Audrey couldn't ignore the pain her arm, which was kind of ironic considering the fact that she had a bigger problem; the fact that Great Shogun's blade was heading right toward her chest.
Mal scrambled desperately to find a spell that would stop it but her mind was drawing a blank.
Amy tried to move to help but despite trying to slip past them, the whip of the black armored samurai tripped her up, like the bindings used by Reviveslime in his last fight, it was transphasic and could slip right through that power. She fell hard and rolled to her knees.
As the sword drew closer to Audrey it was shot out of his grip by a the beam of a laser. He recovered his sword at the expense of his grip on Audrey. She rolled closer to Jay and Evie as the samurai looked in that direction.
Karone stood there lowering her laser. She was flanked by seven other individuals, four girls and four guys. None of the rangers recognized them. "What is this?" Great Shogun demanded to know.
"You were right." One of the blondes, dressed in red, said to Karone. "I recognize them from my studies. These were the samurai that the ancient samurai rangers contained and banished centuries ago."
"Guess we know where they were banished too." The guy in a green shirt and jeans said with a small shrug.
The Grandmaster glared at them. "Who are all of you?" He demanded hotly. "How do you know who we are?"
Shadow Shien glared at the blonde in red and the guy next to her, also in red. "They are from the House of Shiba." He declared acidly. "I can feel it. They descend directly from the samurai red ranger line."
Karone waved casually at the Auradon crew. "Hey guys." She said. "I'd like you to meet some more of your predecessors." She indicated the two that Shadow Shien identified a moment ago. "This is Lauren Shiba and her younger brother Jayden. Both of them are oddly red rangers." She indicated the guy in blue. "This is Kevin the blue samurai ranger, and Mike the green samurai ranger." He of course had already spoken. She then placed a hand on the shoulder of the blonde next to her. "This is Emily the yellow ranger and her older sister Serena the purple ranger." She then indicated the Asian girl. "This is Mia the pink ranger." She then indicated the Hispanic guy. "And this is Antonio, the gold ranger. They're the Samurai Power Rangers."
"This is so neat." Emily couldn't help but whisper to Serena. "The descendants of some of our earliest childhood stories." That drew a bit of a smirk from them at the comment.
"Do you truly think that you can stop us?" Grand Shogun demanded to know. "We could only be contained by your ancestors, not destroyed. What chance do you have?"
"It's time you find out." Jayden said as he looked at his sister and his friends. "It's time." They took out their samurizers and called out, "Go, Go Samurai!" Except for Antonio who called out, "Samurai morph gold power!"
"You guys help the Auradon rangers take out those samurai guys. I'm going to see if I can get that field down." Karone said to them. With that she turned around and transformed into the white space ranger and ran toward temple.
"I'll go and give the king a hand." Antonio said to the others.
Emily looked to Serena. "Are you up for this sis?" She asked her.
Serena nodded. "I'm good Em." She promised with a small smile.
Except for Antonio, who had his Barracuda blade, the rest of the rangers drew their spin sabers and charged toward the samurai monsters. But when they tried to attack the samurai rangers they instead jumped over them and landed beside the Auradon Rangers.
"Don't suppose we can help you out?" Mal said. "We kind of hate getting beaten down and all."
"Sounds good to me." Jayden said.
Serena stood by Mal, Lauren stood by Audrey, Jayden stood by Amy, Kevin stood by Evie, Mike stood by Jay, Emily stood by Carlos and Mia stood by Lonnie. They were ready for battle as the samurai turned to face them down.
The samurai with the whip sword lashed out with it at the pink rangers. Lonnie caught one in her tessen and then brought up the other one to wrap it up in her own weapons. "Hey look, half twinsies." Mia commented as she transformed her spin sword into her war fan and then used it to take out part of the whip. The two girls tossed the broken piece to the side. When he tried to bring the remnants of it around the two girls caught it again, this time between Mia and Lonnie before the Auradon pink ranger cut it again.
Mia reverted it back to the Spin Sword and gave it the turtle disc and unleashed her airway attack, which was quickly joined by Lonnie and her hurricane blast from the tessens she used. The samurai went flying.
