Learning how Ruby had become a ranger, albeit a slightly disturbing event was the only good thing the Turtle team and the Mutanimals learned about. The rest was very upsetting. "Dude, that is so messed up." Mikey summed up, rather succinctly in Mal's opinion.
"So someone made sure that none of our friends could come to our aid during the invasion." April mused softly. "I wonder if they knew that the Triceratons were hoping to destroy the Earth."
"It is likely." Splinter said to them all as he paced the living room. He would have liked nothing more than to retire to the privacy of his room and meditate on what they had learned but he agreed with Jordan when she had said they may not have much time to start changing things. "In the past the enemy has always wanted to either take over Earth or destroy all life on the planet as it currently stands."
"Yeah but who could possibly organize all of these villains for this kind of task?" Leo wondered as he paced himself with Aaliyah watching him from her position on the couch beside her sister Adelita. "No one since Dark Specter has been able to get that kind of alliance going."
"So what's the plan?" Slash asked now.
"Uh, in truth we don't really have one." Mal admitted, feeling a little embarrassed about that since she was the leader of the Auradon Rangers. In truth she had been determined to come and change things but she was slowly starting to realize that the task was far more overwhelming than she had first thought.
"M, I think our first step should be to acquire a quick way to get around." Evie said to her. "The ranger teams aren't localized to one kingdom after all."
"City." Alopex corrected them all. When they looked at her the white arctic fox mutant elaborated, "Here on Earth there are no kingdoms. They're called cities. In fact most are so far apart that they're separated by counties or even states."
"Um, yeah." Jay said uncertainly. "Great, good to know." In truth he was only half listening as he was also playing with the Space Heroes pinball machine that they had in their lair.
"Some are even separated by different worlds and even times." Amy added. "Really only proves what Evie is saying Mal. We need to figure out a way to get around quicker."
"Any bright ideas?" Ellie asked the group at large.
Raph looked to Donnie. "Any bright ideas there genius? Something better than a blimp in a water tower hopefully?" He questioned. That drew some looks of confusion from the visiting ranger team.
Then Audrey snapped her fingers as an idea occurred to her. "The megaship went down during the attack. We have to find it and repair it. That technology could help us get around and help the others." She declared.
"How do we track the Megaship though?" Ruby questioned.
"Oh, that's fairly easy enough to do." Donnie answered as he stood up and headed into his lab. He emerged a moment later with his lab top and sat down beside April to set to work. "See when Karone, known then as Astronema, used mind control to try to fight the rangers, we took over the Megaship. I learned a lot about the ship in order to do that. Since then of course the ship has been upgraded and stuff but I've received updated schematics just in case."
"Isn't the same ship that was destroyed by Trakeena at Mirinoi?" Angel asked a little dubiously. Since returning to the lair she had powered down the Nightwatcher armor. Jane, Doug, Evie and Carlos had been delighted to see her armor retract into a watch and the Latina girl had reluctantly allowed them to examine it and cross reference with Donnie's own research to learn about it. Now she was dressed in a purple tank top and blue jeans.
"That was the very first Megaship." Audrey corrected her. "It was rebuilt not long before some of the red rangers went after the remnants of the Machine Empire at that time to stop them from rebuilding that zord of Zedd's, Serpenterra." She had heard the story from Jason, Tommy and Andros not long after they had helped them escape the isle.
"And retrofitted again as Andros realized how much the rangers were going to need it in order to continue doing good outside of Earth, to accommodate more people." Donnie followed up on.
"Maybe next time they do an upgrade on the ship we could see it." Doug mused.
"Maybe we could even help them out." Jane added with some excitement.
"That would be cool." Carlos agreed even as Evie added, "It would make sense, we'd know so much after helping to repair the ship this time."
Neither Audrey nor Mal could help the smirk on that passed their lips as they saw their friend's geek out about this. It was one of the similarities that Ben noticed his best friend and ex shared with his girlfriend but he knew better than to point that out.
