Tensions were mounting as Anna led them across the frozen waters toward the gates of Arendelle. Amy took Alex's hand softly as she saw the look of sadness in his eyes. She could only imagine what Alex, Ellie and Anna were thinking about as they made this trek. She wished that someone could offer Ellie comfort the way she thought she was doing for Alex.
Anna herself was torn between what she had always thought of when it came to Arendelle and remembering what it was like the last time she had seen it like this. That time though it was due to Elsa not having proper control over her powers while this one was an external influence that she hoped son, niece and their friends could put a stop too.
She ignored the tears the brimmed as she remembered Hans ready to strike down Elsa and she rushed in to protect her as the ice that had been inadvertently placed into her heart by Elsa had frozen her over. It was Elsa's tears and love that had brought her back. And days ago she had been forced to watch as the Ice Queen struck Elsa down. That last thought resulted in some of those tears escaping,
"We'll free Arendelle." Amy said softly to Anna and Alex as they walked. "We'll find your aunt and stop the Ice Queen."
"Count on it." Mal agreed with steel in her eyes. Although it wouldn't have been ice based, she could only see this as the kind of chaos and destruction her mother would have delighted in. And now she couldn't possibly abide it.
"I always hated the cold weather." Audrey said to herself as they walked along as carefully as they could. It sounded like a bit of a contradiction since she liked to ice skate.
Out of mild curiosity Carlos hopped a small boat to reach one of the larger boats and looked around. The boards were slippery and he very nearly fell but managed to catch his balance. He saw so many frozen over things though he was glad none of them were people. "They must have evacuated these boats after Ice Queen did her thing." He called down to his friends.
"No question about it." Ellie called back up to him. "It'd be impossible for anyone to survive on out here this long on their own." She could only assume somehow the people of Arendelle were still alive. For a moment she had this horrid thought that all of the Ice Guards they had been taking out were the citizens of Arendelle and she had to force that thought down.
Aquiella caught the thought and looked to the Arendelle heiress. "The Ice Guards are not your people." The mermaid girl promised her. "I can feel the darkness in them. They must originate from the ice barrier."
Ellie looked away. "Good. I've already failed my parents and I don't want to fail them as well." She commented.
"Hold on a second." Mal said sternly and turned Ellie to face her. "You did not fail your mom. You came to Auradon to get stronger for her. You are here now even without powers to help her." She didn't know anything about her father but knew one thing. "You haven't failed anyone, least of all your mother."
"Your father failed you." Anna commented, more bitter than anyone had heard from her before, to Ellie as she placed her hands on her niece's shoulders. "You didn't do anything to cause what happened. He was the one too weak to handle the powers that you and Elsa held." Something told Mal that she had had that conversation with her older sister at least once.
"I don't know your dad." Amy said now. "But I know you Ellie. You're awesome. He's the one who had to be the one in the wrong."
"They're right." Evie said. "Take it from us, the four of us seemed to have failed our parents when we didn't bring the wand back to the isle and even more so when we chose good." She gave a sort of sad smile but one that held no regret. "But in reality we didn't fail them. We may have let them down but that was it, and it was never their lives to live."
Ellie bit her lip a bit. "We will fail everyone if we don't get a move on." She said to them and looked to Mal. "And I for one don't want that to happen."
The purple haired girl gave her an approving smile. "We won't let that happen." She vowed.
"It's too bad you have to say that." They turned to see Ryu approaching from the path that leads to Arendelle's gates. "You'll be letting yourself and all of your friends down with that attitude."
"Didn't your little gauntleted friend tell you we beat that little dragon of us and sent him running?" Jay questioned him even as Carlos jumped off the boat to land by his friend. "It's time to stop deluding yourself about who's going to be let down."
"You survived our initial assault." Ryu agreed simply. "And you survived a couple of our monsters, though I hear one of you only barely managed that." He added with a cold smirk at Mal that she returned with a glare. "But as for beating a dragon, well let's just say you only beat one of them."
