"Should we be dressing in some sort of formal get up for this?" Mal teased Ben a coyly as she leaned against the wall and watched as Ben smoothed out his jacket. Their other team mates were heading downstairs as well but Mal herself hadn't been told of any formal dress code.
"There's no official thing for this Mal, even if we are essentially welcoming VIP's." Ben said with a laugh. "But it never hurts to look the part." He moved his shoulders as if trying to smooth those out too. "But those of us who grew up knowing royal functions were going to be important always took opportunities like this to practice it, to work out all the kinks and bumps." He then looked at her seriously. "It'd be a great idea for you to pick up that habit; you're going to be queen one day."
Mal blinked in shock as the words hit her. On some level she had known that when the time came she would marry Ben (there was no reason right now to think it wouldn't happen) that she would be considered royalty. Still, the idea of it just seemed off to her.
They heard Audrey and Jay coming downstairs. "Too bad that dress isn't ready yet." He remarked. They could already see his arm over her shoulders. Jay, like Mal, was dressed in his normal Auradon wear.
Audrey on the other hand wore a silk light red blouse with her right shoulder bare and a red ruffled skirt. She held the hand Jay had over her shoulder lightly in her own. "Well I don't want to look too formal since we're not even meeting indoors." She replied with a small shrug. "You know though that if we were to get married you'd be considered a king like Ben, without the whole ruling Auradon thing. You should learn to dress formally too."
"Uh, I'll think about it." Jay said a bit uneasily. Mal felt for her friend as Audrey rolled her eyes lightly but didn't say anything. After all, both couples were years away from marriage most likely.
Carlos joined them in his normal wear too, but then again if he and Jane ever chose to pursue their feelings for each other he didn't have to worry too much about the royal factor as Jane was not royalty either. Likewise Evie was not officially considered royal since her mother Grimholde had no royal status. The fact her two step-sisters Rose Red and Snow White did though meant she had some royal claim. Ben was actually fighting to have Evie given royal status given her relationship with her half-sisters.
The rest of the Auradon royals; Lonnie, Aziz, Miranda, Ellie, Alex, Melody and Aquiella seemed rather comfortable in formal wear. The non-royals; Jordan, Ally, and Will and were not so comfortable. Grant likewise was not too comfortable either; despite the fact he was a royal by blood (the son of Rose Red) he was not at all used to that kind of privilege. Amy likewise seemed a bit unsure and was wearing her normal get up.
They left the castle and headed toward the school, which was currently being rebuilt. The command center was being rebuilt underground as well so their base of operations was better protected. The first one was above ground and had been one of the many structures destroyed by Paradias's ship crashing to the ground.
They hung around for a few minutes before out of nowhere their guests showed up, some of which they knew and others of which they didn't. The ones they knew were a small number with the original blue ranger Billy Cranston, Donatello and April O'Neil. The others they didn't know but knew of; Kendrix Morgan the pink galaxy ranger, Angela Fairweather-Rawlins the wife of green lightspeed ranger and technical specialist of the lightspeed rescue project, Cam Watanabe the green samurai ranger, Hayley Ziktor the one who helped design the Dino Thunder morphers, Rose Ortiz the pink overdrive ranger, Kendall Morgan the purple Dino Charge ranger and a mutant monkey with a weird helmet on top of his head that Donnie had called Tyler Rockwell. They all had one thing in common; they were the brains of their groups. And they had been asked to help them rebuild and reinforce the command center.
"Hello." Ben said as he stepped forward with Mal on his right side. Audrey stepped forward with him with Jay on her left side. "And welcome to Auradon." He nodded toward Billy, Donnie and April. "Or in your cases welcome back."
"We'd like to thank you so much for agreeing to help us restore our command center." Audrey said to them. "It's surprising how much we've come to miss it."
"Believe me; we can all understand that on some level." Hayley promised as they started walking toward the underground entrance. During their final fight against Mesagog the command post under Tommy's house had been badly destroyed and at the time the dino thunder powers had been lost.
Billy nodded. "Affirmative." He agreed.
"I remember losing our lair during the second Kraang invasion." Donnie said. "Man, that was hard. It was a miracle we were able to restore it the way we were."
"Not to worry. We'll do whatever we can to help you get your command center running again and your powers up to full again." Angela promised them all with a small smile. "It took years for us to get the Lightspeed base running again."
