"The zords will be repaired by the end of the day." Doug announced to the team as they met for breakfast the next day at the new and improved command center. It was somewhat unusual for a breakfast table to in a command center but it did serve as a meeting place too. In this case that included Ruby's presence for what that was worth.
"Any chance of getting their power amped up?" Ruby asked as she picked up her apple juice to take a drink of it. She had been there last night when Chad's Guardian Battlezord had shown up on the scene. It had taken the Auradon Ultrazord to even make it run away. It hadn't been destroyed.
Fairy Godmother shook her head minutely. "I'm afraid as far as we can tell there is nothing we can do to increase any of the zords powers." She answered. "Not without finding another zord, which might be very difficult as they've all come of their own accord with the exception of the Auradon Megazord."
"I talked to mom yesterday after what happened." Ellie revealed as she set her glass of orange juice down on the table. "And told her about our history with zords. She's trying to see if something is in Arendelle that we can use but I haven't heard any follow up on it."
Audrey sighed. "We have to come up with something before Chad attacks again." She said to them. "Or we might be defeated the next time he shows up."
Mal sighed. "It just never gets easy does it." She said sarcastically. She took a deep breath and wished she had a better idea of what to say.
"Don't worry Mal. We'll figure it out. We always do." Ben assured her as he kissed her on the cheek softly.
"Sometimes I just wish we could plan better instead of always having to be doing things on the fly." Mal admitted with a shrug. "I know we've had great results with that so far but all it takes is that one time for it to go south."
"It never will." Amy said to her older twin sister. "Because I know that we can all do anything, together." She smiled at her friends, which in this case included Audrey who had proven herself well in the rose haired girl's eyes even if she would never say it out loud. "Even if we sometimes end up being separated for it."
"She's totally right." Lonnie agreed. "We can handle anything, with all of our friends. Here and far."
"Here and far." Mal said softly. She looked to the command panel that held one new function. Communications with galaxies outside of Auradon. She then looked to all of her friends. "What's going on? What could have made Jason, Tommy and all of them have to leave so abruptly?" She wondered.
"I don't know M." Evie replied with a frown. "I wish I knew. I know we have a lot going on here, but they've done so much for us since we became rangers. My mother would yell at me for saying this but I owe them all so much."
"WE all owe them so much." Jay emphasized, knowing Jafar would be just as unhappy to hear that as Grimholde the Evil Queen. Audrey smiled proudly at her boyfriend. "And if there was anything we could do to help them, I feel that we should."
Fairy Godmother wanted to remind them they weren't safe here as it was. But she knew how they felt. And it didn't hurt that so many of them had known Zordon, had been his champions. "They know to call us if they need us." She reminded them instead.
"Would they though?" Aziz now questioned. "I mean, no offense ma'am but when they've been here to help it's because you've called them. We've never done that ourselves."
"They would do so unless they have the same egotistical pride that all of you seem to have." Ruby said, perhaps a little snidely. Despite the comment they all knew she had a very good point. But Aziz also suspected that they had that same 'egotistical' pride that Ruby pointed out to them though and that they would never ask for help unless their world were to end.
Any further discussion was put to an end when the alarm went off, the familiar monster alarm. The sensors automatically pinned it to the beach where they found Sermaya, Chiron, Ben's clone and the two forest baboons at one of the sand bluff's that overlooked the ocean.
"What are those clowns doing there?" Carlos wondered. "And where did Ben…Ben, whatever come from?"
Jordan had to think only a moment about it. "The last time we tangled with Sermaya, and he awakened the beast in Ben. All they needed was some strand of DNA and they could have made a physical body." She started.
Aquiella picked up on the rest . "When Mal shattered the essence of that beast, it might have known to transfer itself into wherever they made that clone. Several forms of magic would probably allow them to make the merge successfully." She finished.
"Except this one would most likely be evil." Melody added.
"Are you okay?" Audrey asked Ben. She already had a pretty good idea of how she would feel if someone had made an evil clone of her and she didn't think Ben would feel much different.
"Sure, just fine." Ben said softly. "Just peachy."
"Let's go shut them down then." Mal said as she rubbed Ben's arm softly. "Let's get to work." As Melody and Jane took out their items and Ben formed his shield and Praeleanthor sword the rest of the team took out their iPhones, input their numbers and transformed.
They made their way to the beach just to overhear Chiron the centurion like mage tell their leader, "This is not the place. We must follow the sands further on into the main city."
