"I think we need to discuss who exactly is out of it here Chad." Mal interrupted as she came up the stairs, Audrey's elemental bow across her shoulder by the string, her dragon's eye staff held in her hand. His strike to her waist had stopped when she had spoken. "I'm standing right here," It was a small exaggeration as she could still feel some pain the leg that had been trapped in the rubble. "And you're trying to force yourself on a girl who has absolutely no interest in you."
"Glad to see you survived." Chad said sarcastically.
Mal kicked a flaming rock away, glad she was transformed or otherwise that might have hurt. "You have no idea how many times I saw that on the Isle of the Lost." The purple ranger said conversationally. That got Audrey's attention too as she spoke little of that life, they all spoke little of it. "Being my mother's daughter I wasn't on the receiving end of that too much, but I saw it a lot with my own twin sister, who as you know is the exact opposite of me in that regard, and I saw it a lot with Evie when she and I became friends."
Chad laughed derisively. "Like it surprises me to know that your sister and Evie are two of the isle's biggest sl…" He started.
"Ah, ah." Mal said with a hint of menace in her voice. "I'm talking right now." She was actually aware that she sounded a bit like Maleficent with that statement. She aimed her staff at Chad and then launched a beam of energy at him, which he easily dodged. That allowed Audrey to roll to her feet and come to Mal.
"I'm so glad you're okay." Audrey said to her softly and added an even softer, "Thank you."
"Anytime." Mal said with a small smile. "You're one of my chosen sisters too after all." She shrugged off the bow and gave it to Audrey, who seemed just a little stunned to hear that admission.
"You can't just think…" Chad started but was interrupted again; this time by a glowing from Mal's hand. "What now?"
"What's that Mal?" Audrey asked.
The purple ranger held up the six sided gem that was in her hand as it floated up into the air a little bit. Then it split in two and the two pieces surrounded the two girls in swirls of bright yellow light. "Mal?" Audrey started. "I don't know." Mal answered.
Mal felt armor assemble all over her body. Claws grew up over the armored hands that reminded her of her dragon zord and then found her visions slightly blocked by the same thin tendrils that extended from the head of her dragon zord when she boarded it and it became like a Chinese dragon. She felt the power thrumming through her body and the power building in the dragon's eye staff. It shined with a mix of purple and black.
Audrey also felt armor assembled all over her body. It glowed with a mixture of red and pinks. She felt earrings slip out of her helmet and was already sure they were detachable and could then regrow in order to become mini weapons. Long elegant silk like ribbons emerged from over her shoulders, but one look at the shiny translucent showed that it wasn't nearly as fragile as one would expect, in fact it looked as firm as Ruby's hair, which she was sure would be a good weapon. She felt the same colored crystals that resembled her earring growing around her waist and then moving all around it like a skirt.
"What?" Chad asked in shock. "What is this?"
Mal shook her head, not entirely sure but Audrey knew because she had just recently had a fleeting thought about this when Chad attacked in the night in Atlantica. "We have battlizers." She said as she looked to Mal. "We both have them."
"So Mal looks like a monster and you look like a gemmed pink princess." Chad said dismissively. "It won't save you." With that he moved to attack…
Aquiella struggled to escape Doomfire's grasp but couldn't. She tried to scream a warning to Melody but his grip on her waist made it too hard to draw in the breath to scream. He was getting ready to close in on the aqua ranger right now.
Crystal cards lashed out and struck him hard. The monster growled in annoyance but it stopped his charge and forced him to drop Aquiella. She landed a bit hard on her feet, not used to catching her balance from any height. Ally was in front of her now. "Are you alright?" She asked, her British voice full of concern.
"Yes, and nice timing, thank you." Aquiella replied.
"Time for a spiral spear strike." Aziz announced, but he didn't attack the monster directly. He instead slammed the weapon into the ground and caused the monster to lose his balance. Jordan drew her lamp cannon and fired a beam of magical energy into him, forcing him back harder.
"Oh my pink, that's great timing." Amy said as she came to the genie girl. "Thank you so much."
"Anytime." Jordan promised.
