Paradias, Gregory, Chad and Maleficent walked to one of the rooms in the back of the ship. "Perhaps I should have used these sooner, when there weren't quite so many rangers to go around." Paradias reflected. "But I had hoped to avoid this. Recapturing these entities once they have been freed will not be an easy task."
"Who would have ever thought my daughter and her little band of misfits would become so successful?" Maleficent noted with a roll of her eyes. "I mean one fails at being evil, the other can't live up to my legacy and yet they follow the path of 'good' like it was their birthright." She added acidly. "At this point whatever you have planned is no less than what they deserve."
Paradias didn't really say anything but didn't seem to disagree either. They entered the room and found several glass cases. A few of them contained long, sharp and deadly swords. One contained two swords, one of them being noticeably smaller than the other. One was an excessively long blackish sword. One other case held a bow much like Audrey's except this one came with a quiver of arrows, though there didn't seem to be a limit to the arrows in there. The final one case held a long whip that none the less had a sharp edge at the base.
One of Paradias's soldiers that had seemed to be standing guard in the room went over and took out one of the blades and set in on the ground before backing away again. Paradias raised his arms and began to chant in his ancient language, one that Melody might have been able to make an association with if she had been present. Again the green glow of his magic emanated, this time around the sword.
Slowly it rose into the air and hovered for a moment before a red clad hand reached out and took a hold of it. As that occurred the shape of a man in red armor and a cape appeared. He moved the sword in his hand for a moment before turning to Paradias. "Why have you summoned me?" He asked now.
"It is time." Paradias said to him. "Your greatest challenge awaits you and your men Great Shogun." He brought up an image of the group of rangers, including their two Knights and their Dame. "The Power Rangers await your final judgement."
The monster Great Shogun watched the image for a moment as if memorizing their faces. It mattered little to him that their numbers were greater as he was confident their skills were weak. With a look at the soldiers they removed the rest of the cases on the weapons. One by one he approached them.
The first he activated himself was that of a long hilt, much like a broadsword. From that he intoned, "Rise, Grandmaster. It is time to for our next challenge." Much like his own summoning the sword rose into the air and then a hand grabbed it. This one wasn't so armor clad and even appeared to be an old man, but his initial movements with the sword proved that appearances were very deceiving.
Next he approached another of the swords and intoned the same ritual. "Rise Shadow Shien, and take your place among your brothers." As the sword levitated up a being who looked like a man with red hair reached up and grabbed the sword in his hands. He wore light armor and a purple overcoat.
With the Grandmaster and Shadow Shien behind him the Great Shogun turned to the other three swords, the bow and the whip. "Rise forth my brothers. It's time to end the threat of the Auradon Power Rangers." A dark blue armored figure picked up the whip as he formed, a light blue armored figure picked up the bow, a green armored figure picked up the two swords, a black armored figure picked up the long sword, and a yellow armored figure picked up the last sword.
Even Chad with his small reserve of demon power had to admit they looked quite intimidating. He asked in a quiet voice, "What subdued them last time?"
"Some of the gods themselves." Paradias answered simply as he gazed at the seven samurai warrior that were about to engage the rangers in combat.
It was before classes. Amy sat across from Alex, using one hand to eat a small plate of bacon. On the other side Alex was using a hand to eat a chocolate donut. The hands that were not occupied with food were in the middle of the table, Amy had summoned fire to hers and Alex had just waved his hand over it. "Do you feel the steady heat coming from it?" Amy asked him and he nodded. "You have to keep the temperature steady and even. Even when you raise it." She added more heat to her palm to make the fire get a little bigger. "Or when you lower it." She made it barely a spark in her palm, then she dispersed it.
Alex had to laugh a little. "Wow, that was some amazing heat." He said to her with a small laugh. "The control, it's a gradual thing, not a rush, right?" He asked her.
She nodded and smiled. "Yeah. You've got the idea." She answered.
