"It's so good to be home." Audrey said as they emerged onto the front lawn of Auradon Prep. "Even the school is a refreshing place to see after all those fights we went through." She raised her arms as if embracing the slight breeze.
"And look, it's our first visitor." Carlos said happily as Dude rushed over to them. Carlos picked him and rubbed his back ecstatically.
"First stop, the command center." Mal said. "Let's let Fairy Godmother know what happened and then...well clearly I guess Auradon came out of our excursion pretty much unscathed but let's make sure we didn't miss anything anyway." The rest of the team agreed with her and they made their way through the school, past the classroom where Remedial Goodness 101 was once held for Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos and down the hidden passage to their command center.
"It's so good to see you all came back okay." Fairy Godmother said as she hugged her daughter Jane. "I take it everything worked out."
"Turns out some goon named Ivan Ooze somehow found a way to revive being smashed by a comet and united a bunch of bad guys to distract the rangers." Lonnie started to explain as they all started to sit down. "So they couldn't help the Turtles deal with the Triceratons and their black hole generator."
"Which as well know ended up destroying the world, making us the only ones with morphing grid access connection." Jordan continued on. "You know that though, since Renet appeared in our command center and all." Fairy Godmother easily remembered the distress that the apprentice time mistress had shown when she had shown up.
"I sure hope we didn't miss anything while we were gone." Ben said as Mal sat down by him, her younger twin sister Amy sitting beside her. As the king of Auradon he was naturally the most concerned about the welfare of the kingdom while they had been gone.
"It has actually been rather quiet." Fairy Godmother admitted. "Honestly your parents were very surprised Maleficent hadn't tried to take advantage of the situation."
"Maybe she was waiting for whatever happened on Earth." Amy speculated. The demons that had attacked the Aqua Base in Mariner Bay had the same origin as the Maledict sword that Chad used as his weapon. And they had even learned Maledict had been a large dragon like demon as well that had somehow been destroyed some time ago.
"That may be." Miranda agreed. "If we had all lost and the demons chose to help Maleficent attack Auradon, they woulda destroyed or conquered everything."
"Do you know who Ivan Ooze was mom?" Jane asked her. She wasn't entirely sure what her mother did and did not know but it had been made clear that Fairy Godmother, and in fact all of their parents had known Zordon.
"Not this time." Fairy Godmother answered. "In truth as much as Zordon helped out I'm not entirely sure how much we really knew about him. He tended to keep his secrets close to his vest. Sort to speak." She in fact wondered what her daughter and friends had found out. If they had found out anything.
"We should let everyone else know that we're back as well." Doug reminded everyone.
"And knowing how things work around here, I'm sure all of our parents will want to celebrate our miraculous victory and return." Mal deadpanned. Of course both she and Amy were always up for seeing Ben's mother Belle again. She was more of a mother to the twins than Maleficent had ever been. She had basically disregarded Amy and only cared what Mal could do for her in terms of evil.
"Are you okay?" Alex asked as he looked at Amy. She seemed...distracted to him.
"Yes, I think so." Amy answered. But in truth something still stirred in her mind. Although one of their efforts on Earth had involved saving the Turtle's father and teacher Splinter from being stabbed from behind by the leader of the Foot Clan Shredder she still had a horrid feeling that it was only a temporary reprieve. But what if she was wrong? And what could they do about it?
"So, uh, how far are we behind on school work?" Evie now asked. She could easily make it up, which some of the others could not say. But topped with their ranger duties, that would make it a bit harder for even the smart ones like her, Doug, Carlos and Jane.
Fairy Godmother sighed a bit. "We'll get it sorted out." She promised. "It may be...difficult to explain but as we know those were rather extenuating circumstances."
"It totally helps to have the headmistress in the know about things." Aziz remarked. He couldn't imagine doing all this and having the head of the school utterly clueless about why things weren't getting done the way it should be if they were normal students.
"I for one feel like I could take a long nap." Will said as he stretched a bit.
Audrey ran her hand through her hair. "Or at least a long shower." She added.
"Why don't you children take a few hours to relax." Fairy Godmother suggested. "Call your parents, or your other family. Refresh yourselves, take a nap or whatever you wish." Evie after all did not have any parents in Auradon but she did have two step sisters; Snow White and Rose Red. "Mal is right that everyone will wish to welcome you back home."