Doomfire roared and started another charge before it got slammed into hard by a massive ice beam, where the ice Dame and princess of Arendelle Ellie showed up. She didn't let up as she continued her relentless icy assault. He was hot enough not to be taken out by the ice but she was strong enough to keep him more than occupied. "Time for you to cool off Doomfire." She said to him. "Nothing is going to stop us from helping our friends."
Alex laughed a little. "Hey, I think Ellie enjoys this more than she would ever want us to know." He replied.
Amy giggled a little and then she felt a surge of shock and pride. It wasn't from any of her team mates here, it was from further on. Only one person could have that kind of impact on her; Mal. "My sister is really happy about something." She revealed. "Something good must have just happened despite everything."
Without even really thinking about it the tendrils around Mal's armored head lashed out and slapped Chad hard. He didn't drop his weapons but he took several steps back. Mal then unleashed a huge ball of energy that she thought of a dragon pulse straight at Chad. Even trying to block it with his shield didn't help as he was slammed into the pillar that Audrey had tried to hide behind before the tables had turned.
Audrey raised her arms. The small gems on her earrings raised up as did the gems on her waist that acted as a skirt. She then flicked her fingers and the gems shot out and headed straight for the dark knight. He tried to block or knock them aside with his sword but to no avail as they all struck him and hard and fast. He rolled to the ground and rose on one knee to see the gems she had just used had just regenerated.
"Maybe it's time to see how you like being tied up." Mal stated as she levitated, not walked but levitated, toward Chad. The three tendrils on the helmet lashed out, two of them wrapping around his wrist and the last around his ankles, binding him and lifting him up. "Remember when you did that to Audrey? At least you don't have to worry about any of us trying to kiss you or even worse."
"Let me go you little freak." Chad spat at Mal.
Audrey again raised her hands, this time all the way up to above her head. Energy followed the movement up her body until it seemed as if moonlight invaded the area before it struck Chad hard several times. Mal released him as the final attack hit and he rolled to the side, armor smoking.
"Now let's see what you can to Mal." Audrey said.
"That will have to wait." Chad said angrily. "I'm out of here." He vanished without a parting taunt to the brunette princess, proving just pissed he really was at the turn of events.
Both girls looked at each other and nodded. They knew where they needed to go. For once the holes in the newly reburning tower would now pay off as they started to float their way up to the last floor and help their team deal with Infernal Flame.
The ground started to shake and everyone had to avoid losing their balance. "This isn't what we need on top of everything else." Aziz stated.
"No, this is a good thing." Melody said to him. "We're about to end these firestorms, but since we're not near the ocean there had to be another way to do this."
"The underground springs." Jordan said, remembering Evie falling into one a while ago. The good news there was that had resulted in her first face to face meeting with her step-sister Snow White and had also given her the compact addition to her magic mirror to make it the weapon it was today. "How is this going to help us though?"
One thing they noticed was the skies were getting gray, very gray. It seemed to be gradually putting an end to the fire storm that was being unleashed from the volcano but first they had to worry about first was getting rid of Doomfire. Not that he was nearly the threat he had been beforehand, now that Ellie had been releasing her icy barrage against him. Her attacks were starting to melt against him and that made it even worse since that was making it into water.
"Hey, maybe my powers can help yours now and it can make a difference." Amy said to Aquiella.
"That it might." Aquiella agreed as she raised her coral boomerangs. She used her own ability to coat it with water and then Amy touched the boomerangs herself, reinforcing that power.
"Aquiella, help Ellie keep that thing off guard." Aziz said. "We're going to use the lamp blaster to try to finish this guy off." He looked to Ally, Jordan, and Jane who nodded.
"We've got our own power to add to yers." Miranda said to Aziz as she looked to Ben and Will.
"Then Amy, Alex and I will be ready to help pick everyone up if somehow this doesn't work." Melody said. There wasn't much she could say right now; they didn't need either of them for these formations.
With the reinforced boomerangs in hand, Aquiella moved in to help Ellie with the frontal assault on the large Doomfire monster. She slashed at him with her weapons and he growled and tried to return the favor, but she was more aware of what he could now, and having Ellie unleashing a storm on him sure didn't hurt the situation either.