"Years?" Amy asked with some concern.
"Oh, don't worry about it." Angela replied. "We had several buildings to reconnect, we had to get power placed down there again, and it was all being done underwater. Yours shouldn't take that long."
"We're making the power restoration and the technical work our highest priority." Dr. Rockwell told them all as he floated, not walked, alongside the group with his psychic powers. "The basic infrastructure is of less importance to the workings of the command center and can be dealt with afterwards."
They descended the steps to the new command center and Kendall couldn't help but smile just a bit fondly as she recalled their own base under the Amber Beach Museum. She hoped Shelby and the guys would be okay without her and hoped Snide didn't do anything too destructive.
"Welcome to Auradon." Fairy Godmother said to them with a small curtsy. "And I must extend my thanks for coming to help us with restore our command center."
"The honor is ours." Rose replied with a bit of excitement. She was one of those who had grown up with the stories from this world that was referred to as fairy tales in their world and was more than eager to learn all about how things went after the proverbial book was done. She already knew it had to have pretty much gone well or they wouldn't be here, but naturally the details were not in any fairy tale books.
"Our current technical expert will work with you to determine where we should have all of you start, and my daughter will help you all out as needed." Fairy Godmother said as she placed an arm around a slightly embarrassed Jane.
"Sorry to see the school in such bad condition." April said sympathetically to them as she set some tools down. "It was so beautiful. I hope that you guys can recapture the beauty."
"I hope so too." Audrey said to her. Surprisingly they had all been relieved to find the statue of man turning to beast and vice versa that Ben's father Adam had commissioned so long ago had not been destroyed during the attack.
"Hey guys." Aziz interrupted. "We have to go to the tourney field. There's a meeting being held there for the students. We're getting reactions from some of the other schools about what happened." He looked to their guests. "In a show of solidarity the other schools have closed down until Auradon Prep is back on its feet."
"How noble for them." Cam said with a small roll of his eyes. "Doesn't that mean that they get that time off?" He reminded them.
"Sure." Lonnie replied. "At the expense of less time when we hit summer vacation. They could have let us fall behind but they didn't." She shrugged a bit. "Small grace maybe but we should take whatever we can get."
"You guys go ahead." Doug said to the ranger team. "I'll catch up." They nodded and Evie stroked his back gently before leaving with their team.
"Are you guys a thing?" Rose asked Doug as she opened up a panel to try to reroute power for support for the one that Cam was starting to put together.
"No." Doug said. "Not yet. It's…complicated."
"It doesn't have to be." April said simply as she wrapped her arms around Donnie's waist, who blushed slightly at the sudden burst of affection from his girlfriend. "It shouldn't have to be." That made Doug blush almost as much as Donnie and Rose laughed.
The rangers joined Ruby near the bleachers. She had recently started to become a big part of the group but she didn't know the rangers or even Donnie and April that well and so she had let them greet their guests without her. They however were gratified to see her.
"You know I hope this has caused people to change their minds about you." Ruby said to Mal as she looked at her, Carlos, Evie and Jay. Her arm circled over Amy's shoulders softly, like a sister. She recalled that they hadn't been welcome by everyone. And only Fairy Godmother knew that several people protested having the isle kids as defenders of the entire planet.
"I sure hope so too." Audrey agreed as she smiled warmly at Jay and Mal. Mal laughed and winked as Jay hugged the brunette princess with one arm and kissed her cheek.
They sat down together as a group, Amy laughed a little when Ruby wrapped some of her hair around her neck lightly as a scarf.
As the rest of the students and faculty, minus Doug and Fairy Godmother, were gathering and they were getting ready for the meeting, they heard a menacing peal of laughter and Maleficent appeared in the center of the field.
"How nice of you to assemble for me." Maleficent said with a laugh. "What a way to welcome your new queen."
The rangers were already up and pushing their way through to the center. Ruby was right with them, and Mal had to admire the girl's bravery. No powers and very little experience and yet she was right beside them to confront the most dangerous villain around with Paradias gone. "You're no queen mother." Mal snapped. "And no one is here for you."
