"So you really have to go huh?" Amy asked Alex as she walked beside him. Ellie was slightly behind them walking with Miranda and Jordan.
"It's only for a few days." Alex reassured the rose haired girl with a small smile. "Ellie and I have to go check up on Arendelle, maybe help out with the repairs a little. Aunt Elsa says the people are still shaken from what happened, and having us there might help mitigate it a little bit."
Amy sighed. "The perils of future leadership huh?" She mused and Alex nodded. "Well at least it's an easy trip there and back this time."
"Yeah thanks to me." Jordan said with a small note of gloating in her voice. "I'll send you with magic once we leave the school borders and then when you call me we'll come outside school borders and bring you back with magic." She frowned in mock thought. "Maybe I should start charging for my services."
"We'll have mom start a charge account for you." Ellie replied. "Seriously thank you Jordan for doing this."
"It's not a big deal." Jordan promised her. "But what good is it if I don't poke fun at you guys in the process of using my magic to help out. At least until Doug, Carlos and Jane get that teleportation system up and going."
"Yep couldn't have help without the poking." Miranda laughed with some amusement. "How is your mother doing?" She asked Ellie. It wasn't talked about much, even by Elsa, but when the Ice Queen had taken over she had turned the queen of Arendelle into a monster to act as an enforcer if needed.
"She's doing okay." Ellie answered. "Mom says she doesn't remember much about her time as Icesha. I don't know if she's telling the truth though or if she's simply in some kind of denial, or...well or what. All I can do is trust her, and hope Aunt Anna and Uncle Kristoff are there to help her if she needs it."
They reached the borders of the school and Jordan opened up a small doorway where they could see the front gates of Arendelle. At least it didn't look as frigidly cold and snowy as it had the last time they had been there when the Ice Queen had taken over. Alex and Amy exchanged a quick hug before he went through and after a moment of hesitation Ellie followed him before the portal shut.
"All the work we missed feels like it will take forever to catch up on." Aziz sighed as he sat down his school packet. School was definitely not his favorite part of the day by a long shot.
Jay nodded in agreement. "Sometimes I wish I could just find a way to steal my way to higher grade bracket." He half joked. His stealing days were mostly long gone and it wouldn't help in their current situation at any rate.
"I don't think it's that bad myself." Evie said with a small smile and Mal had to laugh a bit. Everyday she spent at the school she continued to prove she was smarter than she ever would have gotten credit for on the isle of the lost. If her talents had been more mechanical than chemical or fashion related she would have no doubt been drafted to help out at the command center as often as Jane, Doug and Carlos did.
Though the purple haired girl would agree with Jay on one thing; "Yeah the problem with all of our running around is all of the school work we have to catch up on." She agreed.
"Hey it could be worse." Audrey reminded them. "If Fairy Godmother weren't in on this, we wouldn't even get the chance to make up the assignments and we'd probably be in deep trouble, if not expelled."
"And even then many of the teacher's are getting a wee bit impatient." Ally added. While Fairy Godmother was in on the secret, as were the council members of Auradon and the family members of the Auradon team, many others were not. As far as Ally knew the only other school staff who knew the full story were the fairies Flora, Fauna and Merryweather since they were very close to Audrey and her family.
Carlos nodded in agreement. "And it doesn't help some of us that there are teachers who already aren't thrilled about some of us being here." He said. While so far no one else in Auradon had acted as brashly as Audrey and Chad when they first came to Auradon from the isle (to say nothing of Chad's current actions) they still had more than their fair share of dismissed, annoyed or rude looks from some of those who lived in Auradon all of their lives.
"I wonder if some of those people's feelings would change if they all knew what you were doing this last year or so." Lonnie mused as she tapped a finger on her iPhone, where the gem was, just in case for whatever reason they couldn't intuit what she was referring to. Lonnie was one of the few who had been open to the VK's from the very beginning, give or take the uncertain reaction or two.
"Some might change their minds." Will mused. "Some may not. The sad fact is some people will never approve of VK's."
"Can't win them all I guess." Evie shrugged, trying to act non nonchalant but in truth the idea that no matter what they did they may always have people who hated them for something they couldn't control bothered her.