Jordan brought her lamp cannon up front. Ally placed her crystal cards in the spout. Jane placed the magic wand in the top of the lamp while Aziz placed the spiral spear under the lamp for more leverage. Beside them Ben set his Praeleanthor sword upon one of Miranda's grizzly blade as Will placed his recursive sword on the other grizzly blade. Together the two teams unleashed their bursts of energy.
Aquiella rolled out of the way and Ellie reversed her powers to surround herself with a protective layer of ice, further proving her abilities with her powers had only gotten better since she had become the ice dame.
The beams struck the Doomfire and he flew for a moment before toppling into the fire. For an instant they worried that would ruin all of their hard work but then the crash of thunder sounded and was followed moments later by a torrent of rain falling from the sky. Just as the fires started to go out, they saw the explosion of Doomfire.
"Thank you my friend." Melody whispered softly, only Amy and Aquiella even caught it.
"We've got to get up to the top of that tower." Ally stated now.
"We'd never make it in enough time to be of any help, assuming we're not too late as it is." Alex said with a frown. He didn't like it, but it seemed to be the truth.
"Oh, we'll make it." Jordan said. She snapped her fingers and gathered her team mates up in a swirl of golden dust before it skyrocketed them up to the top of the tower, entering in very much the same way as Infernal Flame had entered.
Even now Infernal Flame could feel the fires going out all over Auradon. He could see the torrents of rain coming in from the hole in the roof and gushing down the holes of the tower, almost as if they had a life of their own. Not that it would help the stability of the tower in the long run but for now it would make it safe enough for the rangers to escape.
"We've got to come up with something here." Carlos said. He tried to splash Infernal Flame with some of the water but he was hot enough that it kept the water from doing anything other than fizzling out.
Evie knew they were right and she was trying hard to keep focused on the threat in front of them. But she kept thinking about Mal and Audrey. Mal fell, to who knew where. No one knew where she was or if she was even okay. Audrey didn't fall necessarily but they all knew Chad had to be the reason she was gone and that was just as nerve wracking as what had happened to Mal, maybe even more.
The rest of the team appeared in front of the four rangers. With a gasp of shock, Lonnie ran over and hugged Will. He wrapped an arm around her waist. "Are you okay?" He asked her.
"We could be better. Mal, Audrey…" She started and then shook her head. "We don't know where are they are or if they're okay."
"Don't worry about it." Infernal Flame said to them. "You'll be joining them soon." He unleashed a massive stream of fire energy around them all. Ellie stepped forward to activate an ice shield to protect the team from the impact. "I don't know where this rain came from but it won't stop me from ending you all.
Then Amy gasped, "Mal."
"I told you not to worry about her." Infernal Flame snapped. "You won't have the time for that."
"Trying to get my sister not to worry about me is like getting creatures like you to be polite, as in not going to happen." They saw Mal and Audrey emerge from a hole in the floor, still in their battlizers. "But things have changed Flame boy, and you're not going to walk away from this."
"By the way, who invited the rain?" Audrey asked. "Because I think we need a cake made for that person."
"Wow." Jay said. "You looks so amazing Audrey."
Ben was also impressed. "Mal, you look so awesome. So regal." He said.
"Like your zord." Amy added delightedly.
"It will take more than impressive looks to defeat me." Infernal Flame stated simply.
"Chad has already seen some of what we can do." Audrey noted. She looked to Mal. "But I think we need to see the rest of what you can do Mal." She floated forward a moment and then set her feet on the ground. One would have thought the gems on her waist would add more weight but there was no sign of that. Instead two of them rose off and hurtled right at Infernal Flame.
He slapped the gems out of the way but was shocked to find they did not get damaged at all. Audrey lashed out the silk like ribbons and slapped him hard, then wrapped his wrists and ankles together.
Mal floated forward now but didn't join the red ranger on the ground. She stayed floating as she would expect her dragon zord would have done. She again brought her dragon's eye staff up and unleashed the dragon pulse on the monster. He broke free of Audrey's binds just after the strike and he sent fire streaming at them.