With a roar another dragon jumped over one of the boats and landed hard onto the ice, cracking the areas around its clawed paws with its massive landing. "Power Rangers, I would first like you to meet the second ice barrier dragon Frionac." Ryu said gloatfully.
"There had to be another one." Lonnie sighed.
"That's not all." Ryu said with a laugh. Not only did Ice Guard again start to emerge from around them but from behind him emerged another fighter. This one was obviously female and looked very much like melted ice. She drew two long ice shards and twirled them around, ready to fight. "And this is Icesha."
"Just we what we needed." Will said to them. "Another threat from the ice barrier."
Amy frowned a bit. She couldn't quite put her finger on it but something about this new monster. She didn't think this was from the ice barrier. But she wasn't sure it was something that her mother Maleficent would use either.
Mal glanced between Ryu, Frionac and Icesha and already knew they would have to divide to try to conquer. These situations were why she had not been thrilled of the idea of Anna, Ellie and Alex accompanying them even though she had known why they needed go with. And of course it also resulted in Alex getting his powers restored, a bonus for him. "Lonnie, Amy, Melody, Aquiella, Evie, Audrey and I will take out the dragon. Carlos, you and Ben deal with the esteemed general," She said that one with a bit of sarcasm, no doubt In response to his dig at her injuries against Freezadon. "While Will and Alex deal with Icesha. Jay, help Ellie keep Anna safe." Don't want to mention keep Ellie safe too. The purple haired girl thought to herself.
Each of the team nodded in understanding and then Mal called out her trademark, "Let's get to work." As Ben combined the Praeleanthor sword with his shield and Melody used her trident the rest of them input their numbers into their iPhones and transformed. The girls headed toward the dragon as the boys headed toward the two general monsters. Jay readied his soul scimitar as some of the Ice Guards headed toward them.
Ellie reached forward and took ahold of Jay's blaster. "You're not going to be fighting alone." She told him as she readied the newly borrowed blaster at the nearest Ice Guard.
Ryu drew his sword as Ben and Carlos approached him. "It's very odd to see a king in combat unless necessary." He remarked. "Not eager to settle into the life of a monarch I take it."
"Not every ruler sits on the sidelines while the people under them do all the work." Ben replied as he readied the Praeleanthor sword.
"Lucky for us." Carlos added as he raised his clawed hands ready to fight. Ryu swung his sword at the yellow ranger and he blocked it. Ben moved in and slammed his shield into the general, but a follow up attack with his sword was deflected by his own sword.
Icesha pulled the two bladed ice shards and shot icy rays at Will and Alex. The green ranger fell back a little as Alex pushed his way through thanks to his inherent fire power. He tried to attack her with his fire tonfa's but the icy opponent took a step back to avoid the attack and then lashed out, kicking him in the chest hard.
"Are you okay?" Will asked as he came to the newly restored Fire Knight's side.
"I'm fine." He assured the green ranger. "Quite an agile monster though."
Will swiped at her with his recursive sword at Icesha. She dodged it. A follow up swipe resulted in the same action. The green ranger moved and attempted to bring his weapon down on Icesha and to their shock her body seemed to dissolve around the descending weapon and then reformed behind it. "Wow, what?" Will questioned in shock right before she slammed her fists into Will's chest hard.
"That monster has some moves." Alex had to grant. He was starting to think it was going to take more than two of them to really take her down. At least Ben and Carlos were coming up even against Ryu.
Frionac unleashed a burst of cold fire at the girls and they all barely managed to dodge the attack. "This one is bigger than the last one." Audrey noted. "What's the plan here Mal?"
"Um, truth is I don't have one yet." Mal confessed. "I'm open to ideas ladies."
"I think we should take a minute to see if this thing can take what it's dishing out." Evie said as she positioned her mirror force shield.