"Sounds like a good idea to me." Mal said. Everyone headed up the stair and out of the classroom to head to their dorms.
Everyone was very relieved when Fairy Godmother told them that their children had come back safe and sound. And with their mission accomplished to boot. Naturally as the purple haired girl had predicted Ben's parents wanted to host their return party at their castle. Fairy Godmother would inform them of that when they returned.
Alex had not been the only one to notice Amy still seemed distracted. "So wanna tell me what's on your mind?" She asked her rose hair colored little sister as she pulled out a new purple dress for the party she knew was inevitably going to happen. "Or do you wanna play some guessing games. I was always pretty good at those, at least when it came to you."
Amy sighed a bit as she sat on her bed and curled her legs under her body. "I feel like it was all for nothing." She admitted.
"You mean saving the Earth and all of its inhabitants, including our friends?" Mal questioned increduously.
"What? No, not that." Amy answered. "I mean having stopped Shredder from killing Splinter. I feel like...like somehow all I did was delay the inevitable."
Mal frowned a bit and set her dress down on a chair by the closet. "And do you have something to base that on besides your feelings?" She asked. She was never one to disregard her little sister's feelings but at the same time sometimes she knew Amy could base more on her feelings than on anything to work with. And while growing up on the isle hadn't diminished her sweetness sometimes it played with her sense of positivity.
"Well, no." Amy admitted softly. "It's just this nagging feeling is all. I should feel glad we stopped it but it just...that feeling keep lingering and I can't get rid of it."
Mal sat by her sister and reached out to stroke her hair. "Okay well what does Aquiella think?" She asked now. The mermaid cousin of Melody had her own empathic powers and between her and Amy they managed to make each other's senses stronger.
"If she feels it she hasn't said anything." Amy said. "But I haven't really asked either. In case I'm just projecting."
"Well here's the thing." Mal said. "I don't see anything taking out Splinter without some major crisis going on first. And if it's that bad someone will get in contact with us. Hopefully it doesn't happen but if it does we'll go." Her sister nodded in agreement. "So try to ignore it for now and let's get ready for yet another party." She stood up and frowned a bit. "Is it sad I'm wondering how anyone actually studies around here?" Amy giggled a little bit but merely shrugged.
A couple hours later after at least showering everyone assembled into the command center. "Well as Mal predicted, Ben's parents wish to throw a welcome home party." Fairy Godmother announced and Mal looked amused at her prediction being true. "All of your parents have been invited, or at least those who are nearby to make it." She added. Some of their parents like Miranda's mother Merida, Ellie's mother Elsa, and Alex's parents Anna and Kristoff were too far away to make it...not to mention Arendelle was still recovering from the damages sustained by the invasion from the beings of the ice barrier, lead by the Ice Queen who had once opposed and been destroyed by some of their ranger friends, in this case the original team lead by Jason Scott Lee. "This will of course be done at their castle."
"That's not a surprise." Carlos said. They had the biggest castle in Auradon.
"Cool, so let's head out then." Mal said. She knew everyone would be eager to see their families again, at least if they were there. And she wouldn't mind seeing Belle again, Ben's mother had helped her so much since coming to Auradon and becoming a power ranger; from helping her deal with Maleficent disowning her to giving her the item needed to power up the staff she used in combat to a dragon's eye staff, And she easily accepted Amy, letting her borrow whatever books she wanted from her private library and showing her the same kind of consideration a mother should show her children, something Maleficent was even less inclined to show to Amy than she had even to Mal herself.
Ben stood up. "I'll call the limo." He said.
"I don't know if I'll ever get used to that statement." Will admitted and Lonnie laughed a little. Most of the AK's had a royal background and hence things like fancy parties and limos were common for them. But Will was one of the few who had never really known that kind of 'luxury' prior to becoming a ranger.
"Yep, I hear ya." Jay seconded. The VK's sure weren't entirely used to that. Even though he and Mal were children to two of the most well known villains on the isle luxury perks was not a thing on the isle of the lost. If he were honest with himself, and he could be even if he wasn't likely to be that honest with anyone else, he wasn't entirely sure what Audrey saw in him...though he would easily agree that he was better than Chad Charming, the traitorous son of Cinderella and Prince Charming.