Audrey got in the way and the gems around her waist glowed as a barrier was brought up, absorbing the fire and dispersing it into one of the cascades of water, dispersing it into steam. Then lightning quick Mal rushed forward with her staff and struck him twice with her staff.
"Wow." Jordan said. "Neat."
"Yay for battlizers." Miranda noted. "Very impressive indeed."
Now Audrey stepped forward and raised her elemental bow. Each of her arrows in this mode now were coated with the same gems as what was now serving as earrings and around her waist. She let out loose with a stream of gem tipped arrows at Infernal Flame and struck him hard, miraculously pinning him to one of the pillars that already had the portion affixed to the roof long gone.
Mal then unleashed her own version of her dragon zord's draco meteor attack that struck the flaming creature hard even as he broke free of the arrows and fell to the ground. He didn't look like he could take much more from the two battleized rangers.
As if they could feel it too, Mal landed by Audrey and gave her the dragon's eye staff. "Let' see if this has more impact than the average arrow." She suggested.
Audrey nodded though a bit surprised. She had never fired anything other than an arrow from the elemental bow but somehow she was sure with the battlizer it would work out just fine. She was able to put the staff, which seemed to shrink down a little as if in anticipation, into the string before unleashing the attack. The staff grew to normal size and the dragon's eye gem on the staff glowed as it slammed right into Infernal Flame, destroying the monster just before a tidal wave of rain washed away the embers of the monster.
The battlizers faded and Audrey and Mal returned to normal. Ben went over to the purple ranger's side, where she looked a bit drained. He placed an arm around her shoulders and held her against him. Jay went over to the red ranger's side just as she very nearly collapsed and he lifted her in his arms. The others were right behind them.
"Are you okay Mal?" Amy asked her sister.
Mal reached over and placed her hand on her twin's shoulder. "Just fine sweetie." She promised. "The battlizer thing just takes a lot of you." She looked to Jay. "And that was before I caught Chad trying to break Audrey again."
Mal couldn't hear Jay's response but she was sure they were words that would get him in trouble in Auradon. "The plus side is that she and I beat him down good. He didn't even try to taunt her before leaving in a huff." She replied.
Ben laughed. "He was never very good at getting beaten by someone, and I bet the fact that it was you and Audrey made him take it even worse." He said as he stroked Mal's back.
"Not to interrupt this fine moment, but the tower is probably very unstable here." Jordan reminded them all.
"She's right." Ben said. "Time to go. Let's get back to the command center."
"Let's save ourselves the treacherous descent then." Jordan suggested and again used her magic to return them to the command center. Doug and Evie exchanged a warm hug, and Fairy Godmother hugged her daughter warmly.
Ben set Mal down and Amy sat by her. "I'm going to call my parents and let them know we're all alright." He said to her. The purple haired girl nodded in agreement.
"Jay, why don't you give Aurora and Phillip a call?" Lonnie suggested to him. "Let him know that you and Audrey are alright." He seemed a bit shocked by the idea but set her down to do just that. Lonnie meanwhile was following her own advice and had already pulled out her iPhone to call Mulan.
"Give Snow a call." Doug said gently to Evie as he stroked her hair once gently. "I'm going to help find out the damage from this nightmare." She nodded thankfully and then he went back to the command area. She saw that Ally and Will were following suit as well.
Miranda saw that Ben talked to his mother for a few minutes, and then he nodded and took his iPhone to Mal. She talked to Belle for a couple of minutes before handing the iPhone to Amy, who took it happily.
Jay had called and told Aurora that they were all okay but the battle had drained Audrey. He promised he would bring her by their castle as soon as they could.
"Sorry you didn't get to do too much this time." Ellie said to Alex. "Fire monsters suck for a fire user."
He laughed. "I'm not worried about it Ellie." He promised his cousin. "There will be other fights. And sometimes it's more important to be there than to contribute anything directly." He glanced at Amy, who was giggling at something Belle had said.
They soon discovered that Auradon had taken a lot of structural damage that would take weeks to rebuild, and there were dozens of injuries though so far no casualties had been reported. By that point Audrey was up and had accepted a Pepsi from Jay, her head was now against his shoulder as they listened.
