"I know you're worried about Audrey." Lonnie said to Jay as gently but firmly as she could. "And Mal too, but right now we need to stay focused and beat Infernal Flame before we can find them." She twirled her hurricane tessens in her hands as she wondered just how they were supposed to do that.
"I know, I know." Jay assured her. He was a bit more worried about Audrey because he was sure Chad had something to do with it. If he kept up at this rate he was terrified they would find the brunette princess in a far worse condition than they ever had. He just kept getting too close for his comfort. But he was worried for Mal too, how far had she fallen down? Was she okay? Was she even still alive?
"How do we even beat this thing?" Evie wondered. They couldn't' get in close to him because he could burn them with a touch. Lonnie's hurricane would just cause more fire in the already burning towers and Evie's powers would just cause the same amount of damage, to say nothing about the fact she couldn't reflect them.
"Don't suppose we can treat this thing like a birthday candle cake?" Lonnie suggested jokingly. The Asian princess expected the look of derision from the monster but even through the helmets she felt the look of confusion from her three isle friends. "Okay, didn't register." She noted, wondering which one of them had a birthday coming so they could remedy that.
Infernal Flame rushed toward Lonnie and aimed a downward punch right at her. She dodged out of the way but was not too surprised, though perhaps somewhat disheartened, to see him leaving welts of fire to make the situation even worse.
"Um, hey, are we going to end up suffocating while we're fighting up here? Or being roasted alive?" Jay suddenly wanted to know anxiously.
"We shouldn't roast as long as we don't step directly into the fires." Carlos answered him simply. "Our ranger suits should stand up to any heat that a fire generates. The suits also come with their own filtration systems good for six hours."
"Well that's great." Jay said. "We'll be dead or out of here long before that."
"I'd rather be out of here than dead." Evie pointed out. She then wondered if that were something that Mal and Audrey could say or not.
"I wouldn't hold my breath on that rangers." Infernal Flame said and tossed several fireballs as them, this time they moved rapidly enough that it sent them flying back hard. Carlos let out a loud gasp as he very nearly landed in one of the fires.
"Is there any way we could generate more water?" Aquiella asked. She wanted enough to take out the Doomfire monster that was standing in front of them, with only a huge wall of fire behind them. She thought if the monster was destroyed that would take out the fire.
"I don't know if we have anything this far up that would give us what we need." Jane said softly. She raised the magic wand as if trying to figure out a spell that would help but was drawing a blank. Then Doomfire lashed out and struck Jane, Aquiella and Melody hard, sending them flying, very nearly into the fire wall.
"Is there anything we can do?" Amy asked Alex.
Alex grit his teeth as he watched. He could already feel this monster's fire was stronger than his own; anything he tried would be useless at best and even more harmful at worse. That meant Amy was limited too and if Aquiella needed more water to be effective than Amy was also out of luck right now. "I don't know." He said.
Doomfire launched an attack at them now and Amy grabbed Alex's arm before making them intangible so the attack went right through them. She knew it wouldn't last long though as she pushed them out of the way.
"Alright, let's see how much this will do." Aquiella said as she crossed her arms over her chest and raised her hands to summon her weapons. Two boomerangs appeared in her hand but they did not look wooden, they looked slightly reddish like precious coral. "Let's see what he thinks of my coral boomerangs." She unleashed her weapons.
They sliced through the air at an angle and slashed Doomfire across the back. He let out a roar as he turned to face the three girls. The new orange ranger caught her weapons, glad they weren't made out of wood or else touching the monster would have destroyed them. In fact, she could still feel a bit of the heat the weapons had collected.
"We're going to need a few more tricks like that if we want to be able to stop this thing." Jane said even as she and Melody placed their weapons together to unleash a strong magical burst that came through the trident. Doomfire blocked it but at least couldn't disperse it send it back.
"I do have one idea here." Aquiella said as she raised her boomerangs again. This time she concentrated on the water that was in her iPhone and allowed it to replicate itself along the boomerangs. She then tossed them at the monster, one striking it in the back as the other struck the chest upon the first hits recoil. It seemed to do slightly more damage but certainly not enough to make a difference right now.
"I could try to reinforce the water coating." Amy suggested to Aquiella.
"It's a nice idea love." Aquiella said to her with a soft smile. "But what we need is more water than we're going to find around here."
Ben tried to attack Volcano Rocket but was blocked and then slashed back hard. Before the young king could react the monster placed his foot down hard on Ben's sword holding wrist. He leaned down and picked up the Praeleanthor sword, and then tossed it in the fire.