Another of the samurai leapt in to attack Carlos and he blocked it with his earthquake claw daggers. Then Emily stepped in and kicked him in the chest hard enough to knock him back. She then swirled around with her spin sword and slashed him. "Let's teach this guy a lesson." Emily said to Carlos.
He nodded. "I'm with you." He assured her.
Emily charged the samurai with her earth slicer as Carlos was beside her with his earthquake claw daggers. The two jumped at the samurai who raised his sword to block the attacks. Carlos back flipped out of the way as Emily got down on one knee and used her other to kick him in the chest.
The yellow samurai ranger reverted to her spin sword and put the ape disc in it. "Let's give this guy a good slashing down Carlos." She said. He nodded. Then the two charged forward, Emily using her Primate Cyclone and Carlos following in with rapid claw slashes of his own. He went flying.
The green armored samurai slashed at Jay with his long blade but was blocked by Mike with his Spin Sword. He tried to maneuver his other blade at Mikey and Jay blocked it with his soul scimitar. The two reversed around and then delivered a double kick to the samurai monster backwards.
The samurai monster brought the blades together and unleashed blast at them, but the two boys rolled out of the way. Mike placed a disk and changed it to his forest spear and jabbed the samurai hard, forcing him to drop the long sword, then Jay moved in and slashed him, making him lose the second sword. Dual slashes from the two sent him flying as well.
The archer of the samurai's started to unleash his seemingly infinite arrows at the two blue rangers. Kevin used his hydro bow, pulling back on the handle to start deflecting some of the arrows as Evie started to move in closer, blocking what she could with her mirror force shield.
As Evie grew closer the samurai started to turn his attacks more toward Evie. That was the opening she and Kevin had been hoping for. He reverted to his spin sword and used the dragon splash attack to hit the samurai and disarm him of his bow. Evie then unleashed her storming mirror force attack on him and sent him flying.
Jayden and Amy paced Shadow Shien, Amy with her rose lance together in her hands as a long weapon and Jayden with his spin sword out. He automatically noticed that this guy was different from the ones that Mia, Emily, Kevin and Mike had had faced with Amy's friends. A look from Amy confirmed that she had sensed it too.
"What are you children waiting for?" Shien taunted them. "Why don't you attack me already?"
"Why is that only you, the Grandmaster and the Great Shogun are the only ones we've ever heard talking?" Amy questioned as she shifted her rose lance around in her hands. She was sometimes surprised she could hold a weapon like that given her small frame, as Mal liked to joke less than 100 pounds soaking wet. "Why don't they ever talk?"
"Some only need to speak when spoken too." Shien replied. It made Amy feel a little sick as her mother said that to her a lot. Sometimes Amy had nightmares that her mother would have had her voice box removed if she could have.
"Everyone's opinion on the team should be given voice." Jayden said now. "Too silence them is to limit your effectiveness."
"Fancy words from a pretender." Shien retorted. Amy wondered what that meant. "Tell me boy, why are there two red rangers among you? Who is the head of your house?"
"You're right that it isn't me." Jayden replied. "But that isn't relevant to how the team operates. What matters is that everyone has their say. None of my team was forced to come here to fight today."
"Nor was anyone here." Amy added. "Your forcing most of our team into that weird temple of yours notwithstanding." She had to shift her hand holds again and she wondered how Jayden had kept his perfectly still. "Can yours say the same thing?"
"Then neither of you understand true leadership." Shadow Shien declared and charged right at Amy, whom he deemed to be the less focused of the two. He moved to bring his sword down on her only to realize the shifting of the weapon made it that much easier for the rose ranger to react as she blocked the sword in the middle of her lance.
Granted he had the strength over her but this time it didn't matter as Jayden moved in between the samurai and the rose ranger and kicked him away from her. He then followed up with a sword slash of his own but he blocked it with his own. Amy moved in from around him and swung her lance around his leg, attempting to trip him up. He was able to see it coming and dodge it only for both Jayden and Amy to attack him from up and down, sending him landing hard before turning again to face them.
"I think we need to make a bit more of an impact." Jayden declared and turned his spin sword into the fire smasher. He moved in and tried to attack him. Shien was able to dodge the attack.
"The heavier the weapon the easier it is for those of us who are light to dodge." Shien taunted him.
