The Imps hissed at the Auradon teens and the two young princesses and they started to slowly stalk their prey. The Caballero del Infierno's waited and the Empezaban's narrowed their shoulders and waited.
"I think they remember us guys." Carlos noted deadpan.
"Oh, you think?" Jay shot back. "Hey at least we have more space to fight them than the Aquabase."
"And less protection than we did." Audrey added. Since they had not been able to bring their iPhone's there they were not able to morph.
"At least there's no Chad and no people being controlled by a monster with strings around." Lonnie reminded them,
The purple haired girl ignored her friend's banter. "Amy, hang back and protect the princesses." Mal instructed her twin sister. She had told her sister that for one reason; she could extend her intangibility to anyone she touched so if one of the demons tried to attack the princesses as long as she was in physical contact the attacks would go right through her. "Guys, we may not have powers but we have our skills and we have our weapons, so let's get to work." She declared.
Jay opened the bag and tossed it into the air, where it fluttered open and the weapons came tumbling out and down.
Amy caught her weapon first; it had the length of a staff but it had two large sharp looking roses on it though Isabel could tell they were some sort of metal though she wasn't sure she had ever seen that type before. She held the weapon out in front of her and ready to fight or protect.
Mal caught her weapon which was a staff that on one end though was what looked to be the shape of a dragon claw and in the center seemingly being held was an amber jewel that glowed almost like an eye. She held it gem side out.
Audrey backed up a bit as she caught a gleaming silver bow. Sofia could see that the ends of the bow were very sharp though and surmised that it could also be used as a close range weapon. She pulled the string back and several arrows formed from out of nowhere which explained why a quiver of arrows had not fallen with the bow.
Jay caught a gleaming scimitar and twirled it around like an expert swordsman. He in fact took a stance that unknown to the two princesses was learned from another friend of theirs, strangely enough a talking mutant turtle named Leonardo.
Evie caught a small little compact that she placed in the back of the mirror and it grew to the size of a shield and folded out to reveal what looked to be glass but Isabel was sure it wasn't fragile at all.
Carlos caught two daggers that almost looked like the claws of a dog and twirled them around before getting ready to fight.
Lonnie caught two objects that looked to be like the kind of fan that Hildegard or Amber sometimes carried around but were made of the same kind of mystery metal that the other weapons seemed to be made of. She unfurled them both and Sofia remembered reading somewhere they were called tessens.
Melody of course already had her weapon her grandfather's trident, ready to go. Aquiella caught a boomerang in her hands and as soon as the metal came in contact with her skin a sheen of water coated it.
But to Sofia and Isabel's surprise Ben caught a very elegant looking sword. Isabel had seen enough maruvian artifacts to realize that it had to be very old and probably very powerful. She was sure the sword itself wasn't maruvian but still very impressive. Even more of a shock was the demons let out a roar and seemed to hesitate just a little.
"What is that about?" Isabel asked. She'd had her share of demon encounters and they never reacted like that. If the younger Avaloran princess was any judge of demonic character, she would have given their reaction a label she never thought them capable of; fear.
"Ben's weapon is called the Praeleanthor sword." Amy explained to them. "It's a very ancient weapon that friends of ours retrieved directly from the underworld itself. It's semi sentient too, several of our friends including Aquiella have used the sword and heard it talk to them." She smiled at them. "Just wait and see what it can do, it's so awesome."
Three Imps leapt out at them and Audrey released her arrows. They hit dead on and the demons fell back and vanished where they had come from. "She's really good." Sofia said with a small smile.
"Yeah, we were shocked and impressed too." Jay told her. They had learned that early in their ranger careers, back when it seemed almost impossible for VK's to believe that Audrey would be a good ranger on their team though she had proven herself multiple times by then, just as they themselves had proven themselves to Audrey.
With a roar one of the Caballero del Infierno's raised one of its large arms and flung a green fireball at them. Amy let her lance fall from her right hand and said, "Sofia, grab a hold of Isabel's hand." The Enchancia princess did so and Amy grabbed her hand. They both gasped in amazement as the fireball passed through the three of them.
"No firing those things at my sister." Mal chided as she started forward, placing her staff on the ground and using it like a pole vault to leap over some Imps and kicked the thing in the chest. It stumbled back but didn't fall like she had hoped. "Dang it, forgot that I don't have powers."