"No!" Ben called out in shock. He didn't power down but he heard an unidentified man's voice in his head. You will never find it. Almost as if he were hearing an echo of the past in that voice, maybe relating to that first weapon that Amber had spoken of.
"You'll be following it Auradon Knight." Volcano Rocket said to him. "It's time for your end."
"Don't be counting yer chickens before they hatch." They heard as the Highlands Ranger kicked the monster off of Ben. "Ye never what might be hiding in those eggs." She slashed the monster with her grizzly blades and send him falling backwards.
"Thanks Miranda." Ben said. For a moment he could imagine Amber doing for her teams what the red headed Irish girl had just done for him. He wondered if that was common for purple rangers. "He tossed my sword into the fire though."
"Something must have gone wrong then." Miranda observed. "Mal told me that when your first sword was destroyed that you lost your powers, and yet here ye are, still armored up and everything."
Ben bit his lip. "You're right." He agreed. "But where is my sword then?"
"Hey, you're not out of the woods yet." Volcano Rocket interjected as he launched right at the two rangers.
"No, but neither are you." Will said as he stepped in between his two friends and the rocket monster. He raised his recursive sword and caught the monster in between the top blades and then shot his arms up, sending the monster sprawling to the ground hard.
"One's good and two is better." Ben said. "Thanks Will."
"We all look out for each other." The green ranger reminded the young king with a nod. "Now let's see what we can do about this monster. We need to get to Alex and the girls before we can get into that tower and rescue Lonnie and the others."
"Stopping one attack doesn't mean you can defeat me." Volcano Rocket said and then unleashed another burst of fire balls from its tail right at the two rangers and the knight, who rolled out of the way.
Miranda let out a gasp as she stood and found herself standing in front of the firewall. She had only been inches away from being burnt. Then she exclaimed, "Well what do ye know?"
"Oh, my head." Mal moaned. She wasn't quite sure when she had lost consciousness. The last thing she remembered was falling a long way down. She had just enough sense to realize it had to have been further down than they thought. "This place must have a couple sub basements." She mused.
She flinched in pain as she saw her leg was trapped under some rubble. She summoned her dragon's eye staff and placed it under the rubble, moving it up to slide her leg out. She knew if that had happened when she wasn't transformed she would now have a broken leg. Even still she felt kind of stiff.
Then she remembered she had one other problem. For the most part all she could see was fire. "I don't have a spell to get me through this." She mumbled. She was able to find an opening she could slip through but she wasn't familiar with the area and she saw no sign of a stairway up. "Doug, can you hear me?" She questioned but was not surprised to find he either could not or her intercom had been damaged in the fall. "Swell."
She moved past more flaming rubble and the gasped slightly as she saw something in the fire, literally. She raised her staff before realizing that should be impossible. Even more impossible was the figure was not human at all. If anything it seemed to be like a floating chandelier. "Great, just what I need. Brain damage." She murmured.
But as the purple ranger moved closer she realized that the figure was not dissipating or doing anything except moving deeper into the fire. She seemed to instinctively follow it, realizing as she did so that she didn't even bother to make sure she wasn't walking into a fiery conflagration in the process. In a few minutes the figure vanished and Mal seemed to regain her senses.
"Okay, what was that about?" She wondered. Then she realized two things. The first was that she saw the stairs that would lead up. Somehow that figure had guided her to the next level. Then she knelt down. "This isn't a gem like ours. What is this?" She asked and then reached for the object, a small glowing star that still felt crystalline. Upon contact it started to glow and she stood up. Mal had the feeling she had to go upstairs and she headed toward the staircase.
Volcano Rocket launched out more fireballs and Ben used his shield to block the attack, and then Will jumped off the young king's shoulders to bring his recursive sword down onto the monster. As the green ranger landed with a crouch Volcano Rocket hit the ground hard.
The boys could find no signs of Miranda. She may have been hurt; she may have been trapped by the fireballs that had separated them from her. They didn't want to consider the fact that she may have become a victim of the fire. In fact Ben was not looking forward to any of the casualty reports from this disaster.
"Running out of steam boys?" Volcano Rocket asked them mockingly. "Let me see if I can help you along with that." Again the monster formed into a rocket but this time brought his hands up and unleashed a large burst of steam at them, blinding them just long enough to impact right at their feet, sending them to the ground hard as the monster landed on his own feet. "I'm still fired up."
"Well that's good because ye don't want to lose steam around us." Miranda said as she leapt her way over the fire with one hand behind her back. "We have more energy that ye can ever seek coming, and I have to warn ye my mother has always called me a spitfire."