"Anyway, I think I can track it down." Donnie said to them. "Then we can set to repairing it and helping the others before something disastrous happens."
"When Donnie finds it, I'll take whoever wants to go to it there." Renet volunteered. She actually knew where it was, being apprentice time mistress and all, but she knew they had to do some things on their own.
"I just hope that our friends can hold on." Amy said with a small frown. "All of those monsters now know that the Earth is going to continue on, and they will want to get their revenge on their own."
"And we'll make sure they won't." Mal promised. "We saved the Earth; we can certainly save our friends, as many of them have done for us time and again."
"Man it's still kind of weird to think all of your parents are power rangers, or at least temporary ones." Casey said with a small shake of his head. "I mean I can't imagine my dad being a power ranger." He looked to April. "How about your dad red?"
April laughed a little as she shook her head. "Not at all." She answered simply. "He still has trouble dealing with some of the stuff here." After he had been rescued from the Kraang he had tried to keep April in constant sight, at least until his accidental mutation. He had briefly passed out during the second Kraang invasion in which he and many other citizens had been mutated briefly and used as slave labor in their home dimension, Dimension X. Undoubtfully the Triceraton attack had not helped matters, but aside from calling to reassure him she was fine after they had returned to the lair she had not done anything more, right now the power rangers needed them all, including her.
"And for it's worth I couldn't see our parents doing that either." Adelita added.
Karai laughed a little. "At least I know my dad could easily be ranger if he wanted." She gloated and Mikey laughed in agreement.
"My dad would rather destroy the power rangers than be one." Jennifer added softly. Raph reached over and stroked her hair softly. She looked to the five isle kids then. "But I guess you guys understand that pretty well."
Jay snorted despite the fact he was still playing the pinball game. "You can say that again. Heck, my dad would probably still be okay with turtle soup, no offense guys." He said. He now had Carlos leaning over his shoulder watching who kind of just nodded in half agreement.
"No question on this end." Mal said as she wrapped her arms around her sister's shoulders. The purple haired girl in turn had Ben place his hands on her back softly. "Mom basically disowned me for choosing good, and she would have disowned Amy if she hadn't already basically done so long ago." Both twins exchanged another knowing glance with Jennifer.
"And my mom would most definitely not be doing it either." Evie agreed. "The truth is neither the boys nor I have had the chance to find out what our parents think like M and Amy has. But we can certainly guess based on how Maleficent reacted."
"Your own birth parents may not be proud of what you have become, but I have no doubt that those that truly care for you could not be prouder." Venus said to them.
Amy laughed. "You're right about that. And sometimes that means more than parental approval." She replied as she thought about Belle. Both sisters had never really said it out loud but they both knew they preferred to win Belle's approval over Maleficent's any day. She knew in an odd way Jay felt the same way when it came to Aladdin and Jasmine over his own father Jafar.
Evie did not have that necessarily but the thought was similar when it came to her step sisters, especially Snow White. She had to repress a frown as she had to remember again that Carlos did not have that aspire to.
"Got it guys." Donnie announced. "The Megaship crash landed in the Rocky Mountains."
"That would be in Colorado." Jennifer filled in for the Auradon rangers, who were not familiar with the sights of Earth.
"Isn't that the place where they filmed that creepy movie in the hotel with those ghosts and stuff? Where the dad went psycho on his family?" Angel questioned with a bit of a shiver.
"You mean The Shining, that was filmed in Estes Park." Adelita answered her. "Not the same place."
"Come again?" Mal asked with some doubt. "What movie was shining again?"
"No, the movie is called The Shining." Aaliyah said. "If we get the chance we'll have to all watch the movie together."
"Yeah, movie." Renet echoed somewhat oddly and then shook her head. "Okay, so who am I taking with me to the Megaship?"
"April and I have to go for sure." Donnie said. "To help get the ship online. Once that's done we can start effecting repairs and helping the rangers out."
"I've never been on the Megaship before." April pointed out. "How can I help?"
"I know you can do it April." Donnie said to his girlfriend. "And I'll be able to help you along the way."
