Anna ran through the forests of Arendelle. She would have loved to find something with more speed so she could get to Auradon quicker. She had to get to her son, niece and all of their friends before it became impossible to restore Arendelle to its beauty.
What she hadn't counted on but probably should have was that she would be pursued. She had seen signs of the general's pursuing her for the last couple of hours and had nearly been cornered by the lizard like monster that their 'guest' had told them about, proving she had been not lying about its existence, at least. Marshmallow had shown up and chased that one away though. It was all it could do though as more Ice Guards had shown up. Anna knew that meant they had successfully taken the castle.
The snow was picking up, far worse than it had when Elsa had lost control of her powers and tried to isolate herself in the mountains. She wasn't even sure how anyone could survive here without shelter and feared she would not make it to Auradon to get the help they needed.
That seemed to be confirmed when she was surrounded suddenly by Gauntula, Ryu and Grunard as they seemed to appear from nowhere. "Surrender yourself princess of Arendelle and our queen might let you live." Grunard said to her.
"I won't." Anna said. "And she won't hold Arendelle for long either."
"You won't be able to get any help." Ryu warned. "By the time any other kingdom here can mount an attack effort it will be far too late to remove us without heavy damage. Our presence here will be a fact of life."
Anna tried to move past then and Gauntula hit her. She landed awkwardly, resulting in the sprain that she had when Belle would later bring her to the under construction command center. The cuts had occurred back at the castle when she had fallen though that attack reopened the wounds.
"It's over." Ryu said as the three started to approach her. Anna felt herself fighting to stay conscious.
Then there was a flash of energy and it struck in front of the three generals. It seemed to almost be like the shape of a bird. Then the blizzard grew even more intense and Anna felt a presence above her, a shadow blocking her out.
"What is that?" Ryu asked.
"It's protecting the princess." Gauntula noted.
Grunard drew his sword and fired a burst of energy at the mysterious arrival but Anna could just make out a pulse of water intercept it. Then the blizzard picked up and Anna had lost consciousness.
She sat up with a gasp, expecting to be locked up or on the sidelines of a mismatched battle. She instead found herself outside the forest, but no snow in sight. She realized it was Auradon. She looked around and saw nothing but a couple of blue feathers. "How…" She wondered.
Then a couple of guards found her and she asked to be escorted to Auradon but had instead been taken to the castle for medical treatment. There Belle had come to her and Anna had convinced her she needed to see her son, Ellie and their friends. The Queen had agreed instantly.
"And you know the rest." Anna said to the team as they sat around listening fully to her story/dream of what had led her to Auradon to get their help as they finished their quick breakfast the next morning before the full on attack.
Aquiella and Melody exchanged a small knowing smile even as Alex hugged his mother and Ellie hugged her aunt. "We're able to prevent her plans for Auradon and Earth thanks to you." Mal said to her with a small smile. "And we'll bring Arendelle back to what it was."
Ben hugged Mal against him softly. "You have my word." The young king added.
"Thank you." Anna said with a sad smile. "I just hope Elsa is around to help with this." She looked at the teens. "And there is only one way to find out."
Jay nodded. "Time to storm the castle." He said. Mal nodded in agreement.
They left the small luxury boat they spent the night in and approached the gates of Arendelle. As they approached the wall though they found the three generals; Grunard, Gauntula and Ryu standing on the walls. On the roof they could also see Icesha standing and watching.
"Here for your final match?" Will asked the generals as they took fighting stances.
"We're here for your final test." Grunard responded. "You failed your initial test when we clashed with you on your way to Arendelle." He laughed at the memory. "You really fell for our powers then."
"Then all of you proved your weaknesses when your own leader put herself in harm's way to protect the little girl." Gauntula added with amusement.
"Excuse me?" Audrey demanded hotly. "I beat down that Freezadon thing on my own. And Mal protected her sister, the way any good sibling or team mate should do."
"As I recall you barely won the battle, and fainted afterwards." Gauntula replied mockingly. "And if you were all so good then you would have defeated Freezadon without the beating or injuries that were sustained."