"I'm sure the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Will said. "We thought you were dead, glad to be disappointed."
"That's nae the only surprise I have for ye boys." Miranda said and from her back pulled out the Praeleanthor sword. "Looks like something else is capable of surviving the fires."
"The Praeleanthor sword." Ben said happily.
"That's impossible." Volcano Rocket growled angrily.
"Something tells me this can survive the flames of the underworld itself." Miranda said as she gave Ben back his sword. "These fire monsters have nothing on that."
Ben felt a lot better to hold the mythic and seemingly sentient sword in his hand again. "So glad for this." He admitted with a smile. Then he looked to Miranda. "You found it?"
"Hanging around in the fire." Miranda explained. "It cleared a small area around the flame where I landed. My bear spirit cleared the way for me and I grabbed it. As I was coming to your aid it cleared a path for me."
"That shouldn't be." Volcano Rocket protested. "It's just a weapon."
"I'm not sure it is." Will said with some admiration. "But it's enough of a weapon for us to take this freak out and get to Alex and the girls."
"And one step closer to Mal and Lonnie." Ben added with a knowing glance at the green ranger.
Miranda was kind of glad she didn't have to prioritize any one person over the rest of the team, though she understood why those in love felt that way. What mattered is that their ultimate goals still completely meshed. "Then let's do it." She decided.
"I don't think so." Volcano Rocket said as he again reverted to rocket mode.
"You're just way too reliant on that." Will noted. "Let's show him why that's a bad thing." Ben extended the Praeleanthor sword and Will extended his recursive sword. Miranda placed a grizzly claw on each of the boy's weapons and together they unleashed a stream of energy at the volleying monster. When it impacted it sent him straight into the fire and there was a massive explosion that took out some of the surrounding fire.
"Looks like we have our way." Ben said to the two rangers. "Let's go."
"That's one monster down." Gregory with a note of disappointment.
"He was the weakest of the three." Maleficent pointed out dismissively. "Doomfire is more than capable of handling them anyway, especially since the Arendelle 'dame princess' and the other three rangers are still out of the area."
"That may be true." Paradias said. "And so far we have no idea where your elder daughter or the other princess went after being forced out of the top of the tower." None of them had bothered tracking Mal as she had fallen too far for them to think she could be of any good now and whatever Maledict's blade did for Chad had a detrimental effect on technology half the time. He narrowed his eyes at the screen. "But this still has the potential to go either way."
They quickly found Alex and the girls but found that they had something even worse to worry about than Volcano Rocket as Doomfire unleashed a flamethrower at them and struck them all down hard. "Amy! Guys!" Ben called out.
"Nice timing guys." Melody said. "We could use all the help we can get. But that explosion…."
"That was another monster who thought he was a rocket launcher." Will told her. "We took care of him." Then he paused a second. "Nice boomerangs Aquiella." He said.
"Thanks." The mermaid girl responded. "They work rather well and I can even give it a nice coating of water. But not enough to damage Doomfire I'm sorry to say."
"We need more water than any of us could make." Jane said.
"We'd need a rainstorm." Ben noted. "And not just here." He indicated their surroundings. "A lot of Auradon is practically on fire right now. We would need a rain storm strong enough to help the entire land."
"Oh, come on." Melody sighed as she placed her hand on her head. "What is wrong with me? I should have thought about this sooner."
"Thought of what?" Amy asked her now.
Aquiella looked to her cousin. "What?" She asked.
"Undine had Daedalus helping her when she first attacked us." Melody explained to her. "You remember that sea witch, Ursula's daughter?" Aquiella nodded. "I made a request for assistance and got it, and maybe I can ask for it again."
"I kind of remember that." Amy supplied. At that point she had started feeling Mal's pain, and her twin sister felt hers as well, thanks to a specific venom that Maleficent had given the sea witch to infect her daughter with. "It was large enough to tackle that Daedalus thing back into the ocean."
"And maybe I can get it to help us again." Melody said. "Just try to keep Doomfire off my back."
"Easier said than done." Miranda told her. "But we'll certainly try to do it."
"It will be an interesting challenge for me then." Doomfire said happily. "And when I get past them I can tear apart the Aqua ranger with practical ease." He charged right at them, knocking aside Amy and Jane hard. He then unleashed a huge fiery blast that sent Will flying backwards hard.
Miranda moved in and tried to attack only to find that the things claws on its hands were stronger than they looked. She couldn't seem to cut her way through them. "Oh, you are a hard clawed one, aren't ye?" She questioned.
