"I can't wait." Ally said happily as she sat down with her cheese Danish and chocolate milk. "Mal and the others should be home by this evening at the latest." She even giggled happily, much to Aziz's private delight.
"And our powers should be ready to go not long after that." Jane agreed with pride. "We'll be up at full power." She smiled. "I can't wait to see Carlos and the others again." She revealed as she cut into her cheese omelet. Beside her Dude seemed to bark happily at the idea.
"So where are Grant and Jordan now?" Aziz asked them as he picked up a slice of bacon off of his plate.
"Jordan's with Doug, making some of the final adjustments needed." Jane answered as she set her fork down. "She wants a magical battery on our powers, so that way if the technology goes out on us our powers will be okay temporarily."
"I haven't seen Grant since yesterday." Ally said softly. "You know, so much has happened since we found him and Rose Red on Schadel Island that he hasn't had a lot of time to properly adapt to his new surroundings. From Paradias's final stand to rebuilding our powers and the command center and now this rescue mission to Arendelle."
"How long does that take?" Aziz asked. "I mean he grew up on Schadel, how do you adapt to civilization?" The two girls didn't seem to have an answer to give him. In an effort to try to lighten the mood he looked to Jane. "So how does it feel to be out of the hole in the ground?" He teased.
"The command center is far from a hole in the ground." Jane said with a snicker.
"No question." Aziz agreed. "But you, your mother, Doug. The three of you have spent so much time getting things done down there that you guys haven't been around campus recently. If your mom weren't headmistress you and Doug would be in a lot of trouble right now for missing so many classes."
"Okay, just for the record Doug and I could skip most of our classes for the rest of the semester and still have passing grades." Jane said pointedly. She poked Aziz's arm. "Unlike you, who attends his classes and still barely manages to pass."
"Oh, ouch." Aziz pretended to flinch and laughed as Ally giggled and kissed his cheek. "But good point none the less." He conceded. "I guess it's not as big a deal for you guys."
"At any rate we'll be back to what passes for a normal schedule for us by next week." Jane finished as she picked up her buttered toast. "So no big deal."
"You know in truth I don't know how much the teachers are even worrying about it right now." Ally pointed out. "There's still so much reconstruction going around after Paradias's final stand anyway that it seems like the best course of action would be to repeat this semester."
"Best course of action huh?" Aziz snickered. "Still, I get what you're saying. I don't know how much any of us can really do right now for our classes. At this point we're just all grateful to have electricity in the classrooms."
They were a bit startled to hear their iPhones going off. Jane was the first to reach hers and she answered it to find her mom on the other end. She listened for a moment and then responded, "Okay mom, we'll be right there." She hung up and looked to Ally and Aziz though the couple could guess what she was about to say. "We need to go to the command center."
"Let's get a move on then." Aziz decided as the three of them got up. Jane motioned for Dude to follow them to the command center.
Jane felt the command center was extremely empty. Their visiting friends had been forced to leave Auradon early due to some crisis that they hoped would be easy enough for them to deal with and their friends were still traveling back from Arendelle.
Grant gave them a friendly but reserved wave from beside one of the consoles. Jordan and Doug were hard at work and didn't have the chance to really acknowledge them. They did however notice one relatively new face in the command center; that of their friend Ruby the daughter of Rapunzel and Flynn.
"I hate to ask this of you." Fairy Godmother said to them as she turned to face them. "But there is some kind of weird disturbance at crystal waterfall that should be checked out and it's not even close to the route that the others are using to return from Arendelle."
"No problem mom. We'll check it out." Jane said. She motioned for Dude to stay there with Doug and the two women.
Jordan moved to join the three of them, as did Grant. Ruby meanwhile moved over to try to help Doug as best as she could with the cleanup work. "Be careful out there." Doug said to them. "I'm almost done over here, hopefully if you get into any trouble your powers will be ready to go."
"Try to double time it dude." Aziz said. "It's still a long way off before the others get back home. If we run into a problem we'll need whatever edge we can get." With that he lead Grant and the girls out of the command center and toward crystal waterfall.