"And your down two dragon's because of us." Jay now defended as he glared at the three generals. "And two of you have already ran from us."
"Indeed." Ryu agreed. "And that is why it's time for your final test." There was a huge roaring sound and from behind the walls crawled another large monster, again much larger than many of the monsters they faced but too small for the zords. "Let's see how you rangers handle the Snowrachnid."
"Oh my pink, it had to be spider looking monster." Amy said with disgust.
"Just swell." Audrey muttered in agreement.
"Something seems weird about it." Alex said as he looked at his mother and cousin. He watched the spider monster start to descend down the wall and noticed the bobbling on its head. "Is that…"
Anna caught onto her son's observation. "That's Olaf attached to it. It must have absorbed him to help power him up." She gasped.
Ellie looked to their leader. "Mal we can't destroy that monster until we figure out how to free Olaf from that entrapment." She said to the purple haired girl.
Mal understood and she gave a nod. "We'll figure it out." She promised the future heiress of Arendelle. "Keep Anna safe, fall back toward the docks. We're going to help Olaf and take out Snowrachnid." She looked to her team mates. "Let's get to work."
As Ben combined the Praeleanthor sword and shield to transform into the Auradon Knight the other rangers took out their iPhones to transform into rangers or the Fire Knight in Alex's case. They were no sooner transformed when Snowrachnid jumped off the wall and landed in front of him, shaking the surrounding area a little.
"Hey Evie, let's see if he likes our response." Carlos said as he formed his earthquake claw daggers.
"Sounds good to me." Evie agreed as she formed her mirror force shield and unleashed a quaking mirror force attack at Snowrachnid while Carlos struck the ground with his weapons. It generated a small earthquake toward the monster though his larger size made it so that he wasn't as effected as they would have liked.
Snowrachnid unleashed a huge icy web from its mouth straight at the rangers. They drew their weapons in an attempt to avoid getting trapped but the webbing like substance was too thick for that to matter. "We're trapped." Carlos growled.
"Not for long." Amy said as she channeled her fire energy into her rose lance. Alex caught onto what the rose ranger was going for and channeled his own fire energy into his tonfa's. Audrey followed suit as best she could by having an arrow form at the center of her elemental bow and making it a flaming arrow just as Evie adjust her mirror force shield to unleash a blazing mirror force.
Snowrachnid moved in quickly and tried to take a bite out of the nearest rangers, in this case Jay and Lonnie, but Evie directed her blazing mirror force attack upward and caused the thing to take a step back to avoid getting singed. "Looks like that ice bug really hates fire." The black ranger noted with some glee.
"Spiders are arachnids, not bugs." Carlos corrected him.
"Whatever." Jay brushed it off.
They were able to brush off enough of the ice webbing to move again. "We need to spread out so we're not easy targets for this thing again." Mal said to the team. "So let's move out." The ranger team started to spread out, each of them glancing warily at the generals. They seemed perfectly content to watch as they had stated.
Audrey rose her elemental bow and formed another stream of arrows that were quickly transformed into flaming arrows that she shot at Snowrachnid. They hit the skin of the monster who glared at her. It was in some pain but wasn't doing the damage that she had hoped for.
"I don't know if we can kill this thing until we get Olaf out of harm's way." Lonnie called out to them.
"You might be right." Jay said. "I'm going up." He leapt up into the air and toward the ice spider's back. Will jumped up right after him with his recursive sword raised. They headed toward the lump that Anna said was supposed to be Olaf when the skin in front of them started to split and smaller spiders emerged. They hissed and shot small bolts of ice at the two rangers.
"Whoa." Will blurted out and shoved Jay to the left before tumbling to the right himself. They both rolled awkwardly but avoided the ice bolts. A couple of them then leapt at the boys. Will caught two of them on either end of his weapon while Jay had to use his soul scimitar to dissipate the two that launched themselves at him.
"That is kind of gross." Audrey commented. She then looked to Mal. "Okay, so is that going to happen if we destroy that Snowrachnia thing?" She asked now.