The Imps started attacking. Lonnie dodged out of the way of one fireball from an Imp and took it out with her tessens. "I have to admit I kind of wish we had the neon armor to help us." It was a coating that she, Jane, Evie and Doug had repurposed to help them increase their speed and strength but they couldn't use it without their ranger powers. That in itself had been inspired by a chemistry experiment that had been conducted by Evie, Jordan and Mal for one of Lonnie's hip hop performances and again been used for their neon lights ball.
"We got this." Carlos said as he dodged an attack from an Imp and came up with both of his weapons, taking the demon down. An Imp threw a fireball at him and he let out a gasp of shock and stepped back.
"Yeah, I see how you got it." Jay teased his friend as he cleaved through one Imp and started toward one of the Empezaban's. "I'll deal with this Revenant before he starts in with those heat seeking rocket barrages of his." They had learned not to long ago at all that they could do that.
"I'll get the other one." Melody said as she started toward the second one and raised the magical trident.
Two Imps tried to take her out but Aquiella tossed her boomerang and took them out, then caught her weapon easily. "I've got your back." Aquiella informed her cousin.
"Hey Bennie-boo, I think it's time you show them what your sword can do." Mal said to her boyfriend and the two laughed a little. It used to be Audrey's nickname for Ben when they dated but Mal and her friends had also learned the name had come from even further back when for Halloween Ben's inspired costume was simply a white shirt that had boo! printed on it which had made Audrey laugh.
Isabel couldn't believe they could joke in a situation like this, not that she or Sofia understood the inside joke anyway. She wondered if this was some kind of defense mechanism or something. But if somehow they could win this, maybe the why's of it didn't matter, the results did.
"Sounds like a good idea to me." Ben said to him. He twirled the Praeleanthor sword and headed into the fray. For a moment Sofia wondered what she was missing because there were already five Imps heading toward him. Granted they were rather easy to kill but the Caballero del Infierno was coming up right behind them.
One Imp jumped at Ben and he took it out with one upward slash. Two more tried to flank him but he whirled around and cleaved through them. The other two threw fireballs at him but the young king knocked them aside with his sword, one of the fireballs even took out the Imp. He moved in and took out the last one just as the Caballero del Infierno approached.
Sofia and Isabel exchanged looks of concern but Amy only said, "Here comes the good part."
Ben was perfectly used to the voice in his head that echoed Use us. A byproduct of the race that made several artifacts, including said sword. But Isabel and Sofia jumped just a bit as they heard the voice too and glanced around. Amy looked at them curiously, her empathic ability made her feel their shock even if she hadn't been near them. "What's wrong?" She asked them.
"The sword just spoke." Sofia said. Granted the rose haired girl had already told them it would do that, but judging by the look on her face she didn't expect them to hear it.
"Is it supposed to do that?" Isabel asked now.
Amy nodded. "Well yeah. But what's weird is that you two heard it. Normally it's only the person using the sword." She replied.
Isabel didn't claim to understand why it made the difference but she thought she knew what it was. "It's because of our maruvian items, it has to be." She realized as she brushed the golden feather in her hair and Sofia clasped her amulet.
She nodded, a strand of her hair falling in her face which she had to move away from her face. She thought she understood it on principle even if she didn't know the power of the maruvian items."Still, here comes the cool part." Amy said.
Ben tossed his sword toward the Caballero del Infierno and struck the large demon right in the chest. Even more of a shock to the two girls, especially Isabel who had seen her older sister Elena pour everything into the scepter of light to stop the first one; it cleaved right through the demon like it was nothing as it dissipated.
"Oh wow." Isabel breathed.
The sword flew right back to Ben and he caught it just as easily as Aquiella had caught her boomerang.
One of the Empezaban's, or Revenants as Jay had called them, fired at Melody. She let out a little scream as she barely dodged it. "Oh, I forgot those things are heat seeking, man I miss the extra protection." She commented. It fired again but this time she used the power of the trident to take it out in midair. "Good thing they can be destroyed easily."
The skeletal demon took aim again but Aquiella tossed her boomerang at him. It struck the demon in the chest, which was coated in some sort of armor, but it was enough to cause it to flinch and lose its aim. Melody moved in with her magically powered trident and took it down, causing it to vanish.