"My little brats are still around." Maleficent said coldly as she glared at Amy and Mal. Audrey felt her cheeks heating up in anger to hear some people actually snickering at the small humiliation and she swore she saw Jordan, Aziz, and Miranda shoot daggers out around them.
To her credit Mal ignored them, in fact she had an easier time letting the reaction go then Audrey and some of the others had. "What do you want?" She asked her mother with equal fridgity.
"Actually I came here for you and your little friends." Maleficent said simply as she twirled her wand around. She didn't seem to care she was outnumbered for all intents and purposes. "Oh, and notice that my wand it back now, no thanks to that disgusting rat freak." Splinter had broken her wand when he fought her, just before the invasion.
"What are you going on about?" Jordan snapped. "You can't take us out."
"You're all so full of yourselves, aren't you?" Maleficent demanded. "Just because you have your powers…well some of you anyway. And your experiences." She laughed. "And that children is why I'm here today."
"You really want to test us?" Audrey demanded. Since she had grown close to Mal, Evie, and surprisingly Amy and started dating Jay, she had found Maleficent getting under her skin even more so than normal. Except for maybe the whole trying to kill her mother thing. "Feel free to try, you'll fail."
Maleficent laughed. "Oh, if Aurora had half the fire you had." She remarked. "Of course, I still would have tried to eliminate the brat anyway, but it might have been more of a challenge."
"That's enough mother." Mal stated coldly. "Get on with it."
Maleficent gave a wicked smirk. She found she was enjoying this new state between her and her eldest daughter. If not for her bratty twin sister and her little friends she could see Mal easily descending into the darkness she tried so hard to come back from. But that was a potential idea for another day. "I advise those of you who can transform should do just that." The evil fairy stated.
Then the ground burst open and large insect creature emerged from the ground. It had the antennae's and eyes of a cockroach, the feelers on the front of the face like a wasp. Its large body resembled that of a centipede, the arms of a praying mantis, four legs almost like a spider's and a huge abdomen that resembled as wasp as well that ended in moth wings. Truth was it was arguably many of Amy's biggest nightmares combined.
"Oh my, that is one ugly bug." Jordan said with disgust.
"And it just so happens to be your job to try to squash my crusher flat, if you can." Maleficent said gleefully. "So, good luck with that." With that the evil fairy vanished.
"Yes, what she said." The insectoid creature agreed with a menacing laugh.
"That is hideous." Audrey stated as she reached for her iPhone.
Mal looked at Ruby and her team mates that could not transform. "Start making sure the people get out of here." She told them. She could already see the look of fear in Amy's eyes. Not so much because of the insect but because she had to leave Mal and all of her friends to fight this thing. "Meanwhile guys, let's get to work."
As Ben summoned the Praeleanthor sword and shield, the six rangers took out their iPhones, input their numbers and transformed into power rangers.
"That is one ugly bug." Rose noted. "But I bet the rangers can take that thing out."
April frowned as she looked at the monster. Her senses weren't quite as good as normal sensors and her own abilities didn't have nearly the power level alone that they did when she was with Jennifer, almost as if the lithe blonde's demonic ability was somehow supposed to mix with the Kraang ability she was given despite them not being planned that way at all. But she could sent something very dangerous about the creature besides its bulky size. "I don't like this." She told them.
"What do you mean?" Kendall asked the young red head. She had been skeptic at first about what she had heard about her abilities but had quickly come to see firsthand how accurate they were.
"I'm not positive." April admitted. "But something about that thing, it's worse than it looks."
"I'll advise them to be careful." Doug told them all. "And let's hope we don't get to find out what the mystery feeling is about."
Doug had just cautioned them to do just that as they got ready to square off against the monster.
The insect monster rose up and with lightning speed rushed right at the seven warriors. They weren't quite quick enough to avoid the attack, in part because despite the speed it was still bulky enough to bash them with his arms and legs.
"It's faster than it looks." Carlos remarked. "I guess bigger doesn't always mean slower."
"Let's just hope bigger doesn't also mean better." Lonnie said worriedly. "Too many appendages as far as I'm concerned."
It levitated into the air and unleashed a plethora of stingers from the abdomen right at the rangers. Even Evie's mirror force shield and Ben's shield couldn't protect them from impact and it sent them rolling back.
"We have to start going on the offensive here." Jay said.