"Snowrachnid." Evie absently corrected the brunette princess. She didn't really care enough to tell the blue ranger she didn't really care what it was called. "I can't tell if that was done by accident or by design. Or what will happen if we destroy it." She said.
"What choice do we have?" Lonnie reminded them. "It's standing between us and freeing Arendelle. We have to get Olaf off of that thing and destroy it."
"Grand, but how do we get Olaf off of if that thing sprouts spiderlings every time someone gets off of it?" Carlos now questioned.
"We don't." Mal decided.
"But Mal we can't sacrifice Olaf." Amy protested to her sister.
"And we're not." Mal assured her. She looked to Audrey and Evie. "I need you two to cover me. The rest of you keep that Snowrachnid distracted. I'm going to hit the walls and magic Olaf out of that thing."
"Great idea Mal." Melody said and Audrey nodded in agreement.
Lonnie nodded too. "You heard her guys, it's bigger but only one monster right now. Let's see if we can keep it distracted."
"Just remember it has eight eyes." Evie pointed out to them all. "We're going to have to work harder than with most monsters if we want to keep its eyes off of Mal."
As Mal started toward the icy walls of Arendelle, Audrey and Evie readied themselves to protect Mal if the generals tried to stop her working her magic. The rest of the rangers and the Auradon Knight headed toward the giant arachnid monster and then started to move in different directions to try to keep it off balance.
Snowrachnid unleashed more of its icy webbing at them. Alex in turn powered up his tonfa's and jumped up to shred the icy webbing before it could entrap any of them.
One of the mini spiders leftover leapt at Melody and she used the trident to take it down as it leapt at her.
"Let's try to unbalance this eight legged freak." Jay said as he ran toward one of the legs and swung his soul scimitar. Even with his strength though he found the legs, somewhere between ice and bone, was impossible to swing through. He could barely dent the thing.
Mal had seen that, but what she couldn't tell Jay yet was that even though his attack hadn't hurt the thing he had clued her in on what they could do stop this thing if her theory was right. She was able to jump to the walls though she nearly lost her balance. She turned to face the generals, gearing to move from their attack in case Audrey and Evie weren't ready.
They didn't seem too inclined to do anything other than watch. They all seemed to be delighting in this and she had a horrid feeling about this. But she also didn't see that they had a choice in the matter. They had to stop the Snowrachnid to get liberate Arendelle and find Queen Elsa.
She raised her dragon's eye staff above her body. "Trapped within the spider's icy grip, take the tip and tear upon the rift." Mal recited and then swirled the staff around, aiming directly at the large spider monster's back.
A beam of dark purple energy shot out of the top of the staff where the dragon's eye gem Belle had given Mal months ago and encompassed around the area that it was suspected that Olaf was currently being held at and it started to extract the dormant snowman.
Snowrachnid let out an ear piercing screech and started to rotate toward the purple ranger. "We can't let him get to my sister." Amy said as she moved her rose lance to her right hand and drew her blaster with her left so she could shoot at the monster, though it seemed to have no effect.
Aquiella powered up her tidal boomerangs. She hoped her weapons wouldn't freeze right into the monster but thought even that would serve as at least a little bit of a distraction so that way Mal could finish her spell. She tossed them at two of the snowy arachnid's legs and watched as they cut them and thankfully returned to her. She wished though that it had done anything more than that as it still was looking toward Mal.
Lonnie powered up her hurricane tessens but hesitated. She'd simply cause the same lack of real damage that Aquiella would and she might stir up the snow and blanket their vision. That wouldn't help at all.
Alex powered up his tonfa's again and ran over to the monster, he jumped up and hit him in the face with both of his flame powered weapons. Snowrachnid let out a screech as he turned and tried to snap at the fire knight.
Lonnie took that opportunity to throw one of her tessens at its face. The head snapped back upon impact, slamming the jaw shut as Alex landed back on the ground. That momentary diversion was none the less just enough to keep him from being injured.
With a final magical pull Mal managed to pull Olaf from the spot. As he was high up in the air she suddenly lost control and with a lurch in her stomach the purple ranger saw him start to plummet. "Um, what do the laws of physics mean to a snowman?" Mal called out nervously to her chosen sister.