At the next table over Mal hid a snicker as she reached for a strawberry and she looked to Evie and murmured, "The fire isn't the only heat I'm feeling over there." The truth was that Mal was proud that her shy younger sister could make any attempts like what she was seeing right now.
Evie barely repressed a giggle and lightly shoved her chosen sister's shoulders. "Try to behave yourself M." She retorted even as Miranda next to her also laughed just a little at the exchange.
The purple haired girl tried to give the blue haired girl an innocent look. "You know me E." She said.
Miranda laughed again as she reached for her cheese Danish. "Yes, we do. That's we're trying to get ye to behave yourself." She replied and Evie laughed now even as Mal gave a mock petulant pout.
They were waiting for everyone else to show up so they could all have breakfast and try to work out a strategy for luring the warzord into a fight so they could take it back. Alex had already told them Ben would be a few minutes late as he finished up his proposal to the council about exploring the areas underneath the Badlands.
They saw Audrey and Lonnie coming toward them now. It seemed they were having a very serious discussion but Mal rolled her eyes just a little when the words 'school dance' came from Audrey's lips. Not that a school dance wasn't important in its own way.
"Morning." Evie said to them with a small wave.
"Hey." Lonnie said with smile as she sat down.
"Hi." Audrey said with a tired smile of her own. That made them all a little more alert as they knew something was wrong with her, but as it stood at the moment only Jay knew that Audrey was hearing Chad's voice calling out to her.
"Are you okay?" Mal asked her second in command with concern.
"I just haven't been sleeping too well." Audrey said, trying to dismiss the concern. No one was all that convinced.
Mal was a little surprised when it was Amy who spoke. "Audrey, if something is wrong you should tell us. We want to help you." She said to her. Audrey seemed just as surprised to hear that coming from her.
Audrey opened her mouth, "Well, the last few nights I've…" She started to admit to the friends she had there when there was a huge explosion. It wasn't in the school itself, it originated in the woods, but it was so loud that they could hear it from there.
"That's one way to get a wakeup call." Alex noted lightly.
"The command center." Audrey suggested to Mal and she nodded in confirmation. They left their food and bags and ran toward the command center, finding the rest of the team heading that way as well.
"What was that do you think?" Carlos asked as they dashed to the command center.
"A meteor maybe." Ally suggested.
They entered the classroom and had to take turns going down into the command center. "We need to expand this entrance way." Jay said. "It's too small when we all need to get down there for a crisis."
"Noted and logged." Jane replied with a roll of her eyes. They hadn't really planned on having these many people around.
Jane and Carlos made their way to the consoles, finding the problem wasn't that hard though. On screen were six men in armor and one other that also seemed to be part of them none the less.
"Wow." Aziz got out. "Who are those guys?"
"Aside from trouble." Melody added.
"Are those..?" Lonnie asked uncertainly.
Miranda shook her head a bit. "It can't be." She replied.
Fairy Godmother had come down the stairs last, having been the furthest away from the command center in her office. She saw what the rest of the team was seeing. "I'm afraid it is." Fairy Godmother said solemnly as she came down the stairs. "The Shadow Samurai."
"I've never heard of them before." Mal said. It seemed like an odd thing to say but she was one of the children of arguably the most evil villain in their realm after all. It stood to reason at some point she would have heard of something.
"They belong to really old legends." Fairy Godmother told her, reminding them all that despite her youthful looks she was much older than she appeared to be. "A group of samurai that once terrorized the world, probably not long after Sermaya and his kind were…whatever they were."
Jordan nodded. "I've only heard about it from my parents, and even to them it's a legend." She added.
"A persistent legend in my family." Lonnie voiced as well. "Since they were rumored to have originated in my home land." She looked to the screen. "My father often voiced the idea that they were not men but demons or monsters of some kind."
"Paradias's monsters apparently." Audrey noted.
"Um, if that's all true, can we beat them?" Amy asked nervously.
