Queen Elsa and Princess of Anna of Arendelle rushed to the front of the gates of their castle where one of the guards had requested their presence. Oddly Anna could not sort out the contradictory feelings of wishing that Kristoff was there and being grateful that he was not. There they found several guards and one of their doctors attending to a woman.
The first thing that seemed very odd for all of them was the woman's skin was blue, ice blue. Under normal circumstances it would look like she had frozen to death but it was clear that she was still alive. She looked however like she had gotten out of a gym class. Her hair, as well as her gloves and boots, were the same dark blue.
"You must be Queen Elsa of Arendelle." She said as she looked to the lovely long haired blonde in her shimmery light blue dress. Anna wasn't so sure she liked the fact that she knew her sister. Not that she wasn't famous in a sense but something about her seemed kind of off. She didn't acknowledge Anna at all, which didn't exactly sit well with her either.
"I am Queen Elsa." She answered as the two approached her. "Who do I have the honor of addressing? What happened to you?" She asked.
"My name is Thera; I was traveling Auradon, taking in the sights as it were." She answered. "I was attacked on my way to see your lovely city." She rubbed the back of her head. "By a monster."
Elsa could not entirely be surprised by that. Even though Paradias was gone, Maleficent remained active. Sermaya did too. And no one knew if Undine was aligned with any of the villains or if she had gone into business for herself. Nor had the queen forgotten about their terse encounter with the Neptune Kingdom around Atlantica.
"What kind of monster was it?" Anna now asked the woman, Thera if she was too be believed.
She glanced over at Anna as if acknowledging her existence for the first time. "It was a large lizard with blue skin." She answered and touched the fabric of Elsa's sleeve. "Much like the color of your dress actually. It had a few floating balls of ice with it."
"Or the color of your skin." Anna noted. She wondered if this was all a coincidence or not. But she knew Elsa couldn't turn her back on a problem, and truthfully neither could she.
The queen looked toward the guards. One of them nodded. "We found her being chased by the ice balls and we dispatched them. We saw no signs of the ice lizard but this had happened rather close to the cave, it might have retreated back into it." He answered Elsa's unspoken question.
"Your welcome to stay with us." Elsa said to her. "Our home is your home."
The woman, again Thera if she could be trusted and Anna had a hard time with that, rose to her feet. She took Elsa's arm into her own as if they were already friends. That also got on Anna's nerves and she couldn't say why. "Thank you so much for your hospitality Queen Elsa." She said with a smile. "Please, show me what your marvelous kingdom has to offer and I'll tell you all I know about the beings from the ice barrier."
With that their visitor seemed to all but glide Elsa back into the castle even as Anna watched, an uneasy feeling in her stomach. She again wished Kristoff were there, then she changed her mind. She wanted her son and her niece there, to tell her rather she was going crazy or if she was right be uncomfortable about this. Then she heard, "Aunt Anna, Aunt Anna…"
"Aunt Anna." She opened her eyes to see Ellie looking down at her, her eyes full of concern.
Anna found herself lying on Ellie's lap, feeling a little cold. "You look so much like Elsa." Anna murmured softly as she started to sit up. She felt a bit dizzy and Ellie placed her hands on her aunt's shoulders. "What happened?" She asked.
"We're underground." Mal said to her as she now sat down. "We very nearly got buried in snow but your son and my sister are using their powers to stop it from enveloping us. Our powers went out after we landed." Anna turned to see her son and the rose haired girl that looked so much like Mal since they were twins with one hand each raised to stop the otherwise burying avalanche of snow while their other's hands firmly. "Jay, Carlos, Will and Ben are looking for another way for us to get out."
"Those three generals probably decided to leave us for dead." Audrey noted with annoyance.
"I feel kind of cold." Anna told them.
"It's the warmth rune." Evie explained. "We need to give you another one." She sat down behind Anna and the princess moved some hair from the back of her neck so the young blue haired girl could do that. "Yours goes out quicker than the rest of ours since we had our powers to protect us."
"Turns out it burns out slower on me." Ellie said softly. "Because I'm more used to this kind of temperature than anyone else, except mom." She looked down a bit. "My powers won't work on those ice guys. I don't know how I can help now."
"You can help me get through to your mother when the time comes." Anna answered her gently as she reached out and took her niece's hand. "I wish I had made the connection sooner though. When Ice Queen showed up in Arendelle she said there were creatures from a place called the ice barrier."
"Never heard of it." Mal told her. "But if it's from the Earth that the rangers and the turtles come from it's no surprise there." She wondered if Maleficent knew about it, not that that mattered too much.