"Their loss Evie." Audrey stated. It was nice to hear that from one of the people who had at one point opposed their very presence in Auradon. She for one was very glad that she had learned to see past the surface of the VK kids to see the good hearts within, and in a way vice versa as well as they had seen past the rough surface she had presented to see her heart as well, especially Jay.
"We could always run away to Earth." Mal joked and the others laughed with her. They hadn't spent much time on Earth but had learned that humans on Earth could be just as tolerant, or intolerant, of people and ideas as they could be on Auradon. The Ninja Turtles were a great example of that.
"Ellie and Alex are gonna have to make up even more school work." Lonnie noted. "They took their packets with them but I don't know how much time they're going to have to actually do the work if they're going to try to help rebuild their kingdom."
"You know between all of the humanitarian aid projects and defending the world shouldn't we be getting extra credit for all of this in school? Maybe even getting out certain school assignments?" Jay now mused. "I mean isn't actual on the job training a thing?"
"Hmm, now that you mention it..." Mal pretended to think it over. In theory it was a good point and yet if that were such a thing they would already know about it, wouldn't they? Then she could feel that they weren't alone, as Amy and the others came up to them. "How you doing?" She asked her sister.
"I'm okay." Amy said as she sat down. "It kind of sucks that Alex and Ellie had to leave for a bit, but I know they'll be back. I've got Melody and Aquiella to hang around too. We were going to talk to Fairy Godmother about forming a swim team in Auradon." Her two mermaid friends were already in an early class.
"Hopefully that's without a tail." Carlos said. "That might be cheating."
"Hey, I don't even have a tail." Amy retorted.
"That's good because I don't know if you could make that work." Evie tried to act sympathetic even though it wasn't really the sweetest comment in the world and the rose haired girl gave a pretend pout, causing her sister to hug her.
"Anyway," Amy rolled her eyes. "Of course it'd be without tails. Unless other teams have mermaids they want to put on their team and we could have different competitions between humans and mermaids." She added. That was assuming other schools had mermaids as students, which none of them even knew.
"It'd probably be good to have something else besides Tourney and fencing anyway." Jay said. "The more things to keep students distracted from everything that happens the better."
The blue haired girl had been the only one so far to try to work on the packet they had all received when unsurprisingly they received a text and when they checked it out it was from Jane asking them all to come to the command center. "Looks like trouble. Again." Audrey surmised.
"Yep, back to normal indeed." Mal agreed as she stood up and gathered her stuff. "Okay let's go and see rather it's mother who's causing trouble or if we get a brand new unknown enemy to play games with." It wouldn't be the first time after all a new villain would decide to show up.
They came down to the newly rebuilt command center and they immediately saw what the problem was; Chad had appeared in Auradon already decked out in his armor and was dealing with the guards that had already tried to get in his way. "What does he want?" Lonnie wondered.
Audrey already had at least one idea, he had had been obsessed with her for months now. "Why is he alone?" She asked instead. "He knows we're all gonna show." Well except Ellie and Alex but that was still a big force to contend with.
"I've texted Ruby, Melody and Aquiella already and they'll meet you there." Doug said. "So far I can't figure out what else he could possibly be hoping to accomplish though."
"Be careful children." Fairy Godmother cautioned. "As Audrey had already pointed out this doesn't add up. He must have something hidden up his sleeve."
"He doesn't have any sleeves." Carlos tried to joke.
Jay hit up upside the head as Will emphasized just in case, "Figure of speech dude."
Mal watched only a moment longer, ignoring the interaction between her chosen brothers and Will...who really she supposed was a chosen brother as well just as Audrey and Lonnie, for example, were now chosen sister's as well. "Let's get to work." She declared as she reached for her iPhone.
Her teammates followed as they drew their iPhone's except Ben who formed his shield and the Praeleanthor sword and Jane who used her magic wand. Together the rangers transformed before heading out to meet their former friend.