"I'll third it." Grant said. He was a royal by blood, being the son of Rose Red (who in turn was the older sister of Snow White and making Evie his step-aunt despite them being roughly the same age, a fact that still boggled the two of them) but because of Grimhilde the evil queen aka Snow White's stepmother, Rose Red had been kidnapped by a bounty hunter (by an old enemy of the astro rangers named Darkonda to be precise) and exiled to a dangerous island called Schadel island and was only recently brought back by the Auradon ranger team.
"Somehow I think we'll get used to it." Mal said. "Surprisingly it isn't even the weirdest thing we've had to get used to since we left the isle of the lost." Everything from being a ranger on had been quite some loops.
Fairy Godmother laughed a little. "Trust me when I say life will always find a way to give your surprises, be it good or bad." She told them all. No one, not even her daughter Jane, truly knew how old their headmistress really was. And for the most part everyone knew better than to ask her about her age, and those who didn't could easily be shushed ahead of time.
Still Jay was about to possibly take his well being in hand by trying to ask but got saved by Ben who said, "Okay, the limo is on it's way. It'll be here in a few minutes. We should go and meet it up front." It would be there by the time they reached the front gates if they left now.
"Alright, let's go then." Audrey said.
"Hey, let's make a race out of it." Miranda declared. Jay, Carlos, Amy, Melody, Will and Lonnie nodded in agreement and were already dashing up the stairs even as Fairy Godmother tried to warn them against the idea.
"She might as well be talking to herself." Ellie noted and Mal laughed, and the purple haired girl laughed even harder when she heard Carlos call out to Amy that intangibility was cheating.
"At least one can't say it's dull around here." Aquiella shrugged as she fell into step beside the princess of Arendelle. "Are you disappointed that your mother won't be there?" She asked softly.
Ellie bit her lip as she thought about it. "A little maybe. But it's okay, both Alex and I knew how much we'd really be seeing our parents once we came to Auradon Prep." She replied. "How about you and Melody?"
"I suppose Aunt Ariel and Uncle Eric could make it here if they really wanted to." Aquiella noted. "Though it would certainly be an abrupt trip. As for my mother, my grandfather, or any of my other family since they've never left the oceans of Atlantica I honestly don't expect to see them again for quite a while."
"It sounds kind of rough." Jane noted from behind them. Of course sometimes for better or sometimes for worse her own mother was always nearby. A long amount of time not seeing her was practically unheard of. "Though at least you guys can go see them at some point, like vacations and holidays. At least normally." Normal however was not something that always applied in the ranger line of work.
"It is more than our VK friends can say, even if they wanted to see their parents or vice versa." Ellie admitted. Amy and Mal had seen their mother and they had also seen the results of that. No one knew how Grimhilde, Jafar or Cruella would react to seeing their children.
As Ben had said the limo was indeed waiting for them though most of them weren't immediately sure who the driver was. Mal reflected silently that that man who had drive her and her chosen siblings (sans Amy) from the isle hadn't been seen by them since. She mildly hoped he didn't get fired, after all he may have been kind of rude to them but they hadn't taken offense, with Mal even telling Evie she liked him because of his attitude.
The drive to the castle itself was not that long and there was no surprise about who was waiting for them. Ben went over to hug his mother, and then as he went to hug his father Belle hugged Mal and Amy. "I hope everything turned out alright." Adam said as he looked to Mal.
"Oh it turned out okay in the end." Mal answered. "The Earth isn't destroyed, our friends are alive and the bad guys are taken care of."
"Well for the most part." Lonnie amended as she pulled away from her mother Mulan and father Shang."That black hole generator is a threat, the three pieces back wherever they were taken from. But the Turtles, April, Casey and Jennifer were going to go with this proferssor named Honeycutt to recover those pieces and figure out how to destroy them."
"Our sensors are running through that information now." Doug supplemented. "If we can figure out a solution we'll send it to the the megaship and hopefully they can get that to the Turtles."
"But other than that everything turned out alright?" Rose Red asked as she released her son Grant from her embrace. Beside her was Snow White who had just released Evie from a hug.
"Sure, everything turned out great aside from that." Evie replied. "And luckily it seems around here Maleficent kept to herself for once."