"Then we should have the advantage." Jayden replied evenly. That was when Amy moved in. He heard her coming and he moved to swing at her but the rose ranger dodged under the swing, separated her lance into two parts and caught the middle of his sword in between the rose petals of her lances, which were much more durable than one would expect.
Jayden brought the fire smasher down onto the sword and broke it in half. Then with a reversion to the spin sword and the addition of the lion disc Jayden delivered a blazing strike kick to the Shadow Shien, sending him flying.
"You are the true head of your house I take it." Grand Shogun said as he paced Lauren and Audrey. Like his counterpart the Grand Master he had all but written the Auradon red ranger out of the fight too. Though she was no longer in any danger of bleeding out thanks to the sorcery of the Auradon blue ranger she still seemed weak from blood loss. "I will do the honorable thing and make your end swift."
"I appreciate the sentiment." Lauren replied, though Audrey couldn't tell for sure whether or not the female red ranger was being sarcastic or not. "And I'll return to you that same courtesy."
He seemed to find the prospect amusing. He looked to Audrey. "Your end will be swifter than hers though. It's a miracle that you're still standing."
One of the things that Audrey had in common with Amy, though they didn't exactly realize that, was that she too hated being talked down too. "Don't write me off yet Shogun." She warned him. "I might just surprise you."
"Somehow I doubt it." He said and then ran toward the two female red rangers.
"I sure hope he isn't sexist." Audrey commented wryly, knowing there were some male life forms, human or monster, which would have a problem being beaten down by two girls. She actually remembered going to a competition where Lonnie had done just that. "I'd hate to bruise his ego."
Lauren and the Shogun seemed to be evenly matched as they spent a moment with their swords clashed before sparring back and forth with each other. That kind of suited Audrey just fine because she was still feeling off from all the blood loss. Then he lashed out and caught Lauren across the chest hard, making her fall back.
Audrey jumped up at him with her elemental bow and used the top pointy end to bring it down on his back. He turned around with a slashing strike and she ducked to dodge it but felt the world go tipsy on her and fell to her knees after the dodge. He brought his boot up into face hard, making her land on the ground with resounding crash, knocking the breath out of her.
"You have more fight than I expected." Shogun granted. "But it will not save you."
Then Lauren was in front of him, kicking him away from the injured brunette princess. "You're quite strong." The female samurai ranger granted him. "I guess it's time to up my game, as my friends would say." With that she formed the Black Box in her free hand. She placed in her own lion disc onto her spin sword and combined it with the black box. "Engaging Super Samurai mode."
"Wow, that's kind of cool." Audrey said.
Lauren clashed with Great Shogun again and the two were finding it hard to get any sort of advantage in the fight. Audrey was almost sure if they could get that advantage over their opponent Lauren might be able to turn the tide. That when she had an idea. She again picked up her elemental bow and aimed a hail of magnetic arrows at the battle. Just as she suspected as the arrows drew closer to the battle they were drawn to the one who was wearing the most armor, in this case the Great Shogun.
The arrows were striking all at him and that gave Lauren the opportunity she needed, then she had an idea though. "Do your arrows produce elements as well?" She asked Audrey.
"They do." She answered.
Lauren smiled a little under her helmet. "Would I be able to borrow an electric arrow?" She requested now.
The request confused Audrey but she pulled back the string on her bow and formed an electric arrow. She didn't fire it but simply pulled it out and gave it to Lauren. "Here."
"Thank you." Lauren replied. She looked at it a moment. Her idea was kind of a long shot and didn't know if it would work. With the lion disc and another disc, the lightning disc, she or Jayden could combine the energies to use a blazing storm attack. But that also required another samurai ranger's spin sword. She hoped though that the lightning arrow could sub for the second disc and still give the same results.
"Whatever your plan is, you better implement it quickly." Audrey added as Great Shogun was rising from the storm of magnetic arrows.
Lauren nodded and placed the tip of the electrified arrow against her disc. She had this immediate feeling that she couldn't identify, except to say that she was sure this was going to do what she wanted. She ran toward him. "Audrey warned you not to count her out of this fight, and she has now given the key pieces needed for this victory." With that she delivered a blazing storm attack to the Great Shogun that sent him flying.