Chad wouldn't have thought so a few months ago but he was enjoying the violence and destruction that he could cause with just his weapons alone, let alone with all of the other allies at his disposal. Now he found it hard to believe that the VK's, specifically Mal and Jay who were from very dangerous parents, could turn their backs on all of that to become goodie goods. But he wasn't sure even Maleficent or Jafar had felt the power that he was feeling as his bond with the Maledict blade became stronger.
"Bored now." He sighed as a guard tried to disarm him only to take the shield to his face, likely breaking the man's nose. "Isn't there someone around here who can provide a challenge?"
"Don't you already know the answer to that moron?" Mal questioned as they appeared, sans the knight of fire, dame of ice, the orange ranger, the aqua ranger and the ruby ranger. The latter three would be along soon enough though.
"What are you doing here?" Jay now questioned. "I mean I know you're not the sharpest blade on the stand but even you should know better than to show up here on your own. You're just gonna get your face kicked in, if you're lucky you'll be able to run back to Maleficent before we take you in."
"Oh but I'm not going to be alone much longer Jay." Chad laughed maniacally. "You've seen how strong I've grown, you all have. I knocked out each of you girls just to get to Audrey She only lucked out because I wasn't expecting someone without powers present." Audrey shuddered as she recalled Aquiella being the only reason Chad hadn't gotten his way back at Ariel's castle outside of Atlantica. "I summoned a battle machine that took everything you had to damage it enough to force me to retreat." He brought the Maledict blade up and pointed it straight at them. "And now I show you my latest power."
"We're going to hate this aren't we?" Lonnie asked.
"Yep, pretty sure we will." Amy replied. She could feel the dark energy and swore Ben's Praeleanthor sword was reacting as well, as if it knew what was coming...and maybe it did.
The orangeish glow was not as apparent outside as it was in the times they had seen it inside castle walls but suddenly around Chad formed fiery looking pentagrams and moments later a dozen large gray creatures appeared on all fours, though they quickly rose onto their back legs and let out roars. "Imps, okay we can deal with those." Evie said.
But it wasn't done yet. Four more figures appeared, they were taller creatures. They were literally skeletons of what they could only assume were humans covered in armor from neck to waist. But on both sides of their shoulders looked to be mini rocket launchers. And Carlos swore they had jet packs attached to their backs, he was willing to bet they could fly around a little bit.
Ben knew from the memories of his own sword they were called Revenant's. "Well I guess we know what the demons do with their fallen comrades." He tried to joke weakly.
"Nothing like a dusting off and rewiring before being sent back out to be defeated again I suppose." Miranda remarked dryly.
"Destroy them." Chad commanded as the Imps let out roars and started to charge toward the Auradon Rangers.
"Good, let them come at us." Aziz stated as he readied his spiral spear. "I'll impale the first one that comes at us and we'll go from there."
That plan was ruined as the Revenant's floated into the air and released rockets toward the group. Jordan sure hoped they could dodge eight rockets without a problem. They were smaller than the standard issue rockets used in most modern launchers, at least from what she had seen on Earth.
With rockets incoming the rangers scattered but some of them like Mal, Jay and Aziz were already ready to strike again when they realized some of the rockets were coming toward them now. "Hey what the heck?" Jay gaped.
"They must be heat seeking." Evie realized. One Imp threw a fireball at Ally but the blue ranger was quick enough to use her mirror force shield to block the attack though she it wasn't accurate enough to send back at the demon itself.
"That's just peachy." Lonnie sighed though she didn't seem to be one of the rocket's target so she used her hurricane tessen's to slash down an approaching Imp.
Amy hoped the small 'Eep' that went through her mind wasn't something she said out loud as she landed, rolled and still found a rocket heading right toward her. At the last moment the rose ranger made herself transparent and the heat seeking rocket didn't have enough time to compensate for it and struck behind her, doing nothing more than damaging the ground just behind her.
Audrey drew her bow, formed a fire arrow and fired it straight at a rocket, hoping that the flame on the magic arrow would be more of a draw to the rocket than her or anyone near her. Luckily it was but even more importantly the arrow struck the rocket and destroyed it. "Hey guys, try to shoot the rocket." She suggested.
"Sure why not?" Jordan shrugged as she took out her lamp cannon and fired, easily destroying it. Of course the gold ranger's weapon was a literal cannon so striking things down wasn't so hard with that.
