Anna wasn't sure why her head hurt. Being around as their guest Thera seemed to absorb herself in the kingdom of Arendelle managed to make her feel sick to her stomach constantly but it never seemed to induce a headache. It occurred to her though that perhaps it should make her head hurt as much as it made her sick to her stomach.
Being the queen, Elsa did her best to courteously answer their guest's questions as the day progressed without revealing too much about the inside workings of her own government, let alone Auradon's at large. Sometimes Anna couldn't tell if the evasion annoyed the blue skinned woman or not.
When dinner came around Elsa again extended her most diplomatic gesture and allowed her to join her and her sister for dinner. If Kristoff had been in the kingdom he would have joined them too, and that was the spot that she occupied right now. The spot where Ellie and Alex would take were empty, had been they had gone to Auradon to learn to control their magic.
Sometimes Anna thought about asking Kristoff if he wanted to have another child. She wondered if Alex would be okay with a younger brother or sister. Of course for Elsa having another child, if she ever even thought about it, was impossible.
"Tell me again where you came from." Anna said to her as she placed her fork down and picked up her water glass.
"Far from here." She responded to Anna's inquiry somewhat evasively as she cut a chunk out of the chicken breast she had selected for dinner. "Toward the frozen tundra's." Anna and Elsa had of course heard about it, as they were beyond the explored islands, even the one where Paragon was said to inhabit. Most places did not have the resources to explore naturally frozen lands such as that.
"Is there some place in those tundra's that link this place, this Ice Barrier to Auradon?" Elsa now asked their guest. Sometimes Anna wasn't sure her older sister entirely trusted their guest either, but being a good host and a good diplomat was some of the unspoken requirements to being a good ruler of any kingdom.
"There might be, I never saw any direct evidence." She answered, somewhat evasively in Anna's opinion. After all, how could she really know any of that unless she had some kind of evidence to prove it.
"Are they heading here to Arendelle? Or to Auradon?" Anna now asked. She presumed if they had attacked their guest that meant they probably weren't friendly and that meant that her son, niece, and their friends had to know about it. And if there was any chance that she was the one who was in the wrong here there was still the chance they would want to retrieve her.
"I would prepare your men for that possibility." She answered simply. It still almost seemed like evasion to Anna but she was starting to think that maybe it was simply the lack of trust on her part that made her question a lot of what this woman was saying.
"We'll take care of that after dinner." Elsa said as she looked to her little sister with a small reassuring smile. "And we'll keep you safe too as well." She added to their guest.
"Yes." Anna said somewhat doubtfully. "We'll make sure that they don't succeed in whatever plans these ice barrier people have planned for anyone."
"I'm sure that you will all do your best." She had said with a smile. Anna was sure she thought it was meant to be reassuring or encouraging but to Anna she felt it was condescending. She had to give Elsa all the credit in the world for the tolerance she seemed to show.
Even that had some limits as she had looked to Elsa and requested, "Please, tell me about your children." That required quite a bit of evasion.
"Knocked unconscious again." Anna moaned as she looked up at Alex.
"You weren't out that long." Alex assured his mother.
"Yeah." Ellie replied. "You're just in time to see the show. Though I don't know how it will turn out." She looked at the area beyond them.
An upset Amy and a very concerned Ben were around Mal. The purple haired purple ranger and leader of their team was currently unconscious as well. She had a broken leg and was bleeding. Ellie feared she might have received at least a mild concussion. Aquiella was by the younger twin's side, trying her best to reassure her.
Evie, Melody, Lonnie, Will, Carlos and Jay were kind of surrounding the area as they watched, just as unsure of what was about to happen as anyone else; as Audrey had just declared she would find a way to take down the reptilian monster Freezadon down on her own.
Audrey tightened the grip on her borrowed sword, the mythical blade of an ancient civilization that named the object the Praeleanthor sword. She felt the power of the ancient weapon and that helped strengthen her resolve a little. She was going to need it.