"We were just as surprised as you are." Aurora admitted though she shot an apologetic glance at Mal and Amy. Mal simply smiled, totally getting it while Amy seemed unconcerned about her Aurora's view on a woman who as basically her mother by birth only.
"They were all tense for hours waiting for something to happen." Whitney said as she looked up to her brother Will and he only laughed a little bit. "If mom and I weren't staying with Cinderella and Callie while you were gone I think she would have forgotten to eat or sleep."
"It wasn't that bad dear, don't exaggerate." Wendy tried to chide but Cinderella exchanged a glance with Mal that let her know the young girl was not exaggerating in the slightest. But it also occurred to the purple haired girl that Cinderella herself probably didn't get much sleep anymore thanks to the actions of her son.
"It's such a nice day we thought we'd eat outside." Belle said. No one seemed bothered by that, not even Audrey who a while ago would probably have objected to that idea. But not for the first time Mal reflected how much the Auradon princess had changed since they had come from the isle and became power rangers. She had gotten much more accepting of the VK's, had learned (as they all had really) the world was a more dangerous place than it seemed beyond even the borders of the school and yes, even though through means that no one should ever have to go through, had also been humbled by certain events regarding Chad and his obsession with her.
They could see servants of the castle bringing out food and drink and setting it on a long buffet table and there were several tables around the gardens where everyone could eat, interact and enjoy each other's company. It wasn't a surprise to Mal to see a lot of strawberries, chicken tenders and pizza which was about all her twin sister normally ate. Mixed it were other favorites of the entire group of course and Mal found herself contemplating starting out with a piece of strawberry shortcake.
"Some of us were looking forward to getting out on the field and trying out those pastel powers." Mulan admitted with some laughter. Of all of the parental units present Lonnie's parents were the closest thing to warriors among them.
"And some of us not so much." Snow White admitted as well and that made Evie laugh a little. She wasn't surprised getting out and fighting wasn't high on her step-sisters list. She couldn't really blame her, though she chose to be a ranger it wasn't something she ever would have expected to happen.
"I wish we could have found a way to call you all and let you know what was going on." Ellie admitted as she sat by Miranda, as none of their parents were there anyway. "But it was actually a small miracle ourselves to even get a moment to eat. And we only really got maybe six hours of sleep."
"Bouncing between cities and even universes can be pretty exhausting." Jordan agreed. "From Angel Grove to that Beta XII planet to Mariner Bay to Silver Hills...you get it." She waved her hand, not wanting to mention every single city they had gone to. "Even the future for the SPD rangers and two alternate Earth's for the RPM rangers and the Dino Charge rangers."
"That was the team that had their purple ranger come to help rebuild the command center right?" Phillip asked as he took Aurora's hand.
"Yeah, Kendall Morgan." Jay answered. "It's actually kind of funny because the Galaxy team's pink ranger is named Kendrix Morgan. They're both blonde and wear glasses and look a lot a like. If it weren't for the whole alternate universe thing I'd swear they were blood related."
"Anyone else catch the same thing with the black Wild force ranger Danny and the yellow SPD ranger Z?" Gregory asked. "They both share the same last name of Delgado."
"There's this girl at a flower shop in Turtle Cove that he likes named Kendall." Amy supplied as she was pouring herself a small glass of strawberry soda. "I wonder if the two of them got married and had Z?"
"I would actually hope not." Carlos replied. "Remember that Z and Jack," He was the former red SPD ranger and a close friend of Z's but had retired. "Originally were recruited after living on the streets and stealing. That means either Danny and his wife, be it Kendall or someone else, either died when she was young or otherwise may have been bad parents."
"Assuming they were her parents. And we have no proof of that one." Aziz reminded Carlos.
"Syd told me that she and her team got their genetic powers because of some kind of exposure all of their parents had while making the Delta morpher." Lonnie said. "Hmm...how odd is that that six sets of adults got exposed to something that would later give their offspring genetic powers, and that they would all end up working together."
"Actually given what I saw of their Commander Kruger, something tells me as far as the odds of them all working together isn't as high as it would seem." Mal noted. "He'd probably been keeping an eye on them. But that other thing is pretty coincidental."
"It seems to me there's really no such thing as coincdence where these things are concerned." Belle noted. She often wondered rather what she saw in front of her was intentional all the time. Did someone know her son would fall in love with a girl from the isle of the lost and eventually come together with people from all walks of both lives to fight evil? Perhaps Zordon did...or perhaps not. There was no way for them to know.