With Carlos's primary weapon being a close up weapon, and with him not wanting to get close to a rocket if he could get away with it, he drew his blaster and fired at an approaching rocket. He was relieved to see that it was destroyed just as easily as the one their red ranger had used against one of the rockets. "Sweet, these things can be destroyed before they hit their targets." He concluded.
"Good thing, that makes our lives much easier." Ally agreed as she used her crystal cards and tossed them at the rockets. Her own cards, used in multiple, were a very easy way to prematurely detonate Revenant rockets.
By then the Revenant's had landed back on the ground and with roars started to fire another volley of rockets but this time it was beams of energy that shut those down and from the side came their three missing team members with Melody lowering her trident weapon, really her grandfather's trident that he had bequeathed to her upon leaving Atlantica to come to Auradon as their aqua ranger.
The Imps were very easy enough to take down and Miranda moved in with her bear claw blades to engage a Revenant up close and only then did she noticed that the right hand was non existent, instead replaced with a hook. "I'm pretty sure that's been copyrighted by Captain Hook." Miranda remarked as the Revenant tried to strike at her. "Ye might be infrigin' on copyright." The Highlands ranger raised her blade and brought it down, breaking the skeletal arm off of the monster. "I may have just saved ya some trouble."
"I think these guys might be more into evil than anyone on the isle could ever be." Mal noted as she moved in close as well and swept out her leg to try to trip a Revenant but it seemed to have little effect. "Alright be that way." The purple ranger sighed and slammed her dragon's eye staff into the skeletal head and shattering it, which caused it to crumble and dissolve away. "Slightly disturbing and slightly cool."
"Coolurbing?" Lonnie proposed as she moved in to deal with another Revenant. "Distruool?"
" Mal is right, what you Auradon kids are doing with the English language may still be the most evil thing of all." Evie remarked as the blue ranger unleashed her storming mirror attack on another of the Revenant's, making it crumble and dissolve.
"We've heard you guys talk too." Audrey reminded her. "You're not doing the language any favors either." Then Chad landed in front of her and she took a step back and raised her bow. "Stay back or I'll cut you to pieces Chad, I swear."
"Swearing is so unladylike like Audrey." Chad taunted the red ranger. "Don't make me teach you a lesson or two."
Jay jumped in and slammed into Chad and then struck with his soul scimitar. "The only one who needs some lessons is you Chad, and although I never thought of myself as a teacher I'll gladly be the one to put you in your place." The black ranger retorted as the dark warrior used his Maledict blade to block the attack. "And I bet you can't summon anymore of those demons if someone is keeping you from standing around."
And by then the Imps were gone and there were only four Revenant's still standing. All the rangers were ganging up on the skeletal demons except Jay now.
That was when some of the civilians appeared and started to get in the way of the rangers as they were trying to deal with the monster's. "Hey what the heck is this about?" Melody questioned as she tried to move a person out of the way so she didn't hit them. "Come on guys."
But Amy could feel nothing inside that person's mind, or any of the others for that matter. It was like they were simply being controlled. She glanced around but before she could say anything a large but thin black monster that almost seemed spindly leapt out and struck Will and Ruby out of the way. It seemed to have wings though they didn't seem stable enough to fly but the right hand was replaced by a large double sided blade almost similar to the green ranger's recursive blade.
"About time Dark Strings." Chad said. "Could have used your help a couple of Revenant's ago."
"It's not so easy to get control of panicked idiots." The monster called Dark Strings glared as Ben moved in to attack the monster with the sword only for the creature to block with his own bladed arm. And those people were now trying to get in Ben's way as well
"Audrey, Ally, Jordan, fall back and keep an eye for any Revenant rockets." Mal commanded. She and her friend's would do their best to avoid hurting people, but she already knew not to take chances on those skeletal demon things returning the sentiment. And now they needed to deal with the four remaining demons without hurting the people, not to mention the monster itself.
"Let go." Carlos said as he batted away another person.