This monster had deflected every attack they had thrown at it. It had hurt Mal badly when she had rushed to help protect her twin sister. And now the red ranger was going to try to take the thing out on her own. Jay was impressed by her bravery but feared for her safety now, perhaps even her sanity.
"Audrey." Evie started.
"I have to do this." Audrey told the blue haired blue ranger. "I have to put this thing down. I have to avenge Mal." And what the brunette princess didn't want to admit to anyone else was that she felt she had to prove herself to everyone, especially herself.
The red ranger leapt at Freezadon, bringing the Praeleanthor sword down toward him. The reptilian beast raised his arm and blocked the attack. He swung his other fist at the red ranger and she barely dodged it, pulling off a matrix like backbend to make the escape.
"Audrey." Lonnie called out.
"I told you I have to do this." Audrey retorted as she back flipped out of the way of the double fist that Freezadon aimed at her. She kicked it back hard and this time slashed the Praeleanthor sword at him, making him step back just a little bit.
Lonnie understood what she was saying. And the Asian princess also had a good understanding of what her brunette princess friend was not saying. It seemed foolish to her but then she was not the one who had spent weeks being personally targeted by Chad either. "I got that." She replied. "But just because you want to fight on your own doesn't mean you have to fight by yourself. Use the neon armor."
Audrey nodded in understanding. She, Evie, Mal, Jane and Doug had developed it to help them in fight. She powered up the neon armor and then found Freezadon aiming his fist at her again. This time the added speed allowed her to dodge it much easier, this time with a cartwheel to the side.
With the side exposure from the monster she slashed him as hard as she could with the Praeleanthor sword. It seemed to gash him a little but it wasn't enough to keep do much more than annoy him.
"What else can we do to help her?" Melody asked. "You know, without actually helping her?" She didn't understand why Audrey felt she needed to do this but she figured if Lonnie and Jay were allowing it then she couldn't really stop it.
"The first thing Audrey has to worry about are those things on his arms." Carlos said. "He can block just about any attack with those things."
Jay called out. "Audrey!" And the red ranger barely afforded him a glance as she was prepared to stop him from protesting her brave but stubborn decision to fight the monster on her own. But all he did was toss his soul scimitar to her, giving her an extra bladed weapon to fight with.
"Thanks, love." Audrey replied automatically as she caught his weapon, she was too caught up in the fight to really think about what she had just said. Jay still felt himself flush a bit in pleased embarrassment.
Freezadon unleashed the icicle stream at her and struck her hard. She rolled to the ground, feeling the sting in her arm from the gash she has received from the falling stalagmite not too long ago. Freezadon charged her, intending to ram her but the red ranger was able to dodge that one.
She stood and brought the Praeleanthor sword and the soul scimitar across each other as she moved in toward the reptilian monster. She channeled as much of her own energies into the two bladed weapons, as well as the neon energy, she swore she felt Jay and Ben contributing their own energies to the weapons as well, as irrational as that was, and brought it down on the left armored arm and it shattered upon impact.
"She got a hit in." Carlos said excitedly.
"But wait." Melody interrupted as she saw Audrey take a few steps back as the force of the impact forced her to lose her grip on the soul scimitar, which flew into the water pool in the corner of the room.
Freezadon growled and slammed his now unprotected fist into Audrey hard. It sent her sprawling backwards, hitting one of the crevices roughly. He tried to follow up with his right fist but the red ranger leapt over the attack.
She leapt down and kicked the monster in the side of the head. She dodged a swing from his right fist and side stepped the left fist, slashing his arm hard. He growled in annoyance at the slight gash. He still had his scaled skin to help mitigate the attack.
"Okay so this thing seems to like to attack physically while in one on one combat." Carlos noted. "What can Audrey do to exploit this?"