"Ben, Evie, Jane, Audrey, Will, Lonnie, Carlos and Jay with us." Mal said. She looked to Amy. "The rest of you stay here in case something happens while we're doing this." She hated to say it out loud but she also wanted Amy to take bit of break after Shredder's attack, which was only not fatal because of her ranger powers.
Amy couldn't help the slight flare of annoyance, being fully familiar with Mal's protective tendencies with her. Then Melody came up to her friend's side and said, "Good idea Mal. We need to be ready if the bad guys move faster than we anticipated." The rose haired girl let it drop, admitting that was a good point though. Most ranger teams didn't have the numbers the Auradon team did.
Renet stepped forward and twirled her time scepter. "Okay then, let's get going." She declared and then turned somewhat unexpectedly to kiss Mikey on the cheek. "I'll be back soon." She told her rapidly blushing love interest. With that she opened a time door and the chosen team members reattached their helmets, along with Donnie and April, stepped through the glowing white door she had opened.
It was a stark contrast to go from the bright light of the time door to the practical darkness of the interior of the ship. "The ship must be running on back up batteries or something." Carlos guessed.
"Auxiliary power." Donnie supplied. "It's good for about twenty four hours, though it might be longer in this case since this is one of those few instances where maintaining life support isn't a consideration."
"Let's find the bridge already and get the ship going." Audrey said.
"Hang on Audrey." Evie said. "I'd bet anything that we're going to have to go restore the power somewhere else first, and not on the bridge."
"She's right." Donnie said. "We're going to have to head toward the engineering section to restore main power before we can go to the bridge and get the ship running again."
"Lead the way Donnie." Mal said to him. The purple masked turtle nodded and started on the way to the engineering section with April and the rangers behind him. Even the technology disinclined rangers couldn't help but be impressed at how the ship looked.
"Where are the doorknobs?" Lonnie wondered as they walked by a door that was basically smooth. She wondered if that had to do with the lack of main power.
"They're activated by sensors around the door frame, which are in turn linked into the main computers systems." Donnie answered as they turned a corner of the ship. "The main computer itself is called DECA."
"Wouldn't DECA have been destroyed when the ship was lost at Mirinoi?" Jane asked curiously.
"Every month Andros, and later the green galaxy ranger Damon, would make a backup of DECA's main systems. Andros still does that today." Donnie explained now. "Alpha had to catch her up on events between the destruction of the original megaship and the reconstruction of the mark two version."
April had a bad feeling pass through her mind and she glanced around. "Guys, we're not alone here." She revealed. "Something else is here, and I don't mean any of the rangers."
"Could it be Alpha?" Donnie asked her.
"I don't think so." April answered. "Unless he's become evil."
A compartment overhead burst open and with a mechanical squeal of sorts a Quantron emerged slammed down hard on April and Lonnie. It swung at Donnie and he back flipped out of the way.
"Quantron." Carlos stated somewhat needlessly.
The Quantron held in its hand its bladed weapon, which actually looked very similar to Will's recursive sword. The green ranger moved in and slashed at the robotic minion, who raised its own weapon to block the attack.
Mal moved in with her dragon's eye staff and jabbed it as hard as she could in the chest, which was enough to disable it. "Everyone okay?" Mal asked.
"I'm okay." April said even as Donnie was helping her up.
"Me too." Lonnie said as Evie helped her up.
"Think that was the only here?" Audrey wondered dubiously.
"Highly doubtful." Jane answered anyway. "We better pick up the pace."
They approached the engineering section. The door was closed as well. "Probably an automatic lockdown procedure." Donnie speculated.
"Open up the door Donnie." Mal said. "Audrey, Evie, Jane. Head in cautiously and we'll be right behind you." The three nodded in agreement. The red ranger prepped an arrow, the blue ranger got ready with a mirror force blast and Jane prepared to release a magical burst from her wand.
As soon as the door opened the three rangers stepped in. A moment later the rest of the team followed. A Quantron appeared from the other side of the room and Audrey shot it down. Another emerged from the side which Lonnie took out one of her hurricane tessens.