Aquiella moved toward a Revenant but another person reached out to grab her. She slid to the right, intending to dodge and continue her attack but the orange ranger underestimated her controlled assailant and the person whirled and wrapped their arms around her chest. "Hey, bad touching." She scolded despite the zombie like state and then let her body go limp so that she could slip downward and through the hold on her.
"And somehow we have to take out these Revenant's." Melody said as she shot one of them with her trident. It reacted as it hit but it wasn't enough to take it down.
"Alright well let's start with a direct approach." Ruby stated as she got a hold of her long hair and tossed it toward a flagpole sticking out of a shop. Two brainwashed people tried to reach for her as she leapt up and on top of the flagpole.
"That's how you end up with split ends." Audrey called out to her.
"Hair advice later fashion queen." Jordan pointed out as she used her lamp cannon to deflect rockets aimed at Mal and Carlos that none the less probably would have caused splash damage to the civilians still around them.
Ruby ignored her two friends as she then leapt up into the air and used her hair again as a weapon, this time tossing it around a Revenant, pinning its arms and then coming down on it as hard as she could. It was driven to the ground with a resounding impact that certainly would have been very bad to see happen to a human. The jet pack on its back seemed to rupture and the ruby ranger rolled out of the way as the skeletal demon got up, but before it could either rise up into the air again or fire more rockets the jet pack exploded and took the demon with it.
"Yes, one down." Amy said happily.
"Aye, and three to go." Miranda said as she jumped onto a barrel, launched herself from that barrel onto the side of a building, then another before leaping at a Revenant turning to face her. She brought her grizzly blades around and down, bringing the sharp edges of her weapons into the rocket launchers on its shoulders. As the demon descended she brought her feet around into its chest, possibly the only part of it strong enough to support a person's weight until it hit the ground. The highlands ranger then removed her blades and then brought it down to sever the skeletal head from the neck.
And Mal shrugged at that. "Well, slightly gruesome but completely necessary." She concluded idly.
Two rockets were blocked by arrows from Audrey's silver bow as Will slid toward the demon and then raised his recursive sword up, the two sharp edges on side slashing into the jet pack of the Revenant and causing it to spiral out of control for a moment before causing it to explode. "Make that one." He said.
"So let's make it zero." Ben said as he tossed the Praeleanthor sword at the last remaining Revenant. It twirled around almost like Aquiella's water boomerang, avoiding any humans by either luck or design and struck the last of the skeletal demons in the chest, doing enough structural damage to cause it to disintegrate as easily as the others had.
That only left Chad, who was clashing with Jay. And Dark Strings, who had the mind controlled people to use against the rangers with no idea how to deal with them without injuring the innocent. "So, uh, M...what do we do here?" Evie asked.
The purple ranger could only think of one thing. "Keep them at bay, we can't hurt them. But I can hurt Dark Strings by going dragon on him." She stated as she activated her battlizer. The armor assemble all over her body. Claws grew up over the armored hands and the same thin tendrils that extended from the head of her dragon zord appeared on her helmet The power building in the dragon's eye staff shined with a mix of purple and black as she rose into the sky.
"What is this?" Dark Strings asked. Mal wondered if these creatures truly never got a briefing of any kind when they were sent to deal with her ranger team or if they were just that dumb. The mind controlled citizens couldn't reach the purple ranger and she was hoping she could control her battlizer power enough to avoid hurting anyone.
Dark Strings launched several black strings at the purple ranger as if he planned to try to control her but she used her dragon's eye staff to bat them aside like it was nothing...which thanks to the magic inside of it, it was basically nothing. She used the ribbon like tendrils to act as binding by wrapping the monster up and then flying upwards, using all the strength she (and the morphing grid) could master and tossed him up. There seemed to be no limit on the 'strings' that were controlling the citizens and Mal hoped that wasn't a bad thing for them as she unleashed the same meteor attack that her dragon zord as well as aiming her dragon's eye staff and unleashing a beam of energy at him.
It was of no surprise that it was enough power to destroy the monster.
"Ah what a waste." Chad sighed in annoyance. "That monster is dead." And as he knew that would free the mind controlled, they all fell to the ground and that meant the other rangers would be on him. And he could summon more demons but it seemed futile. And besides, they had a new agenda, so as much as he hated it he would have to take a step back. "Later loser." He sneered at Jay before vanishing.