Evie flexed her hands nervously. Audrey had done great so far but one slip up could get her killed, and that made them all very tense. She felt metal pressed against her hand and then remembered she was holding her mirror force shield. And she had an idea. "Audrey!" She called out. She saw the red ranger look over at her briefly and she tossed her weapon at her. "Shake it up, number three." She hoped Audrey would understand that code, as she didn't want Freezadon to pick up on it.
Audrey glanced down at her friend's weapon and felt confused for a moment. She knew that despite the glass look the weapon was anything but fragile, it could take hits that no one would ever have expected. What she didn't understand was the number. She glanced down at the buttons, and then thought she caught on.
Freezadon charged right at her and again Audrey had to back flip out of the way. "Thank heaven for all those years of cheerleading." She said to herself. Freezadon shot his unprotected fist at the red ranger and she ducked under by doing the splits. She brought the Praeleanthor sword up and slashed its arm hard before twisting her body around and bringing her feet up as hard as she could into the chest of the beast.
The armored arm came crashing down toward Audrey and she raised Evie's mirror force shield up. The scaled hand connected with the glass of the mirror force shield and she pressed the third button, unleashing a quaking mirror force. As Evie had hoped the attack shot the arm up and shattered the protective covering on that arm too.
"Yes, great idea Evie." Melody said to the blue ranger.
Freezadon lashed out and kicked Audrey's arm hard. She let out a gasp of a pain. The plus side was her arm didn't break upon impact. The negative side was that she lost her grip on Evie's mirror force shield and it went flying into the corridor where they had been trying to get to before the monster had first attacked.
Audrey rolled to her feet and barely dodged the wing like sections on its back that tried to jab itself straight into the red ranger's body. She again raised the Praeleanthor sword in a semi-defensive stance. She was rapidly growing exhausted and she was no closer to a solution despite the neon armor and her friend's weapons. She glanced around the cave, noting how shiny and blue it was…and it gave her an idea.
She took out her iPhone again, this time though she pressed down on the small half sun piece just above her gem in order to activate her battlizer. Audrey felt the armor assembled all over her body, glowing with a mixture of red and pinks. The earrings slipped out of her helmet. Long elegant silk like ribbons emerged from over her shoulders. The same colored crystals that resembled her earring grew around her waist.
Even now Jay was still amazed at how amazing Audrey looked when she activated her battlizer. A true princess.
"How about a tasted of your own medicine?" Audrey suggested to the monster. She raised her arms and unleashed her own crystal attacks on him, similar to his own icicles except they were pink and not really ice. They struck him hard and he scooted back several steps, but his scaled skin was still like a natural shield.
As Freezadon started to rampage toward Audrey she started to gradually step, almost float, back and started to gather the energies of her own powers and the neon armor into the Praeleanthor sword and as the monster grew closer she started toward him and brought the sword down across his chest and stomach. The monster fell to the ground hard as Audrey came to a stop, feeling kind of dizzy.
Freezadon started to get up. The red ranger could see a gash in the chest now that was unprotected. Audrey was sure if she could get a good hit on that spot she could finally put this thing down. She channeled more energy and headed toward the monster again.
This time he brought up the wing like appendages on his back and slapped the Praeleanthor sword hard. It flew and embedded itself into the wall right beside Alex, his mother and his cousin.
"Audrey, use this." Amy tried to call out as loud as she could. It was an effort since her voice was laced with worry and fear over her sister. She tossed the red ranger the dragon's eye staff. Audrey caught it with one hand as she summoned her elemental bow to her other hand.
"Please, let this work." The brunette princess prayed. She didn't know who she was praying too and she didn't even know if it would work at all. She was feeling shaky and knew it wouldn't be long before she lost the power stream she was currently wielding. "This has to work."
Freezadon charged at her even as she levitated herself up to avoid the attack. For a moment she was unsure how to do what she and Mal had done once before to stop the Infernal Flame. Mal had shrunk her dragon's eye staff to the size of an arrow for her to shoot from her bow. Then with a burst of concentration that also seemed to drain her further she shrunk it down.