"No argument here." Audrey stated and drew her elemental bow. She pulled back on the silk string and hesitated a bit as she wondered what was best here. As a flyer electricity was a good bet to use against it but then again it was a bug and fire was a good idea too, not that anything really liked fire. She settled on two electric arrows that were shot right at the wings of the insectoid beast.
It might have worked too if the large front arms didn't knock the arrows off course. The slight electrical shock from contact with the arrows didn't seem to bother it. "You think you're little lighting arrows bother me?" He questioned. "They're like little lightning bugs to me."
"She's really not fooling around." Amy mused as she watched her sister and their friend fight the monster. She looked to Aquiella and Melody. "But they can beat him, they have too."
Melody nodded in agreement. Aquiella wanted too as well but she couldn't make herself agree as she thought it was premature. Though her iPhone did not work so she could not morph, because of her innate water manipulation abilities her iPhone had a small coating that surrounded her orange gem while also protecting the technology. And it was just strong enough for her to feel that so far all of this fight was just a ruse. She just wondered what the end game was considering this thing seemed to have the upper hand.
Then the insect dove right at Mal. In a flash Ben was in front of her. The monster collided with the Auradon Knight's shield. The impact was enough to cause Mal to roll back. As she started to get up she saw the front appendages of the monster grasp around Ben's waist and the head of the monster descended onto Ben's armored head. "No!" Mal gasped.
"What is he trying to do?" Carlos wondered as he felt kind of sick to his stomach.
Lonnie moved in to try and help him only for the large insect's wings to slap into the pink ranger hard. She tumbled to the ground hard.
Before Mal and Audrey could move in to try to help Ben the insect monster released Ben and he fell to the ground. He then powered down, though the Praeleanthor sword remained. "That's one taken care of." He announced.
"What did that thing do to him?" Evie questioned.
"I don't know." Carlos answered. "He's like some kind of brain bug."
"The same thing I intend to do to all of you." The insect monster answered with a laugh.
Jordan looked to Ruby. "Finish getting the rest of the people out of here." She said to the blonde civilian, as in not a ranger but knew the gist of it. "We have to help our team out." Ruby nodded reluctantly.
Mal was already trying to figure out the best way to try to attack this insect but her concern for Ben was already starting to cloud her normally quick strategic mind, rather she would admit to that or not. "We can't get in close to it." She said. "Not if we want to avoid what it did to Ben."
"But what did it do him?" Audrey asked him worriedly. She was feeling the same apprehension that her leader and friend was.
They heard the rest of the rangers come in to gather around them, trying to protect them despite not having much to work with. None the less Ellie launched a stream of ice at the insect monster, only for an acid blast from his mouth to melt the ice down.
"Let's try a burst of fire." Alex said as he looked to Amy and held out his hand. The young rose colored girl blushed slightly as she took his hand so that Alex could unleash a burst of fire at the monster.
The wings reacted rapidly and unleashed a nearly hurricane force that sent the fire right back at them. They all barely dodged under the fire, only for it to strike behind the and light the field in fire. "Looks like you've just put yourself in between the frying pan and the fire." The monster stated with cruel amusement.
"We'll never let you get close enough to us to repeat what you did to Ben." Jordan warned him.
"I don't need too." The monster replied simply and then rose up, raising the abdomen and shooting more of the needle sharp stingers at them. This time they were all caught in the arm. Audrey raised her elemental bow again but before she could shoot at the monster she felt woozy. She noticed that the rest of her friends seemed just as woozy.
"What…" Amy whispered softly.
Ruby had just gotten out the last of the frightened students when she turned to see her friends all faint and fall to the ground, out of it.
"Jane." Fairy Godmother whispered, feeling the pain in her sides, a remnant of an injury she was recovering from as a result of Paradias's invasion that had destroyed the original command center.
"We have to help them." Rose declared.
Kendall nodded as she reached for her own dino charger and then hesitated. "Wait. Where did Donnie go?" She asked.
"He must have already left to go to the field." Cam said.
"All of you should go on ahead." Rockwell said to the power rangers. "As we can't guarantee that we can be properly protected, April and I will stay here and get cots ready for the rangers."
"Hayley and I will continue to work on getting things up and running again." Angela said. "It looks like we're going to need it."
"Please bring them all back safely." April requested though in truth her biggest concern was for her boyfriend Donnie.