The second Empezaban fired at Jay but Audrey pulled the string of her silver bow back and released two heat seeking arrows of her own to destroy the demon's projectiles. "Thanks babe." Jay called out and while the brunette princess was trying to figure out if she should take offense or not he moved in with his soul scimitar and leapt up, taking one of the launchers off the shoulder and then turning around, slamming the point of his weapon into the pack on its back, causing an explosion and the demon's disappearance.
That only left a few Imps and the last Caballero del Infierno left. Mal dodged under the massive swinging arm of the large demon and slammed her staff into its back. It roared and tried to turn on her but again the purple haired girl dodged, this time by back flipping away from the large demon.
"I wish I could use my armor." She mused, wanting nothing more than to release a draco meteor on the demon just as she had against the last monster they had fought. Then she realized that maybe with a spell she could or at least she could replicate the attack she wanted. As the Caballero del Infierno started toward her she pointed her staff jewel first at it. "Comet clash with fire, bring forth a strike full of rage." She recited.
"Don't even start." Evie warned Carlos as she used her weapon, the mirror shield, to reflect a fireball from an Imp right back at it and taking it out. He had a habit of mocking the spells Mal came up and even magic, starting back at seeing Maleficent's spinning wheel in the Auradon museum.
The Caballero del Infierno powered up a fireball and tossed it straight at Mal. Before Sofia could figure out what they should do about it a small comet struck and dissipated it. This was followed by what seemed like a rainstorm of comets though only around the large demon, and after several hits it too vanished.
The rest of the Imps had been finished off now as well. Just like that the demons were all gone, leaving Sofia and Isabel with their new friends. "Wow." Sofia said. "That was ah-mazing!"
"Can I see your sword?" Isabel asked Ben as she approached the king of Auradon.
"Be careful with that princess." Ben said as he handed it to her. It was heavier than she thought but she could just barely hold it as she looked at it.
"It feels warm." Isabel mused to herself. "Is that normal?"
"Pretty much." Mal said with some laughter as she wrapped an arm around Amy. In many ways Isabel reminded the purple haired girl of her rose haired twin.
"It's a weapon from an ancient civilization." Evie explained to them now as they all started to walk again to the location Elena and their family were supposed to be held at. "Friends of ours descended into the underworld to bring it to Ben and help restore his powers, they're tied to his sword and shield and…someone broke his original sword." No one had really told them though how this weapon had ended up in the underworld in the first place.
"And when it powered up it has that really strong attack that you just saw." Aquiella added. "I was the first one after Ben to use it." She recalled the girl's sleepover in which Chad had used something to knock out all the girl's except for Audrey, but at the time Aquiella had not had her ranger powers and so she had been immune. They were also the same ones to hear the terrible voice of the demons, the same one Christina, Elena and Isabel had heard the night the first Caballero invaded the castle...which unknown to them had been spoken at the aqua base on Earth in Mariner Bay.
Isabel handed Ben back his sword. "Are all of your weapons made out of the same material?" She now asked.
Evie shook her head. "Nope, our weapons were designed by our friend Jane and her mother Fairy Godmother, and she in turn got these kinds of schematics from an intergalactic wizard." She told them. "Whoever made that sword was probably even older than him."
"Um, so what's the plan?" Audrey asked now. "These demons are history but if that fortress place is anything like the base at Mariner Bay it'll be crawling with more of them." That ignored the evil sorceress herself or whatever human guards she had, though the latter group would hardly be a threat to them. Not only had Mal and Lonnie proven that upon their appearance but that was before their powerful weapons were in the picture.
Sofia looked down at her amulet in thought a moment before an idea hit her. "Shuriki is expecting us. The demons won't stand in our way. If it looks like Isabel and I showed up on our own they'll think that those demons succeeded in getting rid of you." As it was they had only been expecting four of the girls the two guards had seen and gotten beaten by, not the rest of their friends.
"They're only expecting four of us anyway." Lonnie reminded them. The amulet had only originally summoned her, Mal, Audrey and Evie.
"But you guys can't go in on your own, it's too risky." Melody pointed out.
"We'll look like we're going in on our own but we really won't be." Sofia replied and looked to Mal as she held her amulet in the palm of her right hand. "If you can do another spell then I think I know what we can do."
"I think I can manage that, plus I've got some great backup." Mal said as she ruffled Amy's hair, which earned her a sisterly glare of annoyance. "What have you got Princess Sofia?"