"Loser? Has he looked in the mirror lately?" Melody questioned.
"Do they even have mirrors where ever they're staying at?" Audrey questioned. "Now that's scary, imagine never being able to check and see if your hair looks good or if your make up is on right."
"Yeah that sounds horrid." Evie agreed, shuddering a little bit as she folded up her mirror force shield.
"Sometimes I think it's a good thing I'll never understand you girls." Carlos sighed.
Mal was descending to her friends, catching most of that conversation. "Well luckily for all of us we should never have to worry about rather we'll have access to mirrors or not." She smirked. "And that looks to be that. How are the people?"
"They're alive." Lonnie said. "Looks like they'll be recovering any time now." Even as the pink ranger said that some of them were in fact stirring, trying to figure out what had happened.
"I bet Ellie and Alex will be sad that they missed this." Jordan noted. "Nothing like attacks against our lives to make us closer right?" The rangers made their way to an alley and powered down.
"Well another job well done." Ben said as he wrapped his arm around Mal and kissed the top of her head. "But you know what that means right?"
"I'm hoping that means a party of some sort." Amy admitted sheepishly. She really knew what it meant, even without her empathic powers.
"Nope." Jay sighed. "It means that we have to catch up on our school work now." He shook his head and shrugged. "Maybe I should have just let Chad kill me." He deadpanned.
Audrey shot him a small glare. "Don't even joke about that Jay." She retorted and the black ranger held his arms up in half apology and half surrender to the Auradon princess. Together they made their way back to Auradon Prep.
The rest of the day surprisingly went smoothly and everyone agreed to meet for breakfast the next morning. Time seemed to fly and again there were no attacks, not even the demon taunting that Audrey was almost felt like was common for her to endure even though it had been a while since anything concrete had happened in that regard.
Mal had gotten up that morning to find she was alone, but that was typical as Amy rose early to go swimming with Aquiella and Melody. It was ironic to the purple haired girl that her little sister could swim so well considering they had grown up on the isle of the lost, where swimming was not typically taught. But then again when one of her best friend's was a mermaid and the other was genetically a mermaid she supposed that would make them expert teachers. After showering she realized she was running late but was not surprised to meet Evie in the hall, also running late.
Mal the eldest daughter of Maleficent and Evie the daughter of the Evil Queen Grimholde rushed to meet their friends at their typical table for breakfast before school started. They found that everyone seemed to be running late, although they found Audrey the daughter of Aurora and Phillip with Lonnie the daughter of Mulan and Shen already there."About time." Audrey teased them. "I thought you VK's were early risers."
Mal rolled her eyes in amusement. "Note how Jay and Carlos aren't here yet." She commented.
"I guess coming back from an intergalactic journey to save another Earth can really take it out of a person." Lonnie speculated as she reached for her bottle of orange juice. They had recently returned from a sinister plan by a very old enemy to end their legacy and allow a bipedal race of alien triceratops called Triceratons to destroy the Earth. "And then dealing with a mind controlling monster and more demons on top of that."
Audrey waved suddenly and they turned to see her waving at Jay the son of Jafar dressed in a black tank and black jeans with his long hair behind him, Carlos the son of Cruella Devil in a yellow shirt and black pants and Ben the son of Belle and Adam aka The Beast coming toward them. Mal beamed as well at the sight of her newly kinged boyfriend.
As the three of them came closer though they were shocked to see the four girls suddenly vanish in front of their eyes. "Wow, what just happened?" Carlos asked.
"I don't know." Ben said. "But I think we better go talk to Fairy Godmother and see if she can find out for us."
"Uh, guys." Jay said as he leaned down and scooped up Audrey's iPhone. He saw Evie's, Lonnie's and Mal's lying on the ground too. "Wherever they went, let's hope they don't need these." He said as he reached for Lonnie's. Ben recovered Mal's iPhone and Carlos recovered Evie's.
"That...can't be good." Ben sighed. Together the three guys headed toward the command center. They were going to try to wait until they knew more before contacting the others...