Audrey placed the dragon's eye arrow in between the strings of the bow and had to dodge again as Freezadon leapt up, intending to slam into Audrey. To his credit Freezadon landed on one of the ledges and was turning again to face the red ranger down.
She drew back the silk feeling string and aimed the dragon's eye arrow and let loose her attack. Even as Freezadon leapt out the arrow flew straight and true right into the opening on his chest. The monster instead started flying backwards but before it could hit the wall itself the energy burst was finally enough to put the monster down, with an explosion and a slight shaking of the cave, he was gone.
Audrey was barely able to float down to the ground as she turned to her friends. "I did it." Audrey said, feeling dizzy and tired. "The monster is gone." Then with that she felt herself black out. She was vaguely aware of her body falling toward the ground before she lost consciousness.
She had fallen to her knees and was about to fall backwards but Jay was there as he caught her in his arms and then brought her over to their friends as he said, "You did great Audrey. A job well done."
For a moment they all looked at each other. They had never discussed who would lead the team if both Mal and Audrey weren't available though the one time it had happened in the burnt tower, Evie had been the one to try to take charge.
Then Melody spoke up. "Audrey should be okay with some rest." She said. "But what about Mal? How do we help her?"
"She still won't wake up." Amy said softly. She stroked Mal's hair and looked down at her worriedly with tears in her eyes.
Aquiella glanced around at their surroundings and then realized something. "I better go get the soul scimitar and the mirror force shield." She announced. She squeezed Amy's shoulder gently to reassure her as best she could again and then headed toward the water. Melody took her cousin's place by Amy's side.
The mermaid girl released the spell that let her have legs instead of a tail and dove into the water. She then dove in and started to swim down to the bottom of the lake. It was a bit colder than she was used to in the oceans of Atlantica but she wasn't too worried about it. She wouldn't be in that long. It was easy enough for her to find the weapons. She picked them up and started toward the surface again.
She returned to the surface and set the two weapons down on the cave floor. Then she frowned a little. "Amy, come here please." She requested. "Ben, please bring Mal over here as well."
Curious the two did as the mermaid girl asked, the others slowly following her over. "Now set Mal into the waters with me." Aquiella said to Ben. "I'll keep her from sinking too far into the water." She looked to Amy. "In fact I need you to come in here with me." Amy nodded and did as she said.
"Think I could help you?" Melody asked now, having a good idea of what her cousin was planning.
"I think you could." Aquiella answered with a small smile. Trident in hand, Melody released the magic that gave her legs to become a mermaid as well and joined her cousin and friend.
"Is there anything else we can do to help with your plan?" Ben asked her.
Aquiella thought about it a moment. "Yes, please give Amy the Praeleanthor sword. Perhaps its ancient energies will help us too." She replied. The young king nodded and handed the rose haired girl his sword.
"I don't understand what she's planning." Carlos said to the others as quietly as he could.
"I think I know." Evie answered him, feeling very nervous. "She wants to channel her own water magic with Amy's water magic and whatever energies she can from Triton's trident and the Praeleanthor sword to make the lake into a temporary healing spring."
"A what?" Jay asked.
"A healing spring." Will said as he placed an arm around Lonnie and held her against his side gently. "She wants to imbue the water with the ability to heal. The feel of it should help to heal her leg and her wounds."
"If it's a freshwater lake, they might even be able to give her some to help with any internal damage we can't see, including any concussion." Lonnie added. "It's more draining to the magic users than it would be for Jordan to make healing remedies and potions though."
"Who will it drain more?" Ben now asked. "Aquiella or Amy?"
"Probably Aquiella." Evie replied softly. "Amy and the two items are acting as conduits for Aquiella to draw energy from, but it has to be her natural affinity for water that turns that lake into the healing springs she wants to make in order to help Mal."
"Will it help Audrey too?" Jay asked now.