Mal was a little intrigued. Aside from Amber she had never worked with a purple ranger, having the suspicion that color aside Miranda didn't count and that RJ didn't exactly fit what was thought of with purple rangers and that he hadn't even identified himself as such. She had heard various snippets about how rare they were to have as Amber had said that for years she had been the only purple ranger, never having passed that mantle the way her other team mates had ended up doing over the starting years. She knew nothing about any other purple rangers that might have existed in other ranger teams before now.
She could feel that the purple samurai ranger Serena was strong, but at the same time she seemed to be fighting something. She also seemed to lack the same confidence, as if she had only just come into her powers instead of handling them for years. If her hunches were right she could give the girl that much more credit, for being on the field of battle at a most inopportune time.
"I don't recall anything about an ancient purple ranger." Grandmaster said suspiciously as he paced them. "Perhaps you aren't as important as the others."
"Don't let any shadows of the past cloud your judgement over my worth today." Serena warned him.
"You just don't understand our legacy." Mal told him with confidence. She had a better understanding of it than Grandmaster ever would, just based on everything that she and Amber had discussed. "But you will before this is all over."
Grandmaster brought his sword up to fight. Serena had her spin sword ready and Mal had her dragon's eye staff ready. He charged them and Serena blocked with her sword. Mal was thankful that he was not as armored up as his comrades were and jabbed her staff into his chest hard.
Serena removed her icicle disc and inserted it into the spin sword. "You've been pretty fired up since we showed up." Serena said to him. "Allow me to help you cool down." With that she unleashed her own attack, the heavy blizzard and it slammed hard into the Grandmaster.
Mal leapt out and kicked him hard in the chest. He swung his sword down at her but she was able to block with the dragon's staff. He then shot his knee out into her chin and sent her reeling backwards. Mal looked up with an angry glare. "You're really getting on my nerves." She stated. She could feel her eyes going green for a moment.
"We need more power." Serena said. "I think it's time to show him one of the perks of being a purple ranger." Mal looked at her curiously. It seemed each team's purple ranger could do things no other ranger could; Amber for example had the power of lightning. "Normally only the ranger with the black box can use Super Samurai mode, except for me." With that and only a flick of her spin sword she took on the same appearance as Lauren had, only in purple instead of red.
"Purple power is going to strike again." Mal said with amusement. "Let's finish this off." With that she unleashed meteors that were smaller in size but similar in power to what her dragon zord released. Then Serena moved in and struck him again with her powered up heavy blizzard. He fell back flying.
"Mind if I cut in?" Antonio asked as he slashed Chad with his barracuda blade and then stood beside Ben.
"I sure mind." Chad said with a growl. "You have no place in this; you're not even the rangers that need to pay for the past." Both guys had a feeling that was directed toward the really veteran rangers.
"I for one will take whatever help I can get." Ben said to Antonio. Together the two started to attack Chad, trusting in their friends to finish the samurai off.
Chad used Maledict's blade to block the two attackers and then slammed the shield into Antonio hard. He then turned to Ben and clashed again with his former friend. The shield's connected and Chad forced Ben to drop his, losing his own in the process.
Ben rolled to retrieve his only for Chad to move in and strike the knight in the chest hard. "This is going to be your end now Ben." He promised. "Audrey will be mine." He very vaguely thought he heard something from the gold samurai ranger and he waved it off.
Then as Chad tried to stab Ben he was blocked by Antonio and his barracuda blade. "…is quicker than the eye my friend." He finished. He had used his own skills to quickly bypass the distance between the two of them to stop Chad from ending the young king's life.
Ben recovered the shield and had a firmer grip on the Praeleanthor sword. "Doing anything you're aiming for won't be nearly so easy Chad." He promised.
All of the samurai landed in heavy heaps after their fights with the respective rangers. Most of the weapons were either broken or had a singed quality to them.
Karone had determined earlier on that the temple kept the rest of the team in trapped because of the energy emitted from the weapons. She wasn't exactly a technical expert and had been struggling on disruption methods with no luck when the field fizzled out from the fight and they were free.
"They did it." Will said happily. "Now let's see if we can help everyone one finish this off."
Ally looked to Jordan. "Are you up for it?" She asked the genie girl. She had had an arrow pierced into her arm too from the bow wielding samurai.