Anna glanced over at her son and Amy. She had to admit they made a pretty cute couple. But that wasn't her concern at the moment. "How long can they keep that up?" She asked.
"I don't know." Mal answered. "It's never been tested. Magically they might be able to do it for a while but they'll still get tired. And we can't stay here forever either." She glanced around. "The boys haven't returned yet though."
"What if there's no way out?" Melody asked her "What do we do then?"
"We find a way to make our own I guess." Mal answered.
"I could probably use one of my mirror force settings to make an opening somewhere." Evie supplied as she finished the warmth rune for Anna. "But I don't know how dangerous it could be. We could cause some kind of seismic disturbance or something similar to the avalanche that Amy and Alex are already trying to avoid."
"We would also let Ice Queen and her generals know that we're alive." Lonnie added.
"Let's hold off on that surprise for a while." Jay said as he came in. Audrey went over and hugged him for a moment. He held her back as he added, "Carlos and I found a way out." He patted his friend on the back gently. "He sniffed it out."
"Yeah, yeah." Carlos brushed him off as he looked to Mal. "I think it should lead us into the mountains facing Arendelle."
"Elsa made an ice castle up there somewhere when she tried to isolate herself from the rest of the people." Anna voiced as she stood up now with some help from her niece. "She has this snow giant up there nicknamed Marshmallow. I don't know if Ice Queen got to him though."
"We'll just have to be careful then as we make our way there." Mal said. "Where are Ben and Will?"
As if on cue the other two boys emerged from another side. "It's a dead end." Ben told Mal as she stood up and the two clasped hand briefly. Will had gone over and kissed Lonnie on the cheek softly. "But we heard Jay's mixed bragging. At least we have a way out."
"As long we're careful about Marshmallow." Will added with a small smirk.
The rangers and Anna got up and began to follow Jay as they started toward the alternate way out. Each of them felt a little sore from the fight and the fall. "Those guys sure knocked us around like we were nothing." Lonnie commented. "At least things like that stop us from getting too confident in ourselves."
"Is that really a good thing?" Jay questioned her. The Asian princess just shrugged.
"Where did they come from anyway?" Will now wondered. "I mean if men, monsters, whatever, like that had been around for a while then why hadn't Paradias or Maleficent recruited them before?"
"I don't think they were around before." Ellie answered him. "I think they must have recently shown up. Probably not long after Ice Queen did."
"I hadn't seen them until they lead the invasion that took Arendelle from us." Anna said. "And the guards never mentioned it. Just the monster and the ice balls...I think your friend Tommy called them Ice Witches." She frowned a little. "When we first met her she referred to creatures of the ice barrier and called herself Thera." She recollected.
"I wish we knew if any of that was relevant now." Carlos said.
"I'd be willing to bet that the ice barrier has to be one of those realms that are separate from our world or the Earth that the others come from." Amy voiced. "That would be why we've never heard of them before."
"I've never heard grandfather speak of an ice barrier before." Aquiella noted. "And the fact is he's much older than he appears to be, and he knows a lot."
"It's also not in any sort of archive in Atlantica either." Melody added.
"Then somehow they gained access to the Ice Queen, or she gained access to them after somehow coming alive again." Evie said. "That still seems to be a mystery though. How is she even alive if she was defeated back when Tommy was the green ranger?"
"We'll try to ask that before we take her out again." Mal replied.
Their surroundings shook and they all looked around. They thought maybe it was coming from around them before realizing it had actually come from above them but since they were underground it reflected all around them. "What was that?" Audrey asked.
"Maybe the earth above us is starting to become unstable as a result of the general's attacks that got us down here in the first place?" Alex suggested as he let go of Amy's arm. He had taken ahold of her arm to try to stop her from falling.
"I would have thought that we would have been far enough away from the sight of the attack." Carlos replied.
"Could they have done something?" Audrey asked, "Could they be making something above us right now?"
"We're too far away from Arendelle to feel any construction tremors." Ellie replied. "It would have to be something within this mountain." She glanced around. "If it were because of them we should be seeing some evidence of that even now."
"Then it must be something inside the mountain." Mal said as she started to glance around too. She frowned then. "Um, is this the mountain where that monster retreated too?" She asked. "At least if Ice Queen was to be believed."
"Yes, yes it would be." Alex said, catching on.
"She could have lied you guys." Carlos reminded them. "She after all isn't some peaceful visitor named Thera from a far off land."