Donnie moved to one of the consoles and immediately began working on it. Carlos was kind of amazed that the purple masked turtle could work as quickly and efficiently as he did with three larger than normal fingers. "We're going to have to replace some of these circuits if we want to keep main power." He announced. "But just another connection or two and…" The main power reactivated. "Here we are."
"Uh guys, we have a problem." April said. They saw one of the screens which linked to auxiliary sensors had a monster on it that was approaching the megaship. It almost seemed to be some kind of mechanical humanoid thing. It had some kind of gold wings on its back.
"Shoot." Jay muttered. "It's always something." He looked to Mal. "We can't all go. What if there are other Quantrons on the ship or something worse?"
"But it might take all of us to beat that thing." Will reminded him.
"No problem." Donnie said. "You guys go deal with that monster. I'll contact Renet and have her send some of the others here to help us get to the bridge and get the ship online."
"Then let's take the expressway to that monster." Jane said. "I think I can replicate Renet's trick, at least to a degree." She waved the magic wand and was able to open up a doorway similar to what the apprentice time mistress had conjured up to bring them to Earth and the megaship. "Right this way."
"Your magical powers are getting better." Carlos said as encouragingly as possible as he touched her arm gently.
"Thanks." Jane said, glad that her helmet didn't show her blush at the compliment or the touch.
The Auradon rangers stepped through and found themselves only a few feet away from the monster, who seemed to be slightly surprised to see them but he recovered quickly. "Well, well. It seems the ship isn't nearly as abandoned as I had thought." He remarked.
"It's not." Jay said. "So go away."
"What he means," Ben interrupted somewhat sternly. "Is that this ship belongs to our friends and we're here to get it for them. It would best to just turn around now." Mal was amazed how that tone turned diplomatic and wondered how long he had to work to make that happen.
"Then we have a problem." The monster said. "I was ordered to bring this ship back and I won't disobey that order."
"You have no idea who you're dealing with." Audrey warned him. It wasn't really a diplomatic response but it was pretty clear that proverbial ship had basically sailed away.
"I am Shinato and I don't care who you think you are, you're in my way." With that the metal gold winged monster unleashed a flurry of energy from those wings and blasted the rangers hard.
The team flinched and fell back just a little, which is what Shinato had expected. He moved in and slammed his fist down hard on the Auradon Knight before turning one hundred eighty degrees and slashing everyone except Evie and Audrey to the ground.
Audrey aimed her elemental bow and released an electric arrow. The mechanical monster caught it in between his hands, the electrical energy having no effect on him. He tossed it to the ground. Having seen that Evie raised her mirror force shield and unleashed her quaking mirror force attack, but the monster simply jumped up and unleashed energy to strike at the two of them.
Jay, Will and Lonnie recovered quickly and the two boys clasped their arms together. The pink ranger jumped up onto their arms and they tossed her up towards Shinato. Lonnie extended both of her hurricane tessens and hooked them into Shinato's wings. "Let's see if we can't bring you back down to Earth." She commented.
"I agree wholeheartedly." Shinato replied. He gave a small twirl in the air and then dive-bombed toward the ground.
"Lonnie, get out of there." Will called out to his girlfriend. It looked like the Asian princess was about ready to do just that, but the winged mechanical monster grabbed a hold of her wrists as they descended and slammed her down into the ground hard.
"Hey hang on a sec." Jay started as he saw Will moving in to attack the monster in a noble but somewhat doomed attempt to stand up for his girlfriend.
His caution fell on deaf ears as he moved in and tried to bring his recursive sword down on Shinato, but the mechanical monster brought his arms up and blocked the attack in his hands just as he had caught Audrey's arrow. He then brushed the sword aside and slashed Will across the chest to send him flying back.