Sermaya laughed just a bit. "Good. I look forward to causing more destruction within Auradon. It will make tearing it apart to rebuild my world that much easier." He said.
"Sorry but mass remodeling day has been cancelled." Mal said as they stepped up to face off against the four beast monsters. "But we'll send you an e-mail when it's been rescheduled."
"E-mail?" Chiron questioned, which caused Carlos to laugh a little.
Lonnie couldn't help but seem shocked as she looked at Ben's clone. "Ben?" She wondered. "You look so much like him…you can't possibly be evil."
"That's what you think bright eyes." He said with a fiendish laugh and then charged over there with fingers that ended in claws before gashing her across the chest hard and sending her flying backwards. Will and Aquiella were right beside her. "Some of your friends used to call yourself rotten to the core, well they're nothing compared to me. You can call me Krona, the one who is truly rotten to the core."
"Thanks to Sermaya's tampering no doubt." Aziz noted distastefully.
"This may not be the right spot." Sermaya commented, making the Auradon team wonder what exactly he was talking about. "But I see no reason why this place cannot be the one where you all meet your end, opening up the path to my victory." With that he looked to Chiron who opened up black swirling gateway.
"What's that?" Ally asked.
"It comes from your own books." Sermaya stated. "More accurately the one we stole from your library a while ago." He then shot a venomous glance at Miranda. "When your little friend slayed my weapons master, which I have not forgotten at all girl."
"Isn't that a book on mythical creatures of Auradon?" Will wondered. He thought he had seen Whitney check it out not long after they had arrived at the school. She was in fact probably the last person to read the book before it was taken from the library.
"All myths have their basis in reality boy." Sermaya answered him with a laugh. "And if they're beast related the odds they were once one of my countrymen are great. And now you get to meet one of them now." As he finished speaking a creature stepped through the black portal, which closed afterwards. The creature itself had a vaguely feminine head with long reddish violet hair. The body itself however was not human, more like that of a lion or a sphinx more accurately. Short wings were on its back and a tail swung angrily. "This is Sphinx Telia."
"That is so disturbing." Melody noted. "It's a monster with a human face."
"Kind of like some others we could name." Miranda couldn't help but comment as she thought of Chad or Marcellus. She wasn't sure that Ben's clone Krona would find himself exempt from that thought either.
With a roar Sphinx Telia leapt at the team, the roar ended with a huge blast from her mouth that sent them all sprawling around the beach. "Oh my pink, that was a huge blast." Amy gasped. "Is everyone okay?"
"That wasn't fun." Alex noted as he stood up headed toward Amy. "But I'm alive."
Aquiella and Melody got up now too. "Wow." The aqua ranger noted. "That was not a good landing at all."
"It almost reminds me of that manticore thing I fought alone that time, at least until Lonnie showed up." Audrey mused. This time though there was no scorpion tale to try to use as a target.
"At least you're not alone this time." Will said to her. "You're not the only child of Auradon anymore."
"True, you humans have been so abundant." Sermaya noted with some disgust. "And apparently not just here but in other places as well." His thoughts turned to annoyance at the rangers of Earth that had shown up when he had unleashed Simorgh on them. "At least this is one world where the rule of humanity will come to an end."
"Don't count your roses before they bloom." Ellie advised him. It drew a small giggle from Amy who liked the saying.
"Wow, incoming." Aziz called out as he rolled out of the way of the forest defender when he tried to bring his fists down on him. Grant dodged out of the way of the forest archer as he tried to slam his massive arm into his chest.
Ben found himself face to face with his alter ego Krona. "Let's see who's the better king here Bennie-boo." He said with a gleeful laugh.
"You're not a king." Ben said as he got ready to fight, the Praeleanthor sword gleaming in the sunlight. "But if you want to prove who's the best then let's get to it." The Auradon Knight started toward his clone.
With a growl Krona shifted to look like the hairless beast he had appeared as in the nightmarish vision world that he and Mal had fought him in the first time. Ben tried to slash him with the Praeleanthor sword but he caught it and tossed it downward before hitting him in the chest hard.
"Ben." Mal started.
Carlos grabbed her arm firmly. "Mal, we have our own problems." He reminded their leader firmly.
Audrey stepped up now. "Mal, go help Ben." She told the purple ranger. She knew how she would feel if it were Jay. Fortunately there were advantages to having a bigger group. "Jane, give us a hand dealing with the sphinx freak." The white ranger nodded. "Amy, Melody, Aquiella, Ellie, Alex, take one of the baboons. Will, Ally, Grant, Aziz and Jordan take the other one."