Their surroundings shook again and this time a stalagmite from the ceiling fell and nearly rammed right into Lonnie. She let out a small shriek as Will pulled her to safety. "I think we should discuss this in smoother surroundings." Will noted as they glanced up to realize that that stalagmite was not the only one now on shaky holds.
Mal was more certain than ever that Ice Queen had not been lying about the monster that had gone to the mountains. She was equally certain that it knew they were there. "It's here." She said to her team. "But it didn't retreat at all. Ice Queen obviously sent it as a guardian. We need to get someplace safer now." As if to help prove the purple haired girl's point a stalagmite fell to the ground and crashed behind them, making Amy gasp in shock and hold tight to Alex's arm.
"Time to go." Jay agreed as they started toward the exit on the other side of the room. Another stalagmite fell and crashed behind Anna and Ellie, knocking them both off of their feet. Mal helped up Anna as Will and Lonnie stopped to help up the blonde princess.
Another fell and struck close enough to Audrey that she was hit with a few small chunks of rock. Even as Jay went over to help her, the brunette princess was already getting to her feet though she had a small gash on her lower arm from the shrapnel.
Aquiella was able to draw just enough power from the water in her iPhone to knock a stalagmite off course away from otherwise impaling her. Melody had to use the trident to blast away a stalagmite heading toward her and then shrieked in surprise as the rubble still managed to strike her arm.
Ellie raised her arms, only to flinch a little at the pain in her right shoulder. She looked down and saw no blood, she assumed she had only hit her arm against the hard floor and that was it. She started to form a barrier of ice. "Everyone get around me." She instructed. "Let's hope this will protect us from the stalagmites."
As they started over toward Ellie one of them almost landed on Evie. She fell back and crashed into Mal. The two girls were dazed for a moment and when they looked up they saw a sheet of ice over them. Amy was leaning down to check on her two chosen isle sisters.
"That wasn't fun." Evie said as she let Jay help her up.
Amy helped up her twin. "Let's get out of here." Mal said to them with a small smile at her. A stalagmite crashed into the ice shield and it lost a piece off of the outer edge. Ellie worked to try to reinforce it but it was still only temporary. "Before we lose that barrier and get hurt."
By the time they had arrived on the other side the barrier of ice was in shambles and they all hit the ground in relief. They glanced back to see the floor covered with chunks of ice that wouldn't melt until the Ice Queen was destroyed and multiple pieces of rock that had been stalagmites until recently.
"That wasn't fun." Anna echoed Evie's previous declaration as Ellie dissolved the remnants of the barrier. "I think when this is over I should talk Elsa into having this place thoroughly scouted out in case anyone else has to make this kind of journey so they know where to go and what to avoid."
"Grand idea." Jay agreed. "Too bad it hadn't happened already."
They all got to their feet. This time Mal took the lead as they continued onto the only path available to them. In a few minutes they found themselves in a wide open area. It was fully of crevices and even a small pit though at least it was far from bottomless. There was a small lake in a corner that somehow remained unfrozen. "This is kind of cool." Lonnie said. "It's almost like a small living space." She then exchanged glances with the purple haired girl as she realized what she said.
"Do you think that this monster is making its home here?" Amy asked quietly as she glanced around uncertainly.
Ben noticed an opening on the other side of the cave. "Let's not find out." He advised as he tapped Mal on the shoulder and pointed it out. "Let's just get out of here." His girlfriend nodded her agreement and together they all started toward the other side.
Just as they were approaching the other end there was a ferocious growl and from the shadows leapt a large icy blue creature. It stood on two reptilian legs and its arms were encased in three pointy blades on his arms, two smaller ones on either side of the front and then one over the shoulders. It even had what looked to be wings but they didn't look to be active. It landed right in front of the team.
"Oh, my gosh." Audrey gasped in shock. "What is that?"
"It almost looks like a dinosaur of some sort." Amy answered.
It made Melody briefly remember her mother Ariel talking about accidently freeing a frozen underwater sea creature from the prehistoric era during her life as a mermaid. But it was definitely not like the creature before them.
"Bet they don't have that fossil in the Amber Beach museum." Jay remarked coyly.
"I think we should be more worried about making this thing a fossil first." Will replied.
"No arguments here." Mal said. They all reached for their iPhones as Ben formed the Praeleanthor sword and shield. She already saw Ellie and Alex take one of Anna's arms and start to take her over to a crevice that would offer some protection. "Let's get to work." She declared.