Carlos and Mal were up now and moved in to try to attack him now. Shinato flapped his wings and sent Lonnie's weapons right at the yellow ranger and knocked him down. He then turned and caught Mal's dragon's eye staff as the purple haired purple ranger swung at him. He looked ready to crush the jewel in the center when Ben moved in and slammed his shield into the mechanical monsters arm, forcing him to break his hold on the staff.
"Thanks, don't want to have to replace that again." Mal said to her boyfriend, and especially since to restore it her twin sister Amy had basically taken an unintentional dive into the volcano around the mountains of Auradon.
"Anytime sweetie." Ben replied and then moved in with the Praeleanthor sword. Ben slashed and Shinato grabbed the blade like he had Will's recursive sword and Audrey's arrow. But the sword was something none of the other weapons were; semi-sentient. As if the artifact of the ancient Martian civilization knew what was going to happen, a small circular blade extended from the hilt just over Ben's hand before shooting out and ramming right into him.
"Wicked." Jay said with a laugh.
"I think it's time to end this Mal." Jane said to their leader. "Ben and I will keep Shinato distracted while you guys form the Auradon blaster."
Mal nodded. "Good idea." She said to the white ranger as she saw Evie and Audrey checking on Will and Lonnie even as Jay was helping Carlos up. She ran into the center of her six friends and said, "Let's make it so guys."
Shinato unleashed a barrage of energy from the 'feather's' of his wings, this time all of it aimed squarely at Ben, but the young king raised his shield to protect himself from the assault. Jane used her wings to soar above the explosion and kicked him in the chest, making him stumble back just a little.
Mal brought up her dragon's eye staff, and underneath that Audrey placed her elemental bow. Evie placed her mirror force shield behind it and the compacts expanded outward. Jay placed his soul scimitar in the middle with Lonnie's hurricane tessen's and Carlos's earthquake claw daggers on either side. Will placed his recursive sword underneath the full blaster.
"Somehow it seems to be lacking something without Amy's rose lance in the formation." Evie noted simply.
Jane rolled to the right as Ben rolled to the left. The seven rangers unleashed the power of their Auradon blaster on Shinato, who raised his hands and caught the beam. "No way." Carlos gasped.
Mal only narrowed her gaze at the mechanical monster. "Keep firing." She instructed. "Our power can overcome his defenses."
Aziz, Ally, Raph, Jennifer and Grant had joined Donnie and April and together they left engineering. They thought crossing the mess hall would be a good short cut only to find the place full of Quantrons.
"They probably reasoned that anyone hiding on the ship would have to come here eventually." Jennifer reflected softly. "All of the rangers have to eat after all." She looked to Donnie. "Right?"
"Pretty much." Donnie confirmed. The Overdrive red ranger had been a robot most of his life, and there were oddities like Roboknight and Sentinel Knight but the purple masked turtle didn't think now was really a good time to go into that one.
April raised her tessens. "I guess we have no choice but to fight our way through this." She said. "Even if we find an alternate route they will have to be dealt with eventually."
"Don't worry about that one." Ally said as she withdrew all of her crystal cards. She was fairly certain she could use them all to take out the Quantrons, like sharp vicious little fireflies. She extended them all in her hand which almost made them look like a tessen as well before throwing them all out.
The crystal cards shot out and at the daughter of Alice's thoughts split out and about to cut down the Quantrons in a flurry of blurs. All of the cards returned to her after the mess hall cleared.
"I know Casey would say how metal that was." Jennifer said with a smirk.
"Because in all fairness it was." Raph replied.
"Alright come on guys." Donnie said. "We have to hurry up. We can only hope Mal and the others have killed off that monster, but if not we might have to use the ship to help them." He lead them out of the mess hall.
It only took a few minutes more to reach the bridge where Donnie lead April to one of the consoles in the back so they could restore the power while Raph, Jennifer, Grant, Ally and Aziz looked around the bridge.
"Even the command center pales a bit compared to this place." Grant commented. "What hope do we have being able to use this to help the others?"
"I guess we'll be doing a lot of that work initially." Donnie admitted with a small shrug. "But as we start finding the other rangers they'll be able to help out around here too. And I think you guys could learn this stuff pretty easily."