Fairy Godmother hesitated. She didn't want to discourage her daughter and her team, but she didn't like lying to them either. "I honestly don't know." She answered them. "But we all know that you will try."
"We will." Mal agreed. "And we'll have to find a way to make it work."
"I guess we won't get another chance to practice for now." Ellie said.
"This is better." Jay tried to assure her. "On the job training."
They left the command center and headed toward the exit. Doug was there and Evie stopped him. "Get to the command center, we might all need your help. Thanks." She said quickly and kissed him on the cheek before going with the others.
They headed out into the impact area and were disturbed slightly to find them waiting for them. The red armored one stepped forward. "Hello power rangers, I am the Grand Shogun." He said. "I hope you had something good to eat today because you're going to need all the strength you can get."
"And we didn't even get a chance to eat." Carlos noted somewhat ironically.
"We'll show you our strength." Mal promised him. "Let's get to work everyone." Ben formed the Praeleanthor sword, Jane took out the magic wand and Melody formed the trident .They transformed. The reset of the ranger team pulled out their iPhones, input their numbers transformed.
The one not clad completely in armor stepped up now. "I must say that the numbers seem rather uneven here." He said almost conversationally. "It's merely us seven against them." He indicated the group; Mal, Audrey, Evie, Jay, Carlos, Lonnie, Ben, Jane, Jordan, Ally, Aziz, Will, Amy, Miranda, Melody, Alex and Ellie. "Over two to one odds."
"Something tells me you guys can more than make up for the difference." Jay said not very kindly.
"Undoubtfully you are correct." Grand Shogun now said with a flourish. "Still, Grandmaster has a point. Why don't we turn around and make things a bit more even." With that he snapped his fingers and the ground started to rumble behind them. The rangers turned to see what looked like a huge temple emerge from the ground.
"Now my samurai, attack." Grand Shogun called out. They all moved forward with blazing speed and lashed out at the team, splitting them into smaller groups.
"Something tells me we don't want to end up in that temple." Jane said.
"I tend to agree with ya." Miranda replied.
Unfortunately that proved to be far easier said than done. The Great Shogun himself managed to get by Will and slash him hard into the temple. When he tried to leave he found that he couldn't do so. The black armored samurai wrapped Ally around her waist with the whip and tossed her in next. Aziz made the mistake of going to check on her without realizing he would end up trapped too.
The blue armored samurai let an arrow fly and it was able to strike Jordan right in the shoulder with enough force to hurtle her right into the temple. Alex tried to use his flame tonfa's to fight the one with the glowing green blades and the green armor but wasn't fast enough to outmaneuver him and soon he was tossed into the temple too.
Miranda and Melody found themselves back to back against the Grandmaster and one who they hadn't gotten a name for yet, Shadow Shien. The two of them worked really well together but the monsters experience came through they were able to strike both aqua and Highlands ranger into the temple hard.
The black armored one slashed Jane hard and kicked her as she was falling down into the temple. Just as that one turned around both the Grandmaster and the Great Shogun had forced Ellie in the temple as well.
Ellie tried to unleash a beam of ice but whatever barrier it was that kept the rangers trapped inside also stopped her powers from getting out at her target either. "This isn't looking good." Ellie noted with some dismay.
Shadow Shien turned and got ready to attack Ben when a voice interrupted him, "Deal with the power rangers. I'll deal with the Auradon Knight here." It was Chad with Maledict's blade drawn and ready to go.
"As you wish." Shien told him and turned to return to his teams side. Ben glared for a moment before getting ready to fight Chad.
"We seem to have a score to settle, you and I." Chad said as he paced Ben and transformed. "Once I beat you, I can claim Audrey as my own."
"Audrey doesn't belong to anyone, but if you really want to fight to 'claim' her it's Jay you should be dealing with." Ben pointed out as he swirled the Praeleanthor sword in his hands. "Mal and I belong to each other."
Chad laughed at that. "Jay and Mal have one thing in common; they're nothing but street trash that will be disposed of accordingly." He replied coldly. "You're the only one here that I have to cut through to take what's mine."