Before Evie could respond Anna rushed out, somehow avoiding slipping on the ice which was a miracle itself since unlike her sister and niece she was a pretty bad ice skater, and leapt out to catch Olaf in her arms. The landing wasn't that graceful but she stood up with the snowman when all was said and done.
Snowrachnid was still screeching in pain as Mal landed beside her chosen sister and second in command. To their shared horror from that now gaping hole more of the little spiderlings started to emerge and climb down their 'mother' right toward them.
Mal, Evie, Aquiella and Alex could hear simultaneous bursts of ,"Eew, gross." From Audrey and Amy as this happened before they forced themselves back on task.
"We can use that gaping hole as a way to destroy that thing." Carlos pointed out as he slashed two oncoming spiderlings with his earthquake claw daggers.
"Great idea." Jay replied. "But we have to figure out how to get a good weapon up there first."
No one seemed to have any suggestions. For a minute they all just did their best to deal with the incoming spiderlings, which seemed to surge forward of their own volition without any form on containment. Then as Ben took out another approaching one, his like fifth or sixth one, he heard the familiar Use Us. From the Praeleanthor sword. Without thinking about he tossed the bladed weapon at Snowrachnid.
The sword struck the monster across the face and it let out another screech as it reeled backwards. This time though it did so on several of its front legs, giving what would be a perfect shot if the gaping hole were on its underbelly. A moment later though the thing reared back and came fully to the ground as the Praeleanthor sword returned to Ben.
It was enough of a display though for Audrey to get an idea. "What if Ben does that again and then we flip it around?" She asked the group at large as she used her elemental bow to keep them back as best as she could.
"How do we flip it around?" Carlos wondered as he took out another spiderling.
"I think the trident might be powerful enough to do that." Melody supplemented. "A good blast to the underbelly will help tremendously."
"We can add some muscle behind it too for what that's worth." Will added. "Alex, Jay, Carlos and I can try at the legs, maybe it will at least be enough of a recoil to add to the unbalance and make it flip."
"Let's assume that works for a minute." Lonnie said. "What do we do from there?"
There was only way that Audrey could think of to deal with a snowy bug monster though the thought kind of disgusted her. "That will be up to me and all the flaming arrows I can get into that spot." She reluctantly replied.
"You won't be alone." Amy said to her. "I'll contribute all of my fire elemental control to your attack too."
"So will Alex." Aquiella said to them now. She looked to the fire knight. "There's enough water around here, frozen or otherwise, for me to draw upon and help the boys flip that monster around. You're literal fire power though can't be outdone, not even by Amy." Amy's elemental powers were certainly strong but she covered all four elements. That made those who only used one element like her and Alex stronger than her in that one ability. But it also allowed them to stack their powers for more effect, being far stronger than any of them could be alone. And they could channel that into other things, such as Audrey's arrows or Evie's elemental like mirror attacks.
"Then all we need is to get that sword going again." Jay said to Ben.
"Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem." Ben replied simply as more of the spiderlings continued to emerge and come down the body of the Snowrachnid to confront the team. Both Audrey and Amy had a horrid vision of those things falling down on them while trying to fill their 'parent' up with strong flaming arrows.
With the horde coming at them it was easy enough for Ben to feel the power and the voice of the Praeleanthor sword once it was powered up enough again. "Get ready." Ben called out to everyone. The girls and Alex backed up with Lonnie and Mal acting as protectors for them as Audrey formed an arrow and drew fire into it.
Amy put her hand on Audrey's waist, not being tall enough to touch her shoulder, that size difference between her and Mal always being kind of an amusing oddity between them despite them being twins. Alex placed one hand on Audrey's right shoulder and the other on Amy's back, essentially creating a fiery circuit between the three of them.
Ben again tossed the Praeleanthor sword. It was like Snowrachnid had heard their discussion and reared back its head, launching another icy web that Amy was sure was meant to encase the sword before it could strike.