Ruby landed in front of her unconscious friends. "I won't let you hurt them." She warned as she got ready to use her hair as a weapon. It was something she had not thought about until recently but seemed to be doing a lot of in the last few days.
"You should stay out of this little girl." The insect monster said. "Before you join them."
Ruby's response was a simple. She lashed out a large portion of her hair in an attempt to wrap around the monster but he dodged the attack and very nearly gave her a trim. "You've made your choice." He said simply.
"And so have I." Donnie interrupted as he jumped onto the bleachers to gain some height and then used his bo staff to jump over the fire and deliver a hard kick to the chest of the insect monster. He then pressed a button on the side to change his weapon into the naginata and got ready to fight.
"This world is just full of freaks apparently." The insect monster noted.
"Have you looked in a mirror lately?" Donnie asked. He charged the monster and he dodged it, slashing Donnie in the arm with the stinger on his abdomen. The purple masked turtle let out a small hiss of pain and felt a bit woozy but otherwise seemed okay.
Donnie brought his staff upwards and it connected with the face of the insect, which went tumbling and rolling for a moment before standing again. "I'll have my revenge reptile." He promised and took off just as he saw the blue ranger, the green ninja storm ranger, both the galaxy and overdrive pink rangers and the dino charge purple ranger heading toward them.
"Looks like we just missed the party." Rose noted as she stepped up beside Donnie.
"Don't worry about it; we're probably going to get another chance at that thing." The purple masked turtle replied as Billy leaned down to pick up the Praeleanthor sword, which still had not vanished when everything else had.
"Hayley, have Doctor Rockwell meet us out here to help us bring the Auradon Rangers into the command center." Kendall instructed over the intercom. She looked to Donnie, another strange sight that was never the less not hard to believe after becoming power rangers. The fact she had known Keeper for a while didn't hurt either. "We have cots set up for them so we can check them out."
"Don't think you're leaving me behind." Ruby said to them as she picked up Amy, the lightest of the ranger team. "I'm coming with you."
Melody opened her eyes and saw the rangers, Donnie and April looking at her. Then Ruby was in front of them. "Melody, are you okay?" The daughter of Rapunzel asked her.
"I still feel a bit woozy but otherwise fine." Melody answered. "Am I the only one okay?"
"We're not sure." Doug admitted. "You're the first one to regain consciousness."
"We've taken a sample of the toxin that this thing seemed to have placed in you guys." Kendall revealed as she headed toward a small console that Rose had set up for her tests. It was actually something that Andrew Hartford had worked with her to create. "We're examining what was found in Donnie, what was found in you, and what was found in Mal, and what was found in you to see what we can learn."
"Aside from the fact it leaves one mean headache?" Aquiella asked as she shakily rose. She started to get up to go to Melody but almost toppled over, only Cam stopped her from hitting the floor. "Thank you." She said to the green ranger as he took her over to her cousin. "Like I don't have enough of a hard time walking normally." She was still adapting to her legs.
"I hope you two being okay is a good sign for everyone else." Billy said. April had a horrible feeling it wouldn't be.
That was confirmed a few minutes later when Evie stirred and Doug was at her side. He took her hand gently and asked her, "Are you alright?"
Evie blinked a bit unsteadily. "What?" She asked as she shook her head as if to clear the fog out of her mind. "Where are we?" She asked and looked around at her surroundings. "Who are all of you guys?" They all looked at each other confused.
"Um, maybe it's a coincidence." Rose tried to suggest, though the doubt in her voice was clear.
Next Mal rose. "What is going on here?" She tried to demand as toughly as she could. "Who are all of you people? What do you think you're doing?"
"Wow, easy Mal." April said to her softly, trying to calm her.
"How do you know my name?" She questioned the red head.
"This is not good." Donnie noted quietly. "Somehow that insect thing must have affected all of their memories. He's like a brain drainer, or a brain crusher or something."
"But you were stung, as were Melody and Aquiella." Ruby pointed out. "Why would it not affect you? Or them?" She wondered.
Evie seemed slightly uncomfortable and Mal looked tense and annoyed. They were already sure when the others woke up they wouldn't be acting any differently. "Get those tests done please." Fairy Godmother said to Kendall. "We need answers and we need them as soon as we can get them."