"I think you're an idiot." Ben said simply. He didn't want to go into the fact that Will and Lonnie would defend Audrey too if they had too. "You don't have what it takes to even beat me anyway." With that Chad swung the Maledict blade at Ben and he blocked it.
Amy hesitated just a second as she watched Ellie try again to unleash a beam of ice on the field. Beside her was Melody and Alex. She hated to see her three friends trapped like that. Then she felt Mal coming toward her and she turned to the team she still had free.
"Much better." Grand Shogun said with amusement. "Now it's seven on seven. Our numbers are even."
"It's about more than numbers Shogun boy." Mal reminded him. "And we're going to prove it."
Audrey pulled back the string on her elemental bow to bring a hail of arrows down on the samurai but let out a gasp of pain as an arrow slashed right through her right arm, which was where the strength of her archery came from. The blue armored samurai lowered his own bow.
"Are you okay Audrey?" Evie asked her as she came to her side. Even despite the ranger suit it cut through to her skin and left a very nasty gash.
"I'll be okay." Audrey said even as she moved her arm and flinched in pain.
Jay also looked uncertain. "Audrey, that looks really bad." He said worriedly.
Mal was about to say something as well but Audrey stopped them. "They don't care how badly I'm hurt and we can't afford to lose the numbers. I'll have to fight through it." She declared. None of them were certain but they knew they didn't have the time to fight about it. Amy however had to admit she was kind of impressed with the princesses attitude.
The time for talk was over as the samurai's moved in and attacked them. Mal, Jay and Lonnie were able to block the incoming attacks from the Grand Shogun, Shadow Shien and the Grandmaster. The other samurai struck the Amy, Carlos, Evie and the already wounded Audrey hard. They fell to the ground and was followed a moment later by Mal, Jay and Lonnie after the head samurai's deflected their first attacks and struck them hard.
Evie and Amy were already helping Audrey up. She seemed to stumble a bit and Amy caught her. "Audrey." She said softly. "This could kill you at this rate." She wished healing was part of her bag of magic tricks.
Inside the temple Jordan was doing only a little better. The arrow was stuck inside her arm and she had already told them not to pull it out as it could do more harm than good. She was still bleeding and they had nothing to tend to the wound, she didn't have her magic in here.
Neither did Melody as she tried to zap the walls down with her trident. She suspected the only reason Ellie had her powers was because it was inside of her. Of course then she realized so did Jordan and it didn't seem to matter. Again she belatedly wondered where their powers even came from.
Will struck at the barrier now with recursive sword. It resulted in the same thing. "Lonnie." He whispered softly as the samurai struck at them again. Jay worked to defend Audrey as well as himself, much the team's detriment.
"We're going to lose and it's going to be my fault." Audrey said softly.
"No." Mal assured her. "We won't lose and you're not at fault for this."
"What do you mean you're not going to lose?" Grandmaster asked as he leapt at Mal. She moved Audrey behind her and blocked his strike with her dragon's eye staff. "An injured comrade is a weak one, and your friend will bleed out before this fight is over unless we take her out first."
Audrey lashed out and kicked him hard, but the motion forced her to her knees as she felt dizzy again. Evie was by her side. "We need to patch this up." She mused somehow. She was concerned about her friend and wasn't even thinking when she ran her hand just above the wound, making a little hashtag pattern that sealed the wound as if by magic.
Audrey saw it too and was shocked. "You healed me, you used magic." She was kind of shocked as she knew Evie wasn't really into embracing the power her mother had, though as far as anyone knew healing was not part of Grimholde's magical repertoire.
"Thankfully." Jay added as he was at both of their sides. "I was getting really worried."
"That won't take away the blood loss." Lonnie reminded them. "We still need to finish this off quickly."
"No arguments about a quick finish from us." Shadow Shien said to them and with Grandmaster and Grand Shogun's aid they unleashed a powerful burst of energy from their swords that struck the rangers hard.