"Sounds like a plan to me." Lonnie agreed as she got ready to attack. "Two waves I think; I'll start with Aquiella, with Amy and Mal backing us up." She looked to Audrey and Melody. "If we need some long range back up then you guys can provide it."
Mal nodded. "Good idea. E, get ready for when we piss this thing off enough to attack." She said.
"You got it M." Evie replied.
"Then let's make it so." Mal declared.
Lonnie and Aquiella leapt up at the dragon, using the wings as a booster to bring their weapons against the dragon's chest hard. It scratched Frionac but all it did was growl and lash out to try to take a bite out of Lonnie, who flipped out of the way of it.
The daughters of Maleficent followed suit, the jeweled end of the dragon's eye staff and the rose lance slamming into the dragon's jaw. They heard the very audible clack of the lower jaw against the upper jaw as it recoiled before a massive wing moved around and slapped the two sisters hard.
"Eyes on me scaly." Audrey called out as she raised her elemental bow and fired a rain of magical arrows at Frionac. He roared and turned to Audrey, unleashing its stream of cold fire.
It was just what Evie had been waiting for as she stepped in front of Audrey and let the attack impact her mirror force shield before deflecting it right back at Frionac. The first thing was the recoil that sent Evie crashing right into the red ranger.
The second was the wings coming up to protect Frionac's front from the attack. Any damage that would have been done was completely negated.
Melody aimed the trident at the wings now and unleashed her own energy attack. The wings were completely immune to that as well.
"Nothing." Aquiella said. "Its wings protected it from its own attack and from Melody's trident."
"But we got a couple of scratches on its chest." Amy remarked. "That means it's not fully protected. We just have to figure out how to exploit that weakness."
Now Lonnie bit her lip in thought though of course none of them could see it through the helmets they wore. "We damaged the chest but we can't get through the wings." She mused. Then she called out, "Melody, get ready to attack it when we get its attention."
"Alright, sure." The aqua ranger agreed dubiously.
Lonnie charged up her hurricane tessens and tossed one of them at Frionac's wing. As expected the first one struck the wing and didn't do any damage. The second was charged up and ready as the wings separated and Frionac unleashed another burst of blue fire. That one twirled around and striking again across the chest, causing it to emit a little roar of pain.
"We figured that one out already." Amy pointed out. "What does that prove?"
Melody shot out energy from the trident again and struck Frionac in the back. The dragon serpent monster let out another, louder roar of pain. Again Melody repeated the performance as Frionac turned to face her and Audrey now. Some damage occurred up until it struck a wing and again blocked the attack.
Amy amended her own statement. "We have to strike it in the back, where its wings can't protect it." She declared.
"Time to regroup then." Aquiella stated. The five rangers started toward the dragon and when it raised a paw to slash at them they each dodged as low as they could to avoid the attack. For Amy it was easy enough as she was the shortest one out of the entire group, whereas Aquiella had to work a little harder to avoid the attack.
Evie and Audrey met them. "Okay so we know what we have to do to defeat him, but how do we accomplish that?" The blue haired blue ranger asked them.
"Audrey and I will have to hit that thing with everything we've got, just like the last ice barrier dragon that we dealt with." Mal said to the red ranger and then looked to her little sister and the rest of their team members. "You five will have to throw everything you can at it so that way we can get our battlizers going."
"We'll need to do a bit more than that." Evie countered. "We're going to have to keep it off balance." She looked to Melody. "You and I will have to use our weapons and make our shots count." She looked to Amy, Lonnie and Aquiella. "The three of you should stick to our blasters, we don't want to risk any damage to the tessens or boomerangs."
"I don't even have a choice on that anyway." Amy replied with a small shrug. "My rose lance won't do any long range damage to a monster. But we should use the neon armor for protection."
"So we've got a plan then." Mal said. She patted Amy's arm gently. "You'll do fine." She looked to the other girls. "You'll all do fine. Just do your best. Audrey and I will hopefully be able to clean things up."