Lonnie tossed her hurricane tessen straight at the icy webbing and watched as the weird material wrapped around her weapon before clattering to the ground. But as the pink ranger hoped that allowed the ancient sword to soar past and strike it in the face again, where it reared up as it did last time.
"Get ready Melody." Will said to the aqua ranger. "We can unbalance it but the magic of your trident is going to be the only thing that is going to actually make it work." With that the green, black, yellow and orange ranger ran forward.
Aquiella drew as much water as she could from around her, a simple task considering they were still essentially fighting on Arendelle's frozen ocean, and with Carlos's help unbalanced the right legs.
On the left side Will and Jay were able to flip those legs out.
Melody released the strongest blast of magical energy from her trident that she could and it struck the monster in the upper abdomen hard, forcing it to indeed flip into the air. That move surprised everyone, friend and foe alike. But Audrey could already tell it wouldn't be doing several rotations before landing and she aimed her arrow at the gaping hole.
As the two girls feared, rather by accident or design, the little spiderlings began to leap off of Snowrachnid's body to plummet down toward them. Evie however spared them that feeling as she unleashed a blazing mirror force above them to fry the spiderlings as they fell. It didn't protect them from the ones already on the ice, which was what Mal and Lonnie were there for.
Despite what should be a lack of vision between the arrow and the brunette princess's target, the red ranger let loose the arrow where she was confident it would work. First of all, she was a really good shot, something she would attest to easily but that had also been proven in the field time and again anyway. Secondly, the flaming arrow magically split into a dozen arrows so it would have been almost impossible to miss since the monster was descending toward them anyway.
From the side Ellie could see though that almost all of the flaming arrows indeed entered the gaping hole, which now that she thought about it leaked the spiderlings but it didn't spill anything that resembled blood. It was a mystery though that she was prepared to live with if it destroyed the monster.
Just as it seemed the monster would land on the two rangers and the fire knight the monster suddenly exploded. It left a bit of a mess around everyone but it was better than squashing three of them.
"That was still gross." Audrey noted with disgust.
"At least we don't have to get it out of our hair." Amy tried to say brightly. The rose haired girl might not be the most concerned with her looks but she still wouldn't have looked forward to getting bug gunk and stuff out of her hair the next time she showered.
"Everyone okay?" Ben asked as he came up next to Mal. She nodded as they heard positive responses from the rest of the team.
"Well done rangers. Very impressive." Grunard said from the rooftop with his two generals. Icesha landed next Ryu.
"You're next." Jay promised him.
"Yes, well done heroes." Said a strong voice that Anna recognized from her last day in Arendelle before fleeing to Auradon. The Ice Queen stepped up between Gauntula and Ryu. "But this is the end, your time has ended."
"That's what you think." Mal said. "It's time to let leave Arendelle of your own volition before we end your second existence."
Ice Queen laughed. "It will be quite a challenge." She told them ruefully. With that she raised her hands ad summoned a powerful blizzard. The three generals unleashed a powerful attack that struck them all.
Ellie rushed forward to check on the people closest to her; in this case the rose ranger and her fire knight cousin. She too found herself wrapped up in the blizzard and even she could not dissipate it or see her way through it.
Ben tried to reach for Mal but couldn't grab her hand. "Mal!" He called out.
"Ben!" The purple ranger shouted before she too lost sight of him, and all of her friends…
Anna had her arm in front of her face and when she looked she gasped in shock to see that they were all gone; her son, her niece, the ranger team. As well as Ice Queen and all of her generals. "Good luck guys." She whispered.
"Yeah, good luck." Olaf said. "Glad I'm not a pile of snow balls now."
"Glad you're not too." Anna noted. "But as long as they're gone let's go find Elsa."
"She's not in the castle, or in Arendelle." Olaf informed her. "I don't know where she is."
Anna looked up at the walls in horror as she wondered where her sister had gone; what the Ice Queen had done to her. Then she tried to force it to the back. Her family was missing but she was still Arendelle royalty, perhaps the last one. She had her people to think of. "Then let's find the rest of the people and make sure they're okay." She looked back one last time. "Good luck you guys." She whispered, and then blinked in shock for a moment. "Did I just see a bear?"