As they started toward their destination Ally wondered if Mal knew that crystal waterfall ultimately lead toward, among other locations, the enchanted lake where Mal and Ben had their first date. Somehow she doubted that one as the purple haired girl didn't really care about that kind of thing. That was more Evie's thing with the sustainable urban planning thing.
"Jordan," Grant questioned. "My understanding is that you can fee magical residue of some sort. Any chance your picking something up now?" He asked the genie girl.
She frowned a little. "I feel something." She admitted. "It's not magic. Not anything I recognize anyway. But the world is full of unknowns like that." She looked back at Jane, Ally and Aziz. "I think we better stay on guard here."
"Good advice at any time in our line of work." Aziz reminded her simply. Jordan gave him a mock snide look which he returned before they both chuckled faintly. "Man, our relationship has changed since we started doing this." He acknowledged.
"We already learned firsthand how different things would have been had we not met Mal and the others and been rangers together." Jordan agreed as she thought about the spell Maleficent has cast to rid the world of the Auradon rangers. Knowing what might have been, arguably not a good alternative, and bringing Amy to Auradon had been the only perks of that incident, and of course meeting some of the other rangers.
Grant had not heard about this one of course. "What happened?" He asked them.
"Maleficent cast a spell that essentially reversed time. It place Mal, the two boys and your aunt back on the Isle of the Lost." Like everyone else Ally was still kind of processing the fact that Grant and Evie were basically the same age and yet she was essentially Grant's aunt. "That meant that we never became power rangers and most of us would have never met or gotten to know each other."
"Lucky for everyone we weren't one of them." Aziz said to Grant even as he stroked Ally's long blonde hair. "We would have still ended up together regardless which meant the spell didn't work on us. We had to convince all of our friends here the truth so we could go the isle and get Mal and the others."
"And that was where we met Amy." Jane supplied now. "When they were first brought to the isle Maleficent took their memories of her away as 'incentive' to get the job done. We brought her here, brought her home."
"Kind of like what you guys did for me and my mom." Grant admitted after thinking about it a moment. It was true that they didn't know he existed. But Snow White had known her sister Rose Red was out there, hoped she was still alive, and when she confessed it to Evie, she and her team had done everything in their power to bring her home, and him along with.
"Yeah, kind of like." Jordan replied with a small laugh. "It's what we do after all."
They approached river that was formed from crystal waterfall. It had several side paths that lead into Auradon, including the enchanted lake. Jane knew there was some debate about how the water went from here to the lake and became enchanted, the most popular theory being some sort of magical crystal in the waters around the lake but no one had really bothered to find out to date.
"Anything from the magically gifted?" Aziz questioned them as they started to look around.
"It feels wrong." Jane answered. "At least that's my opinion. I'm really still in the beginning phase of magic after all."
"Nope, not wrong." Jordan verified for them all. "Something has changed. I don't know what, but something has changed."
"I think it's time to call Mal and the others and let them know." Ally said to Aziz. "Maybe they can somehow speed up their return."
"Hopefully that teleportation system will be up soon." Grant mused. "Maybe we should have seen if we could get access to this Iconian gateway thing that the Earth rangers use to travel between their word and Auradon."
"Yeah, I'm going to contact them right now." Jane agreed. She had just taken out her iPhone, something she could carry with her without a problem since her powers were based on the wand her mother Fairy Godmother once used, when they heard a chuckle that sounded like broken glass being walked on. It startled Jane and made her accidently dial the command center instead.
"Don't bother kids." They heard a voice say. From the lake rose a monster. Jordan thought he looked very similar to the a really old monster of Rita Repulsa's named the Dark Knight except for rather than looking like a smooth black knight he was instead brown colored and literally looked like a bunch of broken glass cobbled together. His red eyes shone with a certain maliciousness in them.
"Wow." Jordan gasped. "What the heck?"
"I think we have a problem." Grant announced as they all took fighting stances.
"I'll say." Ally agreed. "We have a Glass Warrior to worry about."
The monster took a step forward. "So you're the power rangers." He said with a laugh. "Or at least the ones that are left."
"What are you talking about?" Jordan demanded to know.