"It always fascinates me to hear what you learn about your friends." Belle remarked. "When I was younger I always craved adventure, it's why I loved books. But I never imagined the things you all have learned and found out about other worlds." It was amusing in it's own way really as quite a few of the Earth rangers had made comments about their lives being fairy tales. "Perhaps one day someone there can assemble files for our own people to read."
"I hear Billy has stuff like that." Carlos volunteered. "And so does Tommy, Ethan told me he assembled those when he started making those dino thunder powers that they used, in case something happened to him."
"Actually we do have some of that stuff as well." Fairy Godmother added. "I can't say they're as efficient and detailed as the files anyone who lived those incidents have but it would be a start if you wish me to have them sent over to you." Belle nodded and Fairy Godmother glanced around. "To any of you." Though not present Jasmine was part of the queen's book club and Wendy read a lot as well so it wasn't impossible that they would be interested.
"Maybe you could write those stories for all of Auradon to read." Amy suggested to Belle.
She laughed a little bit. "That's an interesting idea Amy, though I don't know for sure rather or not I have the patience to sit around and write books." She replied. At least she hadn't in her youth. Now, she supposed, only time would tell.
At that point the food had been brought out in full and everyone got themselves a plate. It was certainly relaxing, something none of the rangers had experienced in a while since having defeated Sermaya not long before finding out about the Triceratons' destruction of Earth and severing all of the links to the morphing grid save their own and Renet had shown up.
Still Ellie worried because she knew very soon Maleficent would strike, and there was no doubt she would do it with some kind of purpose. And that was assuming Maleficent was the only villain to show up, anything was possible as they knew. Not only had Sermaya acted independantly but so had the Ice Queen and they all very much had to ignore the Paragon creature that for whatever reason chose not to leave Schadel island.
"Are ye okay?" Miranda asked Ellie as she looked over at her as she sat down her glass of Pepsi.
"Just distracted I guess." Ellie admitted. She had almost dropped her plate of wings. "Worrying what's going to come next."
"I'd like to tell ya that worryin' won't really help anything." Miranda shrugged. "But I also know it's a lot easier said than done. Especially with all that's happened." After all Ice Queen had specifically targeted Arendelle both due to its closeness to her essence and because of her mother Elsa's ice powers. "But what I do know is we can handle it. And I'll be by you side, we all will."
"I know, thank you." Ellie smiled at her a little. "I'm glad to have you, and everyone, by my side." She grabbed her glass with her free hand and held it up. "To teamwork."
"Aye, to teamwork." Miranda agreed as she recovered her own glass and the two clinked them together and then smiled.
The adults thought it was nice to see the teens doing something normal like this. The fact was they had a huge burden placed on them that none of them had ever had to worry about. If it weren't for the fact they knew they were not the only teens in the universe to do something like this they would be even more concerned. But it was also easy to forget how easily youth could adapt to new and sometimes dangerous sometimes, a quality adults sometimes lacked. But it never hurt to be able to do normal things either.
And speaking of normal things, some of them would definitely agree they'd rather face a horde of soldiers or Heartless of even Triceratons rather than go back to class tomorrow. But that was what was on the agenda pending any problems.
But it was not only the Auradon team that was expecting to return to normal either. Maleficent turned to look at the ones who were now following her with the destruction of Paradias. Undine, the elder daughter of the sea witch Ursula, the Jabberwock creature that had been reconstructed from Wonderland, Marcellus the son of Mozenwrath who had once been one of Aladdin's many enemies, and Chad the son of Cinderella and Charming who now wielded the Maledict blade which was a very powerful demonic weapon, the abilities of said weapon having not been fully tapped yet. "All of our communications with the villains of any Earth have ceased." She reported. A few, like the Venjix Virus, were in fact from a different reality than most of the ranger villains. "It look likes we're on our own in that regard."
"We should destroy them while they're still weak," Marcellus stated. "There's no way they can be one hundred percent if they truly defeated everything Ivan Ooze threw at them, help or no help."
"We can certainly do our worst." Maleficent agreed. "But we won't put all of our eggs in one basket either." She slammed the end of her staff down on the rocky grounds of the castle. "Now this is the plan, listen up. I'll only say this once..."