"More than you realize." He said and then unleashed flames from them, which she barely managed to avoid only to get gashed across the chest hard from the monster and that sent her flying, again very nearly into the fire.
Ben raised his Praeleanthor sword. Doomfire struck and he blocked the attack but the sword caught in between two of his large claws. Even the mystic sword couldn't seem to penetrate the claws. "Talk about over armored." Ben noted. "And just on the claws on top of it."
He responded by slashing the Auradon Knight with his free clawed hand hard and sent him stumbling back with a hard landing.
Aquiella added a coat of water to her coral boomerangs and tossed them the Doomfire. This time he saw it coming and knocked them aside hard, though growling a bit at the water coating that still seemed to sting him just a bit.
"I'm getting tired of your little attempts there girl." He snarled and rushed forward. He clamped one of massive hands around Aquiella's waist, and for a moment the mermaid girl was sure that he would snap her in half. With his other hand he deflected the boomerangs that had been heading back to their owner. Then he glanced back toward Melody and with the newest ranger in tow started toward the one ranger he hadn't hurt this time.
Audrey paced Chad worriedly, her elemental bow raised again and ready to strike. Not that she exactly expected it to do much good in this case. Chad might not be able to dodge the arrows but he could block them well enough with his shield.
"I can't wait to see more of you Audrey." Chad said with a leer in his voice. "Not that I haven't had good looks on the beach before, but what I want to see goes beyond even that."
"You're disgusting Chad." Audrey said. "That won't happen." Even Ben had never gotten that far with her. "In fact between you and me I'd rather you not see me at all." With that she unleashed another arrow at him. He blocked with the shield just as she planned, because with the impact there was a large flash and Audrey dove behind some fallen rubble that so far had not caught fire.
Chad blinked his eyes to see nothing in front of him. "Wow, nice move." He said with a small laugh. "Of course I'm still blocking the stairs so you still can't escape. I can certainly wait you out."
Audrey almost wished she could throw her voice but knew most people couldn't do that unless they were ventriloquist's, a talent she thought was a combination of creepy and lame, ironically because of the same reason; the wooden puppet most of them used.
"Come on out my pretty little princess." Chad said tauntingly. "I promise before it's over you'll be enjoying it almost as much as I will."
Audrey felt her stomach churning and had to fight the urge to throw up. She wondered if the former prince would cook up in that suit of metal armor before she would. That might be her only chance. She moved quietly behind a pillar. The good news was it was obstructed by the fire and smoke, which her helmet protected her from smoke inhalation. The bad news was that put her even further away from the stairs.
"Come out, come out wherever you are." Chad said in a sing song voice. He was enjoying this hunt, Audrey knew. Probably not as rewarding as fondling her in her sleep but certainly more challenging.
If I remember right he's still pretty close to the stairs. Audrey mused. Of course he would be though, he had the only key to something she wanted; out of this area and back to her friends so they could find Mal.
Then Chad tossed Maledict's blade and it slashed right through the pillar that Audrey was behind and she couldn't help but let out a little gasp as it carved through only an inch above her head. She quickly rolled out of the way of the falling debris.
Chad was in front of her where he kicked her hard in the chest and then slapped the elemental bow out of her hand where it went flying down the stairs. They both heard the clatter as it descended for a moment and then silence as he placed his foot on her stomach hard. "It's not looking good for you my fair princess." Chad said mockingly as he placed Maledict's blade above her head. "Now what do I have to damage to remove your ranger shell and get to the more delectable parts underneath?"
Audrey tried her best to struggle but wasn't having much luck as she had no room to move around with. "You realize anything you do to me, my friends will make you pay for it." She said to him.
Chad laughed. "Most of your friends are going to be dead soon now if they aren't already." He said to her. "Your other little friends upstairs are playing a game of Russian roulette with Infernal Flame. The rest who haven't chosen the worst time to play escort services are going against Doomfire. And poor Mal is probably out of the game after that little tumble she took." He shrugged. "Not really planned that way but we'll take what we can get. And speaking of taking…" he moved to strike her waist with his blade, hoping it would power her down.
Outside the rain of fire was continuing on, the fact that Volcano Rocket was gone seemed to have no effect. Fairy Godmother feared only stopping Infernal Flame would stop the rain of fire and it seemed as if it would only be a matter of time, and not a great deal of it, before the tower came down from fire damage, along with everyone inside. Worse, the fire surrounding it would likely cause tremendous damage to everyone and everything around it. It would be more than enough to destroy every one of her children that had not left the premises.
Time was rapidly running out.