With another grating laugh like walking on broken glass he swept his hand back and behind the waterfall several boulders fell back to reveal the rest of the ranger team. They stood their frozen solid, but they could tell from the reflection it wasn't ice they were trapped in, they had been trapped in glass.
"Oh my." Ally gasped in shock.
"Let them go right now." Aziz ordered the monster.
"Like you're in any position to be giving me orders." Glass Warrior, for lack of a better name as far as they knew, reminded Aziz. "Once I do the same to you my mistress will finally be in a position to take what belongs to her."
From the command center Fairy Godmother, Doug and Ruby had heard every word that had been spoken. Ruby looked to Fairy Godmother and said, "That thing must have been sent down by Maleficent."
"Perhaps." Fairy Godmother replied. "It's the most logical conclusion but we cannot rule the possibility that monster could have come from Undine, or some other as of yet undefined evil." It wasn't worth pointing out that, recently defeated or not, they had spent the last week or so worrying about their friends fighting the Ice Queen. "Either way, unless we can restore their powers to them we have a major problem."
"We might still have a problem." Doug pointed out to them. "Even if can restore them, this monster has already somehow gotten the better of all but five of the rangers." He couldn't help but look back at the screen, searching for Evie. He wasn't sure if he should be glad he found her or not. "I don't know what their odds would be."
"Can you even restore their powers?" Ruby now asked Doug.
Doug took a deep breath. It wasn't really as ready as he would have liked it to be, but he didn't see any other choice right now. "I can try to activate them right now. It's untested though. Doing so right now will either completely restore their powers or it could fry their gems." He warned Fairy Godmother.
"I'm afraid I don't see any other choice." She said to him simply. Then she touched button and called out, "Jane, guys. Prepare to transform. And hope for the best."
The five teens exchanged brief looks before getting ready. Jane formed the magic wand as the others took out their iPhones. Being told to hope for the best was not all that encouraging but staring down Glass Warrior clearly showed them their alternative. "Let's get to work." Jane announced. They all activated their power and transformed.
"My wings." Jane exclaimed happily as she saw the feather light white wings appear on her back.
Jordan laughed a little as she held up her lamp cannon. "Who would have thought I'd be happy to have my house become a weapon again?" She questioned.
"You mean your house became as big as a house?" Aziz asked with some laughter.
"Ah save it." Jordan responded with a snicker of her own.
"Things have never been so clear." Ally reflected as she held up her crystalline cards. "I can't believe how much I missed this."
"Then let's celebrate our new found appreciation by taking down Glass Warrior and freeing out friends." Grant declared. The others nodded in agreement and echoed, "Right."
"Five rangers against me?" Glass Warrior questioned in amusement as he drew a wicked looking sword. "Bring it on then kids." He moved in and slashed at Aziz, who blocked with his spiral spear. He pulled back and then dodged an attack from Jane.
Ally threw some of her cards at him, but the pointed ends all around his body made it so that trying to hurt him that way was all but pointless. He tried to slash Ally and she dodged underneath the attack.
"Stand back." Jordan called out. Grant sidestepped with Jane while Aziz pulled Ally out of the way. The gold ranger then let loose a blast from the lamp cannon that knocked him backwards, though it also sent some of the glass like pieces around his body in different directions.
"Can we just blast him to pieces, sort to speak?" Aziz asked.
"I wouldn't count on that as a viable strategy." Jordan answered him simply. "We need something a bit more direct."
"If we could free Will we could try our weapon." Ally suggested.
"If we could free our friends we wouldn't be in this predicament." Jordan reminded her.
"Then free them." Grant said. "Jordan, you're the genie here and Jane, you have magic of your own. Figure something out. Aziz, Ally and I will just have to figure out how to distract him until you do." He had drawn his axe and got ready to fight.
"Let's do it." Aziz agreed. He looked to Jordan, who might as well be his cousin by association if not by blood, and the daughter of their headmistress. "But you might want to hurry it up."
As the gold and white ranger's hurried off Ally and the two boys approached him. Glass Warrior swung his sword at Grant and he blocked it. He lashed out a kick that struck Aziz in the chest hard. Then he turned to Ally and swung his sword toward her.