"So this was what was in the tower." Fairy Godmother mused as she looked at the two pieces that Mal had originally found as one. "And it allowed you two to access battlizers."
"It's so unusual." Jane noted. "Red rangers have been the only ones to ever receive battlizers and even then not every single ranger gets one." She remembered reading the first battlizer in fact was used by their friend Andros the red space ranger.
"Except for the fact that red rangers are also the leaders." Miranda pointed out. "With few exceptions, but Mal and Audrey are one of those exceptions. Audrey is the red ranger but Mal is the leader. Maybe it's, like a compromise of some sort."
"I just know it helped save all of us today." Aziz noted. "I mean that was a pain, it's like Infernal Flame knew some of us were going to be out of touch for a while."
"Thankfully it didn't last long." Will added. "Though perhaps longer than we needed it to be."
"Let me see your iPhones please." Jane requested of Mal and Audrey. The two girls nodded, though both Ben and Jay insisted on taking them from their girlfriends and taking them to Jane instead of letting them do it. Audrey was still too exhausted to care and Mal was touched by the offer.
"It'll take a couple of hours but what I'm going to do place these pieces in your iPhones, above the gems." Jane started to explain as she nodded her thanks to the two guys. "That way in battle you can simply press on these gems to activate your battlizer modes."
Jay looked to Audrey. "You looked so elegant in that." He said to the brunette princess. "I think you should see about making that into a formal dress for the next…whatever it is." He started to run his hand through her hair.
Audrey laughed as she thought about it. "That doesn't sound like a bad idea actually." She said to Jay as she leaned into his gentle touch.
"It was very impressive indeed." Ben said as he stroked Mal's cheek softly.
"Thanks for your vote of confidence." Mal said to him as she kissed him on the cheek. "But I don't think the looks suits me well enough for an elegant dress." Amy laughed at the idea.
"Well the look certainly suits ye for battle." Miranda said to Mal. "Talk about a dangerous dragon warrior heading straight into the throes of combat." She added with a laugh.
"I wonder why it is that Mal's took on a form similar to her dragon zord while Audrey's took a form like…I don't know, like a warrior princess or something." Carlos mused.
"There's no way to know for sure." Fairy Godmother said. "Particularly since there is no way to know who would have wound up with these powers."
Audrey laughed a bit and glanced at Ben. "Yeah, if things had worked out the way everyone expected, you'd be the red ranger and wearing the elegant battle dress Bennie-boo." She said in between giggles.
"I think he could pull it off." Mal said right before bursting into hysterical laughter herself.
"Okay you two, we get it." Ben said with a slightly embarrassed laugh. "I'm sure it would be different if it were my power. But clearly despite what we expected someone else knew the red ranger would be a girl rather than a guy."
"So what brought the rain anyway?" Carlos asked now.
"Remember the sea entity that helped us fight Daedalus when Undine used it?" Melody asked him and they all nodded. "That was him again, this time in the underground water ways," She noticed Evie obviously understood that point. "And from under there unleashed a rainstorm. It won't be long before the rainstorm fades as he's already returned to sea."
"That is so cool." Amy breathed. "To have any kind of connection with something as awesome as that."
"The world is full of awesome things like that." Aquiella said to Amy. "If one knows where to look and how to interact with them. If that time ever comes here, Melody and I will be more than happy to help you, though something tells me it wouldn't be too much of a challenge for you."
After the time had passed, Jane gave Audrey and Mal their iPhones back and the group dispersed for the night. Jay told Audrey that Aurora and Phillip were expecting them. Ben meanwhile took Mal and Amy to his own parents place, and Amy insisted on Alex coming with them much to the amusement of her sister and the young king.
"We'll see you in class tomorrow." Evie said to them all. "Have fun."
"They've just become too good at what they've been doing." Chad said angrily.
"It's true." Paradias agreed. "But don't worry; I don't plan on letting them stay good at those abilities much longer." With that his eyes glowed, one side green and the other yellow, the natural colors of his iris's.