As Ben combined the Praeleanthor sword and shield to become the Auradon Knight the rest of the rangers input their numbers into their iPhones and transformed. Anna had to admit it was a dazzling array of colors; purple, silver, red, blue, black, yellow, pink, the darker shade of pink rose, orange, aqua and green. She wondered what it looked like with the second silver, second purple, second red, light blue, white, gold and crystal colorings.
The monster that Mal was thinking of naming Freezadon raised its arms and unleashed jagged icicle spears at the team, who had to roll right or left to dodge out of the way of the attack. With a roar he charged right at Ben, the only one armed at the moment.
"Oh, yikes." Evie gasped as the large fist of the monster collided with Ben's shield. The young king blocked it but it seemed to take every ounce of strength to absorb the impact from the monster. The impact even left a small indent around the field and Amy gasped, "Oh my pink."
"Well that's not encouraging." Will noted wryly as he formed his recursive sword. Jay formed the soul scimitar and together the two of them moved in toward the monster. The wing like objects on the monsters back turned and started to attack the two as they drew closer.
"Now that is something you don't see every day." Carlos remarked.
"But when you're us we tend to see things like that more often than necessary." Jay added.
Freezadon, as Mal silently dubbed him for anything else to call it, then did a one eighty and struck Jay and Will in the chests hard with his fists. Audrey raised her elemental bow and fired two fire arrows at the monster, which just raised its arms and let the arrows lodge there before shaking them off.
Melody drew power into the trident and moved in to attack Freezadon. He raised his hands and caught the charged attack in between his hands before raising his foot faster than any of them expected and kicked Melody in the stomach hard. He then slammed his palm into the back of her head.
Aquiella moved in to prevent a further attack and slashed at him with her tidal boomerangs only to realize she too couldn't really penetrate his thick scaled skin. She took a huge stab from the tips of his wing like objects on its back and fell beside her cousin.
"Okay, let's try another tactic." Mal said as she looked at Lonnie. She nodded in agreement and together the pink and purple rangers charged at him. Lonnie went up high as she tried to bring her tessens down on him. Freezadon raised his arms to block and Mal shot her dragon's eye staff right into his chest. She connected but discovered the frozen scales were like armor and still stopped it from getting much damage.
"Keep mom safe." Alex said to Ellie and then ran over to Amy. The rose ranger turned to look over at him. "Let's try a fire move to defeat that thing." He suggested to her.
Amy didn't like the idea of him being out there without powers but she understood that they might be the only ones who could hurt it. She took his hand and her control over fire, equal to the rest of the elemental control she had but irrelevant right now, mixed with his extraordinary control over fire and together they unleashed a torrent of fire at Freezadon.
It struck him but he simply shook it off and started toward the two of them menacingly.
Carlos and Evie immediately moved to protect the two of them. "His scales must be super thick." Evie reflected as she drew her mirror force shield. She was already sure that a blazing attack would have the same ineffectual results.
He swung at Carlos and he dodged under it. Evie took another step back and tried to unleash a tidal mirror force at him. It struck Freezadon and he started to pace his way through it and toward Evie. The blue ranger felt herself getting more nervous as he did so.
"Hey." Ben called out and moved in to attack Freezadon. He turned to block the attempted attack with the Praeleanthor sword before hitting him in the chest hard, sending him landing hard.
Jay and Will moved in now and Freezadon jumped up and landing on a small crevice, looking down at the ten warriors. He then unleashed another stream of icicles at them, striking them hard.
"Mal, guys." Amy gasped. She summoned her rose lance and then split it into two parts. Then she jumped up, intending to strike the reptilian ice monster. He stepped back and then slammed his fist hard into her, making her hit the ground hard. He then looked down at the recovering rangers and at the dazed rose ranger. Then he stepped off the ledge, intending to bring his feet down onto her.
"Oh my gosh." Anna gasped. From that distance, as large as the monster seemed to be and as small as Amy seemed to be, he would crush her.
Alex started to power up a flame burst but remembered how ineffectual that attack had been. From the corner of his eye he saw Ellie get ready to power an ice beam before remembering that these ice things seemed to be immune to the ice attacks.
"Amy!" Mal yelled in horror and stood up. To say that the purple haired purple ranger ran or even walked to protect her sister would have been to kind, it was more accurate to say she literally slipped and slid her way.
Mal leaned down and took Amy's arm and was able to easily lift her lighter twin sister up and toward Evie and Audrey, the ones closest to her, before Freezadon slammed down hard onto Mal. She let out a scream as she felt her left leg snap and her body hit the ground hard. She felt her chin impact against her helmet, which in turn had hit the hard icy ground. Then her vision swam and went black as she fell unconscious.