Ally was prepared to try to dodge it when her powers flickered out, and he slashed her in the arm hard. She let out a scream of pain as she fell onto her right side hard. Then it flickered again and she was the crystal ranger again.
"What just happened?" Aziz questioned.
"Doug said it could fry the gems." Grant remembered. "Obviously it didn't fry them but they must be struggling to maintain their cohesion for our use."
Aziz moved in and used a spiral spear strike attack on Glass Warrior and it slammed into him, knocking him back hard. It again forced little glass pieces off of the monster's body, as Aziz's powers flickered now and some of the glass slashed the arm holding his spear.
"Having trouble rangers?" The glass constructed monster questioned with amusement.
Grant was about to move in to attack now but Aziz stopped him. "Hold up man. If your powers give out like mine just did you'll be hurt worse since you have to be in so close." He reminded the gray ranger. Then he said into the helmet intercom, "Doug we have to get this dealt with. This is the probably one of the worst monsters to have this happening with."
The response actually came from Ruby. "He's working on it right now. He said something about recalibrating the energy matrix that makes your powers flow into the morphing grid or something." She told him. "Just try to keep that thing at a distance somehow."
"Our blasters." Ally said as she came up to the two boys, holding her own. "We have to work with our blasters then."
"I don't see any other way." Grant agreed as he let his axe fade and pulled out his own blaster. "It won't have much impact but it seems to be our only shot."
Aziz followed suit, switching his spear for the blaster. The Glass Warrior started toward the three of them and they let loose a barrage at him. Many of their attacks seemed to be deflected, much like it would have with Evie's mirror shield except it had no direction, which was actually better for them. He then slashed at them, and they rolled out of the way.
"Maybe we should try our own mini spark blast?" Ally now suggested.
"It's worth a shot." Aziz agreed. He stood by Grant and then Ally jumped onto the boy's shoulders. Together they combined their blasters, releasing a smaller version of the Auradon Triangle Spark.
The attack did hit Glass Warrior but to almost no avail. Despite the smoke coming off of his body from the attack he laughed. "Really, is that the best that you half powered rangers can do?" He asked and then unleashed a burst of energy at them. It knocked them back, with Ally taking the worst of the impact since she had been on top. All three of their powers fluctuated again for a second before coming back online.
Aziz started to stand again. "We cannot let this thing beat us." He declared.
"Right behind you." Grant agreed as he rose. He was starting to think it was worth trying to attack with his axe after all.
Glass Warrior responded by unleashing a torrent of sharp edged glass pieces right at the three of them. Ally drew out her cards and tossed them out, catching many of the sharp edged pieces in the middle and knocking them off course. The two male rangers moved in with spear and axe in hand and slashed the monster back hard.
Glass Warrior lashed out and knocked the weapons from their hands and then slashed them hard across the chest, knocking Aziz to the right and Grant to the left. He then moved in and slashed Ally hard. His foot landed hard on her chest as he turned to face Aziz and Grant. "Looks like her time is up boys." He gloated. "But don't worry, you two won't be too far behind."
"Leave her alone." Aziz said as he reached for his blaster again. It was at that point that all three of their powers had to flicker out again, and this time they didn't come back. "No, not now." He moaned.
"Say goodbye." Glass Warrior said as he started to descend his sword toward Ally's throat.
"Goodbye." They heard Will call out as he kicked the monster in the chest hard and knocked him off of Ally. As the green ranger helped her up he added, "And good luck." Right before Jordan blasted him in the chest hard with her lamp cannon, though a moment later her powers went out too.
Aziz could see that Jane was still working on the others, though they seemed far more real than they had the last time he had been able to glance at them. The two boys made their way to the two girls and Will. "Man, am I glad to see you." Aziz said to Will. "Glad you're out of there."
"Me too." Will agreed. "That monster ambushed us in the forests. We're not sure who sent him, but as you could tell he was awful intent on capturing us to lure you guys out. The running theory is of course Maleficent but we don't know that for sure."
