be string or webbing of any kind they knew of.
Amy tried to use her control over fire to break free of it only to discover that her hands were positioned in a way that she could barely brush the bindings with her fire. Even so she could also tell that she either didn't have enough fire power or something to that effect because it wouldn't have been enough.
"But your powers…I can feed off of those, harness those, for decades to come. And your live as well." He said. "And perhaps when that's done, and all of you have become nothing more than bones." He glanced over at Audrey or Amy. "Or otherwise in positions where you wish you were," It was clear that he knew Chad and the Gaston brothers had their interests too "I'll find a way to get to the world that belongs to your other little ranger friends and harness their energies and life force as well."
"You won't get away with this." Lonnie vowed as she tried in vain to struggle.
"It seems as if I already have." Reviveslime said with a laugh. "None of you have the magic or the strength to break out of that." He looked to Amy. "You've already seen that fire won't get the job done either." He stepped up to Melody now. "I think as the newest ranger, I'll start with you. You won't miss your powers nearly as much as your friends will."
"Leave her alone." Amy tried to demand.
Reviveslime ignored her. "This might hurt after a while. Your powers will protect you for a while but once those are gone nothing will stop me from absorbing you, and I guarantee that will be quite a bit more painful." He said to her.
"We have to help them." Doug said to Fairy Godmother.
"I know." She replied. She handed Doug two small sheets of paper. "We have to do this sooner than we expected."
Doug looked down and couldn't help but frown a bit. "Is this wise?" He had to ask. "It could be as much of a disaster as anything else."
"That chance is there." Fairy Godmother admitted. "Or it could be just what we all need. Get going while I get things ready."