Jordan pulled the arrow out and waved her free hand. "Field gone, magic back, ready to roll." She affirmed as she then used her hand to patch up the wound. Together the rest of the rangers joined their team and the samurai rangers.
"I'm going to cut in for Antonio so he can help you guys out." Karone said and ran in the opposite direction.
As soon as she showed up Chad seemed to brighten. "Astronema, princess of darkness." He said. "Traitor to evil. You should pay for what you've done as well."
That caught the white space ranger off guard as there was no way that Chad would really know that. Then she remembered the demon's that made the blade he used and realized they would know who she was. "Your team needs you to help finish those samurai, I'll help Ben." She said.
"Alright then." Antonio agreed and ran off to the others.
"I think Chad would rather be fighting you anyway." Ben remarked as he absorbed what Chad had said.
"Are you okay?" Will asked Lonnie as he placed his hand on her arm.
Lonnie reached up and placed her other hand over Will's. "I'm just fine, thanks." She said. She wished she could say the same for Audrey, who seemed to still be standing only by sheer adrenaline.
"It's time to finish them off." Mal said to her team and then looked at the Samurai rangers. "I take it you're with us."
"You know it." Jayden said. "Totally." Emily agreed. Jayden took his fire smasher and added the double disc to make another and handed it to his older sister. "For you."
"Thank you." Lauren said. Mia, Emily and Serena stood beside her. Mike, Kevin and slightly breathless Antonio was beside him.
"Are you up for this?" Jay asked Audrey, knowing she was still weak from blood loss.
"Yes." Audrey said. "Let's finish this."
The Samurai rangers used the fire smashers to form the cannons like they had used in the past. They held room for four discs each. The girl's placed their discs in the one that Lauren held and the guy's placed their disks in the one that Jayden held. Then they brought the two cannons together and stood side by side; Lauren and Jayden, Mike and Emily, Mia and Kevin, and Serena and Antonio.
With Mal slightly behind them the other rangers took their positions; Jay and Audrey, Evie and Melody, Carlos and Jane, Aziz and Ally, Jordan and Miranda, Will and Lonnie, and Alex and Ellie. With Ben otherwise engaged one section of the Auradon Launcher was retracted and Amy stood by her twin sister.
The samurai were only now recovering and realizing that their weapons were charred or destroyed. "This is impossible." Great Shogun grand out. "To lose to children is absolutely uncomprehendable."
"Better learn to comprehend it." Kevin advised him belatedly. "Because it's for real."
With that the two groups of ranger's unleashed their most devastating beams on the samurai, there was a huge explosion and when the smoke cleared all that was left was the charred weapons.
"Did we do it?" Carlos asked.
"What remains of their essences are trapped in the remains of their weapons." Lauren answered as their cannon was disassembled and the discs returned to their owners. "Still we must collect them and put them somewhere where evil cannot get a hold of them again."
"Is there such a place?" Carlos asked.
Several of the team had already turned to help Ben and Karone but Chad had already started to back up. "This isn't over Ben." He warned his former friend. "If it takes my last breath you will be defeated and Audrey will be mine."
Jay was about ready to go at him just over that but Chad disappeared and Audrey nearly fell. The black ranger quickly changed gears and caught her.
"Is she okay?" Emily asked her.
"She's lost a lot of blood." Jayden said. "You need to get here somewhere safe and let her recover."
Mike, Mia, Jordan and Ellie had collected the charred weapons. "We should get to the command center and let her recover there." Mal said to the two teams. "And maybe Fairy Godmother has an idea on where we can properly banish those things."
"That'd be great." Antonio said. "Because we got nothing. We were kind of hoping we'd be able to destroy the weapons."
As Ben and Karone caught up to the team, Mal threw her arms around Ben and said, "I'm glad you're okay."
Ben laughed. "Are you kidding me Mal. I had the easy fight." He replied.
"And some of you even got to sit it out." Lonnie said with a teasing smile.
"We figured it was about time we let you guys make up for some the slack we've been compensating for." Miranda said with a small laugh and Evie threw her hands up in mock surrender. Together they all started back toward the command center.
"Well so much for that." Gregory sighed as he threw up his hands in exasperation. "Another attempt culled by the appearance of more power rangers."
"They weren't planned for I grant." Paradias said to him. "But this isn't over just yet."