Meanwhile as Ice Guards started to show up around Will and Ben, Icesha leapt past the two rangers and landed right beside Ryu as he clashed with Alex. Carlos noticed the newest monsters approach and got ready to defend against her.
"Guys, be careful." Ben called out to the fire knight and the other two male rangers even as he had to turn his attention toward the Ice Guards.
Carlos tried to go at Icesha only for the arm of the monster to flow like water and lash onto the yellow ranger's arm and tossed him toward Ben and Will hard. Her attack bowled over several of the Ice Guards as well but she didn't seem to care. She then turned toward Jay and Ellie.
"Not good." Alex said and tried to turn around to help his friend, cousin and mother; two of who were practically defenseless. Ryu got in the way and slashed him hard.
"Keep those guys off of me Ellie." Jay said to the blonde Arendelle princess. "I'm going in." With a quick breath he started in toward Icesha. He swiped his soul scimitar at her but the agile creature dodged out of the way.
She responded by lashing out with the same move that she hooked on Carlos, but the black ranger had seen it coming and was prepared to dodge out of the way with a side step that was almost on par with a dance move.
He tried to follow up with a slash of his own but Icesha brought up her hands and formed a small and thin ice shield to block the attack. It shattered under the impact of the attack but it allowed her to get her arms around the soul scimitar and proceed to toss Jay into a group of oncoming Ice Guards.
That move sent him bowling over Carlos and Ben while Will was a little too far away to catch that one. Again though she also bowled over several Ice Guards. "She doesn't seem to care who she takes down here." Ben noted. "I don't know if that's good or bad."
"Right now, I'd have to go with bad." Jay replied as he got up, pulling Carlos up with him. "Because now we're all surrounded by these guys and nothing is stopping her from trying to tear into Ellie and Anna." Right now the girls couldn't spare anyone if they wanted too, as much of a problem as the dragon was posing.
Ellie noticed that problem too as she moved her aunt behind her and pointed her borrowed blaster at the creature opposite her. Icesha approached boldly and confidently but hadn't struck yet. "What are you?" The young princess couldn't help but ask.
"General Ryu already told you my name." Icesha replied. "Isn't that all you need to know?"
Ellie actually knew that shouldn't even be important. Than Anna said, "I don't remember you being part of the attack force that invaded Arendelle that night." She had been caught up in a combination of shock and sadness that night, there were somethings that were like a blur, and yet…she figured she would remember a monster like this.
Icesha leapt at Ellie and she barely dodged the attack, tossing Anna the blaster as she formed an icicle blade and got ready to try to square off against Icesha.
Lonnie, Amy, Aquiella, Melody and Evie started a charge toward Frionac activating the neon armor as they did so, even as Mal and Audrey started to back away from them in what looked like a retreat. Evie released a storming mirror force attack at Frionac. As expected the wings came up to protect the monster. Lonnie and Evie cut to the left as Evie and Amy cut to the right. The risky part came on Aquiella, who had to skirt underneath the monster so that it was forced to turn away from the two soon to be battelized rangers.
Aquiella knew the only thing stopping her skin from feeling the scaly skin of the monster was her ranger suit. It didn't seem like it would be that big of a deal since she had grown up around fish and octopi and other assorted and often scaly sea creatures, but somehow the idea of brushing skin with this creature almost made her feel sick. She was relieved to be on the other side of the dragon monster.
On one side Evie released a blazing mirror force at the right side of Frionac, with Lonnie firing her blaster. On the other side Melody used the trident to unleash energy with Amy backing her up with her blaster. When Aquiella slid out from under the monster she unleashed her blaster on Frionac as well. The monster didn't seem to know which way to block first, the wings barely able to protect it from the side attacks while having no choice but to take the blaster shots from the orange ranger. Even that though was only part of the diversion.
Mal and Audrey activated their battlizers and then rose to the sky. They already knew they had to be quite about this if they wanted the plan to work. Its back was unprotected and couldn't be protected by the wings but if they drew Frionac's attention it would then have the wings to protect itself.