"Oh my." Fairy Godmother whispered softly. Half of the team was locked up and Doug couldn't figure out how to get by it. The rest of the team was in a bad situation against the samurai monsters. She was again looking at her worse fear; losing the team she'd come to care so much about, her daughter most definitely among them.
Doug was startled by an incoming transmission. "We're being contacted from Earth." He said.
Fairy Godmother hesitated a moment. Then she said. "Put them on." Once again she knew what she had to do ask to try to keep them all safe.
On screen Amber appeared before them. She was clearly on the bridge of the Megaship. "I wanted to make sure that the Praeleanthor sword was working out for Ben." She said to Fairy Godmother. "Karone was concerned about the history between the makers of that sword and the blade Chad uses."
Fairy Godmother in fact knew that Chad had started to attack Ben while the rest of the rangers were dealing with the samurai monsters. She was actually sure that blade of demonic origins was responsible for some of Chad's behavior. "It's working fine." She started.
"I'm glad to hear…" Amber started but heard the explosions as the three head samurais blasted at the ranger team. "Is everything okay over there?" She asked with concern.
Fairy Godmother didn't hesitate. "No." She said. "They're under attack from a group of monsters."
"Do they need help?" Amber asked them. The concern had drawn the aforementioned former pink galaxy ranger who had recently become the white space ranger. When she saw the screen Karone gasped.
"What's wrong?" Amber asked her, forgetting for the moment they were talking to Fairy Godmother across interdimensional comms.
"The samurai." She whispered and then looked to Amber. "Ecliptor told me all about them." She revealed.
"Who?" Fairy Godmother asked.
"When I was Astronema, Ecliptor was my guardian and general." Karone said. It was clear that she had cared for him a lot despite both being evil at the time. "He told me that Dark Specter was looking for the weapons that would summon them. Ages ago they were banished so that they wouldn't fall into evil hands. The prime concern was the Nighloks."
"Nighloks?" Doug asked.
"A type of demon." Karone answered. "They were sealed away by the ancestors of…" She looked down a second. "I know what we need to do." She said and looked to Fairy Godmother. "Tell Mal and the others to hold on. Help is on the way."
Before Fairy Godmother could switch frequencies to her team she thought she heard someone say, "Can we really spare the help right now?" Only for Amber to respond with, "It doesn't matter, the Auradon rangers are one of us Zhane."
Mal let out a small cough. "Amy, are you okay?" She asked her twin sister, who she could see rolling to off her back and onto her side to get up. For just a fleeting moment she wished she was still had that link to her sister so she wouldn't have to ask that.
"I'm fine." Amy promised her sister.
The samurai in the blue armor was in front of Amy now with an arrow pointed at her head. She hesitated. The slight shimmering of the arrow made her feel as if being intangible wouldn't save her here. She thought about using an elemental attack on him but didn't know if that arrow would still manage to get someone else.
In fact they were all now surrounded by the samurais. Grand Shogun came forward and stepped on Audrey's injured arm. Despite the fact the Evie had stopped the bleeding it was still very sore and she had not recovered from the blood loss.
"Audrey." Jay moaned and tried to get up only to be struck by Shadow Shien
"I told you the wounded warrior is the weak one and that that weakness would get you killed." Grand Shogun said. He looked down at the wounded red ranger. "But worry not, perhaps your friends trapped in the temple will avenge all of your deaths."
Ben noticed what was going on and turned around to try to aid the rangers in saving Audrey before the final strike but he had lost focus on the fact that Chad was not giving up. He struck Ben in the back hard, making him hit the ground face first. He coughed as he struggled to turn around.
Ellie and Alex poured all of the magical energy they could summon and hurled it straight at the barrier but with no effect. Ellie found herself screaming in frustration and she swore she heard Will and Alex cursing.
"This is the end, rangers." Grand Shogun said as he started to bring his sword straight down on Audrey…