"It wouldn't help her too much." Evie replied. "Audrey just exhausted herself. Granted, probably way more than she should have but it's not likely to kill her and if she can rest she'll recover. Mal's wounds are physical and if there is something worse than that broken leg it could kill her."
They all watched as the four girls floated in the water. A few minutes passed and Jay felt himself getting restless as it seemed as if they were doing nothing but wasting their time when Arendelle was still in danger. Then he started to notice a slight lime green tint to the water. "Is that a good sign?" He asked Evie.
"I believe so." It was Ellie who answered that. "I can feel a slight vibration from the water because of how cold it is. I'm pretty sure that it's the healing property."
Amy did her best not only to channel her control of water into her friend but she also tried to send some mild heat into the water so that way they wouldn't freeze to death. She wasn't sure who would be worse off; she was clothed but that was wet, which offered very little heat. On the other hand as mermaids Aquiella and Melody had almost no clothing on save bra like tops. She also wasn't sure that they would be used to the cold temperatures that Arendelle's water were currently going through.
That thought was not even on Aquiella's mind as she drew whatever energy she could from her rose haired friend and the two weapons, what she would almost call artifacts in her possession. Through it she discovered something interesting though it had no way to be used here. The Praeleanthor sword could not only damage or even defeat strong monsters with enough charge, but it could even help keep the user healthy. She also knew it matched the original artifact the space rangers had discovered that clued them in onto the sword itself.
The first thing that Evie noticed was the water that lapped against Mal's leg seemed to now be mending her broken leg. Another minute passed before it looked unblemished, like Freezadon had not crushed it.
"That is amazing." Anna said in a whisper. "She did it. They did it."
Soon Mal's complexion, which before had been very pale, almost as white as a ghost, began to return to normal. Because of the water even the blood that had been on her was washing off. In another few minutes it was like nothing had happened to her, except for the fact she was still unconscious.
It seemed as if Aquiella was now getting as drained as Audrey had been after single handedly defeating Freezadon. Ben quickly made his way into the water to take Mal into his arms as Amy and Melody each took a hold of Aquiella's arms and together the five of them made their way to the edge of the small lake.
"I think we should take a bit of time to rest up here." Ellie said to them all. "Mal, Audrey, and Aquiella need it a lot. And I think we all could use a bit of a rest."
"Good idea." Evie agreed. As Jay settled down, taking off his own jacket to help keep Audrey warm, Alex and Will gathered some stones together that Alex said he and Amy could heat up enough to warm the area up for a little while.
They were able to do just that, though Alex had to a good majority of the work as Amy had expended quite a bit of her own energy when she helped Aquiella to heal Mal's injuries.
Jay leaned back against the wall as he kept Audrey's head in his lap as she seemed to sleep on, recovering from her grueling battle.
Will wrapped his arms around Lonnie again. The Asian princess leaned the back of her head against his chest as they tried to relax.
Alex sat by Amy. The rose haired girl felt kind of drained herself. "You must feel tired." Alex said to her softly. "Especially mentally. With what just happened to your sister, it must have felt like being on a roller coaster, at least an emotional one."
Amy nodded softly. "Yeah." She agreed. She glanced over at Ellie who sat by the fire herself but her gaze kept going back to the pool they had recently just used as a healing spring. It had since gone back to its clear coloring. "Ellie must still be on that roller coaster." She added softly.
"And she'll be on that 'ride' until we know what happened to Aunt Elsa, one way or another." Alex observed regretfully. After another few moments the Arendelle prince felt Amy unconsciously cuddle up against his arm as she slept.
"Don't worry." Evie said gently to Ellie, though she wasn't sure the blonde Arendelle princess heard her. She didn't acknowledge it if anything else. "We're going to get to Arendelle and we're going to save your mother."
Melody sat by the fire, feeling her body temperature returning to normal now that she was out of the cold water. She just hoped that it helped to heal Mal, that her healers would wake up refreshed from the attempt, and that Audrey would wake up refreshed from the very draining fight.