And so Sofia told them her plan,
Two Imps were walking behind Pierce but let out little squeals, unknown to him the two demons felt the destruction of their comrades at the hands of the Auradon team. None the less he ignored them as the field separated Elena and Naomi from the rest of the group, much to the despair of the royal guard, the royal sorcerer and his dying mermaid friend and Jorge. "Stand aside crown princess." Pierce said to her. He didn't care one way or another what happened to her. "I just want to talk with Naomi. We need to get reacquainted after over a year apart."
"Over my dead body." Elena stated. Everyone else hated her choice of words.
He went over to the girl's and pulled Naomi up by the arm, tearing the sleeve of her dress as he did so. Elena stood up and was blocked by one of the Imps. He looked over at Elena. "Maybe you would like a ring side view of how I got to know Naomi the first time." He taunted.
"Don't you dare." Elena warned him. She had only just learned a year before she had been released from the amulet of Avalor by Sofia and liberated her kingdom from Shuriki that this man had killed her best friend's mother and then raped her, that anger and disgust was forefront in her mind.
He only laughed, not just at the crown princess but at the fact Naomi tried to pull away from him. He swept her legs out from under her and dropped his spear, then reached down to start pulling up the hem of her dress.
Elena saw Sonya glare hatefully, wishing she could help. Jorge was slamming his fists against the field and Gabe looked angry. She saw Miranda and Roland try to keep the three kids from seeing what they expected to come next.
But Elena wouldn't let this happen. She might have been powerless to stop her friend's assault the first time because she was trapped in the amulet but she wouldn't let it happen this time. She dove past the Imp and picked up the fallen spear, jabbing it into the Imp's chest and causing it to dissipate before turning around and doing so to the other Imp.
Jorge was too worried about Naomi or he would have heard Gabe say, "So impressive, no wonder I like her so much."
But Elena wasn't done. As he continued to lift up the hem of Naomi's dress the crown princess moved in, and had to drop the spear as she grabbed Pierce's shoulder and spun him around, and as he tried to recover his wits she decked him across the jaw as hard as possible. Gabe loved the hit and was even more impressed when he saw the guard hit the ground with blood coming out of his nose.
"You little…" He started.
"I warned you." Elena said to him. "Don't press your luck." She glanced at Naomi who looked grateful for her friend's defense.
He looked ready to try to attack Elena, and the crown princess looked ready to fight him as well but then Elena was blasted hard by a burst of magic. She hit the field and the ground. Naomi rushed to her friend's side and was glad that Elena was already getting up herself.
"That's enough Pierce." Shuriki snapped at him. "I told you to wait for a reason." He stepped out and they say the Invocador reset the field as it was supposed to be. Shuriki went up and picked up the scepter of light from the Caballero del Infierno that held her foes items. "I saw what you did with this, and we don't want that again. It's time to destroy this thing."
"Leave it alone Shuriki." Elena demanded only to get laughed at.
She dropped it on the ground and tried her own spell to destroy it but to no avail. She looked to one of the Caballero del Infierno's and it tossed a fireball at it, but also to no effect.
"Oh Shuriki." They suddenly heard from the door. They saw Sofia and Isabel standing there alone, and Elena felt her knees go out on her. Naomi leaned next to her as she fought her despair.
"Sofia." Miranda gasped. They seemed to be alone and she wondered what her daughter was thinking.
"Alone are we girls?" Shuriki mocked them and laughed. She assumed the demon squad she had sent had killed the four teen girls the guards reported. That would make their campaign to take Auradon and Earth easier at least. But she did wonder where the demons had gone then? And why did the two little brats look so upbeat? "Coming back here was a terrible mistake. It was the only thing keeping your families alive." She motioned toward the two guards. "Make up for your early failure and get them."
"Isabel, Sofia. Go." Elena screamed in panic. She was almost furious with her little sister and chosen sister for doing something so apparently suicidal.
As the guards approached from out of nowhere Mal and Jay seemed to descend from the archway to kick them square in the chest and send them sprawling backwards though in reality Mal had cast a spell that mimicked Sofia's ability to grow and shrink, the perfect way to get them into the fortress.
On Elena's side Audrey, Amy, Ben and Melody also grew to normal size. On the side where Hildegard and the others were Carlos, Aquiella, Lonnie and Evie grew to normal size, basically surrounding them.
"Shuriki." Mal called out as she aimed her staff at the evil sorceress, jewel side out. "It's time to put an end to your little scheme."