"Yeah, even Mikey knows how to use a few consoles on this ship properly." Raph added with a smirk. "Plus the food synthesizer." He stepped around to one of the longer consoles in the center of the bridge. "Looks like most of these systems are simply on standby. How's that main power coming Donnie?"
"Should be coming on in a minute." Donnie answered. "April, how's the circuit board?"
April poked her head out from under the console. "It needs a new breaker." She looked to Jennifer. "There should be one in the cabinet over there, can you grab it please?" The blonde walked over to retrieve it and brought it back to her red headed friend. "Thanks." She said and then a moment later called out, "We should be good to go Donnie."
Donnie pressed a few buttons and the consoles hummed to life as the power came back on throughout the megaship. "Booyakasha." Donnie stated.
"Guys, look." Ally said. They turned to the main viewer just in time to see Ben and Jane dodge to the side as Mal and the others unleashed a burst from the Auradon blaster that the mechanical monster was holding at bay. "It looks like a standoff, we have to do something."
"Let's get out there and lend a hand." Aziz said.
"Hold up." April said. "It will take more than just a couple extra hands to stop that thing or else Ben and Jane would have already done it."
Grant glanced around the bridge. Then he revealed, "Hey, I've got an idea."
"How much longer can we keep up this stalemate?" Carlos wondered as they focused all of their energy into the blaster.
"As long as we can." Mal answered simply. The solution was simple if one really thought about it. They continued until Shinato lost his hold or until they couldn't go on anymore. She was starting to have a horrible feeling about which side would be forced to give in first.
Then the megaship's lasers opened up and unleashed around Shinato. Caught between a rock and a hard place the mechanical monster raised one hand to try to stop it only to lose the focus on the Auradon blaster, where he ended up being destroyed by both barrages.
"And that is that." Jay said as they disassembled their weapons and slumped to one knee beside Audrey, who leaned her head against his shoulder and took a small breath to steady her nerves.
Ben came over and kneeled next to Mal. "Are you okay?" He asked his girlfriend.
"That took more out of me, and all of us, more than it ever has." Mal answered softly. "We've never had to hold the beam for that long of a time."
They turned as they heard the sounds of a door opening but it was only the ramp of the megaship where Raph, Jennifer, and Ally were descending. "Hey come on board." Raph called out. "We've got the ship up and running again."
A half hour later Leo, Aaliyah, Casey, Karai and Mikey were on the ship now along with the rest of the Auradon Rangers. Donnie and Mal briefed them on the Quantrons being present and the Shinato monster. "Looks like we've got a few repairs to make around here." Leo noted. "But the sensors are working, so a couple of us should start trying to find the other rangers."
"The sooner the better I suspect." Ally noted.
Mal nodded. "You're probably right. And I think I realistically know where we need to start." She announced as she glanced around at her friends and team mates. "So let's get to work."
Unknown to the rangers, Shinato was not a monster sent by the Machine Empire, or by any of the factions that had reared their heads as the Triceratons had planned to destroy Earth to stop the Kraang. Rather, Shinato was a threat closer to their home.
"So my ungrateful little brats and their pathetic friends have indeed left Auradon." Maleficent mused softly. "One can only imagine what precipitated this decision to essentially leave this world defenseless."
"Not defenseless." Undine reminded the evil fairy. "Those pastel rangers are probably waiting around just in case."
Maleficent waved that off. "The powers that they use are temporary. It would be easy enough to overwhelm those powers and shut them down." She stated simply.
"Then let's do it already." Chad declared impatiently. "When they show up again they'll see what kind of mistake they truly made by leaving."
"You idiot." Undine stated. "If they succeed there, don't think for a moment that every single ranger and ally they have there won't return the favor by coming to Auradon and helping them take it back."
"At any rate, it seems to me we have some more important questions to worry about. Is whatever going on there a threat to us?" Maleficent reflected. "I think keeping an eye on things there could be very interesting. And we have our own seeds to plant while the bugs are away."