Then their powers reactivated and from the helmet intercom they heard Doug say, "I just reinitialized the power matrix. That should do it; there should be no more fluctuations."
"Thanks Doug." Ally said.
"Yeah about time dude." Aziz added. "A few minutes ago would have been nice too, but better late than never. It may be science but it's hardly an exact science after all."
"Then show this monster who he's messed with." Jordan said as she reformed her lamp cannon.
"They say breaking a mirror is seven years back luck." Ally noted wryly.
"Sometimes I'm not sure we have much good luck to worry about losing." Aziz noted with a smirk. "So let's just increase those odds, shall we?"
"Don't forget about me." Jane said as she landed next to Will and Jordan. "I just got Mal and Amy free. They're going to take care of the others so I can help you finish that monster off."
"Let's do it then." Will said.
Jordan extended her arms, holding out her lamp cannon. Ally placed her crystal cards into the spout of the cannon. Jane placed the magic wand in the top of the lamp cannon. Will's recursive sword and Aziz's spiral spear underneath the lamp cannon. Then they took aim at the Glass Warrior and destroyed him, literally showering him into a million pieces.
"About time." Mal said as they started to their team mates. "Somehow I think that was one of the most aggravating monsters we've seen in a while." She smiled softly as Will and Lonnie hugged each other. She herself had an arm around Amy even as Ben had his arm around her.
"Looks like your powers are finally up and running." Audrey noted happily.
"They are." Ally agreed. "It looks like we're one hundred percent again."
"After Doug reinitialized the power matrix." Aziz added.
"It must have caused some kind of feedback surge when he reactivated all of your powers at once." Carlos hypothesized. "I remember that being a concern when we were getting close to reactivating our powers."
"Mom will be really glad to see all of you again." Jane said and then looked to Carlos. "And so will Dude." He seemed happy to hear that one.
They made their way back to the command center, which the others were glad to see was finally operating again. Carlos sat down on the ground to embrace his little dog friend. Evie meanwhile happily embraced Doug and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
"Welcome back." Ruby said to them all with a smile.
"It's great to be back." Audrey said to her. "I can't believe how much we missed school."
"I'm so glad you've all returned safely children." Fairy Godmother said.
"Despite some best efforts otherwise." Ellie said with a mock glare at Mal and Miranda before they all giggled a little. "Mom is okay and Arendelle is going to be back on its feet soon." She now said with a more serious expression.
"When we're all together this evening I'm going to talk to mom and dad about sending some relief down to Arendelle for a while none the less." Ben said to Ellie and Alex, both of whom smiled gratefully. He then looked to Fairy Godmother. "We still have no idea if the ice barrier is still a threat to them or Auradon."
"It might be advisable to get some sort of warning beacons out there." Doug supplied.
"Yes, that would be a very good idea. I'm sure your parents will approve of relief aid in Auradon Ben, and we can make that one of the things that needs to get done." She looked to Melody and Aquiella. "In that regard, it might not be a bad idea to have something set up in Atlantica as well, we still have the Neptune Kingdom down there, and we don't know where they stand in all of this."
"I guess next time we call home we should discuss that with our parents then." Melody said.
"I don't think grandfather will have a problem with it." Aquiella noted.
"Well you can discuss that tonight." Fairy Godmother said, and the two of them looked at her in shock. "Queen Ariel is here in Auradon and is eager to see you two again." That made Melody very happy, and Aquiella almost as much. The orange ranger already knew her mother would never be here as she didn't want to leave the sea. Aquiella personally considered it a victory that she was allowed to come here at all.
Doug looked over at Evie. "Are you okay?" He asked her as he placed a hand on her arm.
Evie tried to give him a reassuring smile, though it wasn't as reassuring as she would have liked. "Yeah, I think so." She said and sighed a bit. "It's just…something about the magical energy behind the Glass Warrior. It was naturally alien and yet, yet somehow it seemed kind of familiar. I can't put my finger on it."
"Whatever it is will expose itself in time." Doug assured her. "And we'll work it out together, all of us I mean, then." He squeezed her arm gently and the blue haired girl leaned her head against his shoulder.