Mal shrunk her dragon's eye staff down to arrow size and handed it to Audrey, who nodded her appreciation. Then the purple ranger started to charge up her draco meteor attack. Audrey placed the dragon's eye arrow into the silk strings of her elemental bow and then as she took aim at Frionac she also summoned several jewels to strike him with.
"Come on M, Audrey." Evie whispered. "We're running out of time." Frionac powered up another blue fire blast and the blue ranger raised her shield in an attempt to get ready to deflect even part of it.
"We're only going to get one shot." Mal said to Audrey softly. "Let's make this count."
"Right." The red ranger acknowledged simply.
Both battlized rangers unleashed their attacks at Frionac's back. The draco meteor attack almost seemed to be surrounded by the jewels Audrey summoned and the dragons' eye arrow shifted right into the center of the meteor attack. Mal quickly mentally coined in the draco jeweled meteor strike and hoped they could do it again even as Frionac was struck in the back hard, falling forward and exploding in a massive burst. The five female rangers in front of it was knocked back just a bit by the blast.
"Amy, guys! Are you okay?" Mal called out.
"We're fine sis." Amy said to her. She could feel that easily enough. "One down and two to go."
Ryu turned his attention from Alex to realize how quickly the situation had changed. He was already sure some of the girls would be advancing on him soon enough.
Even as Ellie and Icesha paced each other the young princess felt herself hesitating. Something still seemed wrong here but she wasn't sure what it was.
"Icesha, enough." Ryu called out to her. She turned to the general and almost seemed to give a glare of annoyance but leapt back and landed next to the general and what was left of this group of Ice Guards. He looked to the Auradon rangers. "Nothing more stops you from entering Arendelle, but if I were you I would think very quickly about your next actions, rangers. It will be your last." He warned and with that they had vanished.
"Everyone okay?" Mal asked as they powered down. She went up to take Ben's hand.
"That new monster has a mean punch to her." Jay said as he brushed a strand of hair from Audrey's face softly. "And another ice barrier dragon creature. How many of those things are there?"
"Too many." Audrey noted with a smile as she leaned into his hand.
"Stopping Icesha won't be easy." Alex noted as he patted Amy's arm gently. "But we'll have to find a way."
Ellie bit her lip. "Mom." She whispered softly.
Gauntula and Grunard were waiting for Ryu as he showed up. "Tougher than they look after all, wouldn't you say?" the latter asked the defeated general.
"They're tougher than they're given credit for." Ryu reluctantly granted. Icesha said nothing.
Then from the shadows a voice spoke. "They're power rangers. I warned you not to underestimate them." From those shadows emerged the same woman that Anna had described to the rangers when she had arrived in Auradon. "They are not the same as the ones who opposed myself and the Shadow King so long ago, but rangers none the less."
"What is the plan now my queen?" Grunard asked her.
"The time has come to prepare for their arrival, they are literally at the gates." Ice Queen told them all. "But we have can handle it." She looked to Ryu and Icesha. "Your time is soon." She looked to Gauntula. "You're with me as we prepare to have our official royal meeting." She then looked to Grunard. "And your chariot as it were awaits. Together we will divide and conquer these power rangers, and cement our place in Arendelle."
"And after that?" Grunard asked.
"We take Auradon." Ice Queen said. "And with that done we take Earth and avenge my death against those rangers."
"The sooner we free Arendelle the better." Lonnie admitted. "Even I'm getting weary of the cold."
"And we're running out of what daylight we have left." Mal added. She looked to Ellie. "Think we can stay in one of these boats?"
Ellie glanced around a moment and then nodded. "Yes, that one over there." It looked to be a small but luxurious cruise line ship. "We can stay there for the night."
"Then we'll do that." Mal said. "And come morning we storm Arendelle, usurp the 'queen', find Queen Elsa," That she said as she smiled at Ellie softly and touched her shoulder before looking back at her team. "And we end this once and for all."