"Oh my pink, Mal!" Amy gasped in horror. She wasn't sure if she was trying to push away from Evie or sag against her blue haired chosen sister.
"You icy scaled freak!" Audrey exclaimed heatedly as she ran forward and slashed at him with the edges of her elemental bow. The slight pain she had been feeling in her arm ever since the stalagmite had injured her falling from the ceiling seemed to fade into oblivion. "Get off of her right now!" Her attacks were ineffectual but she got what she wanted as Freezadon stepped back away from the unconscious purple ranger.
Jay and Lonnie moved in to help Audrey keep the monster away from Mal though they weren't sure what they could do fight him. Amy finally pulled away from Evie, still unsure if she had been fighting her or not, and stumbled to her unmoving sister. She heard Ben right behind her.
"Mal, Mal. Please, wake up." Amy pleaded as she knelt beside her sister. She felt herself getting more freaked out that she did not move at all. Ben and Aquiella were beside her now, the Praeleanthor sword placed right at the ground in his side, point in the ground. Amy looked to Ben. "She won't wake up."
Evie came over now as she saw Jay and Lonnie try to strike Freezadon only to get slashed back hard. Carlos moved in to help now for whatever it was worth. Will moved in to help Carlos. Evie wished she knew what to do to help but she didn't have the room to use her powers without risking hurting her friends.
Evie knelt down and pressed the sides of Mal's belt. It powered her down only to see her eyes closed. Her leg was broken, nearly twisted in half. She had some blood coming out of her mouth and Ben dimly assumed she must have scratched her teeth against the edges of her tongue. "Mal, wake up." The young king now said softly. She didn't respond to him either.
Freezadon shot forward rapidly, aided by the ice that surrounded them all, and slammed hard into Jay, Will, Carlos, Lonnie and Audrey hard. They all took a rough landing. The monster barely avoided hitting the twin sisters and the young king.
Ellie and Alex both unleashed their powers on him but neither of them was surprised to see that Freezadon absorbed the attacks like they were nothing. He rammed into them hard, and they shot into Anna hard, the three of them hitting the wall hard. Alex saw that his mother was knocked unconscious from the attack. "Mom." He said as he shook her gently, then positioned her against him as Ellie shakily stood up and glared at the monster. She wished she could come up with an idea.
Freezadon roared, seemingly in victory. He turned toward the rangers now.
"What do we do now?" Carlos asked Audrey, who was now the leader with Mal injured and unconscious.
She looked to Jay, Will, Carlos, Melody and Lonnie. She knew that Amy and Ben would be too distracted to focus on the fight right now, which was really a bad thing but she couldn't fault them for it. Likewise she figured Aquiella should stay by Amy's side. She didn't want to imagine how easily that could have been Jay. "The six of us will have to attack him. At once." She said.
"Seven." Evie said as she let her mirror force shield vanish and picked up the rose lances that Amy had dropped when Freezadon had struck her down. "I'll help too." She wasn't sure how focused she was either but Amy and Ben were already with her chosen sister.
"Seven of us." Audrey amended. Together the seven of them tried to attack the monster at once. Freezadon blocked the attack from Lonnie and then turned around to slash Carlos and Lonnie with the fin like wings on his back before lifting its head and slamming it hard into the top of Audrey's head.
Jay and Will moved to slash Freezadon, the monster took a step back and slammed its fists into the two rangers hard. Even as the two boys stumbled back Melody tried to attack with the trident with Evie beside her. Freezadon took a step forward and slammed his broad shoulders into the two girls hard, forcing them to collide with Jay and Will as they started to get up again.
Audrey took a deep breath and stood up. The slight pain had flared up again but she easily b rushed that aside as she stared down at the reptilian monster that had caused them so much trouble. She approached Ben and Amy. "I have to take this thing down." She declared.
"How are you going to do that alone?" Amy asked her softly, feeling scared and even a bit defeated. In fact she could barely feel the comforting presence of Aquiella at her side.
Audrey had only started to figure anything out. "I don't know." She answered honestly. She looked to Ben. "Can I borrow your sword?" Ben nodded in confirmation and the red ranger picked it up. She could feel the same power that the others felt upon holding the ancient blade and hoped it would help her as she tried to figure out how to stop this thing. "Thanks. Take care of Mal." She said and then stepped forward, ready to do her best against the reptilian beast.