Alex lead the four girls toward the archer baboon while Jordan lead the guys to the defender baboon. That left Audrey, Jay, Carlos, Evie, Lonnie and Jane to fight Sphinx Telia. Mal headed over to help Ben as Miranda got ready to fight against Sermaya.
Defender of the Forest raised his axe and swung at the ranger's that had come to challenge him. He swung the massive axe at them. Will and Grant were barely able to block it with their respective weapons, and Jordan was sure it was a strain on them. Ally took out her crystal cards and unleashed the barrage on him, though it didn't seem to bother him too much.
"You are the only one of these rangers to have beaten any of my generals." Sermaya growled at the Highlands ranger as he started to stalk her. "I don't how you did it but I will tear you apart for it."
"I see ye know how to hold a grudge." Miranda commented. "I don't know if I should be impressed by that or not." He swung at her and she did the only thing she could; she rolled under the attack. She already knew that her opponent had more strength than she did. He was fast as well but the Scottish girl was banking on being faster. He tried to brings his massive fists down on her but she jumped over the attack and then kicked him in the face as hard as she could.
"I kind of thought that shaved gorilla look was just in the mind, but apparently I was mistaken." Mal noted as she came to Ben's side. "What is with the look anyway? Can't find anything more appealing?"
Krona growled. He lashed out at Mal and Ben and they both rolled to the side to narrowly avoid the attack. Mal would never say it but she could see the advantage as there was no resistance to wind or anything like that; it was almost like pure muscle. "Come on Ben, let's see if we can put this rabid animal to sleep." She said.
"Right." Ben agreed as he again twirled his sword. Together the couple started to fight Krona, who was proving as agile as he was strong.
Sphinx Telia again unleashed a beam of energy at the rangers. It struck the two boys and Evie backwards even as Lonnie, Jane and Audrey dodged it and moved in close. The monster proved though that it wasn't just a long range monster as one of its paws lashed out and slashed Jane in the chest hard, sending her sprawling. Lonnie brought her tessen's down toward its back only for the wings to flutter upwards and block the attack before flipping her over the monster's body with a thudding sound that Audrey was afraid could break bones.
Then the monster pounced and crashed into Audrey hard. She felt the wind knocked out of her and she lost her grip on her elemental bow. She felt the massive five fingered paws of the monster practically crushing into her chest as Sphinx Telia lowered her jaws right toward the red ranger's head.
Jay and Carlos lashed out at the monster with their weapons and with a growl of annoyance Sphinx Telia took a step back. Carlos slashed his earthquake claw daggers at the feminine looking monster as Jane moved in to help him. Jay helped Audrey up and handed her the elemental bow. "Any bright ideas?" He asked the red ranger.
"I wish we could use the Auradon blaster without Mal." She admitted. "Our next best idea is the triangle spark but I don't think the five us can do it alone and I don't know if Jane can distract that thing on her own."
Lonnie had moved in now and they had the creature somewhat boxed in. With a roar Sphinx Telia lashed out with her paws and gashed the three of them back, sprawling to the ground. Evie stepped up with her mirror force shield and unleashed a storming mirror force attack that the creature bounded away from before hissing at them.
"That thing is just so disturbing." Evie commented as the rest of the team joined her. "What do we now?"
"I'm certainly open to any ideas." Audrey replied as she looked at the five of them, specifically Jane and Evie, who were kind of the smart ones of the team.
"The Auradon cannon." Jane supplied automatically. "We don't need everyone to use it, it's power output is simply better the more people we have. But the six of us together should be able to weaken this thing and take it out."
"And how do we weaken it?" Jay asked.
"The neon armor." Lonnie answered simply. "Attack with the neon armor, weaken it up with the triangle spark and then finish it off with the Auradon cannon."
"Let's do it." Audrey decided as the six rangers lined up and then activated the neon armor, glowing slightly now.
The archer of the forest slashed his bow at Amy and Alex and they both ducked out of the way. Melody and Aquiella moved in and struck him with their weapons; the trident and the tidal boomerangs respectively, and he fell back.
Ellie moved in with her ice chakrams and brought them down, destroying the baboon's bow. He swung at her and sent her flying backwards onto the ground. She rolled to her knees as she got ready for the next attack that was never able to come as Alex brought up a wall of flames to protect his cousin.
"It's time to put this monkey down once and for all." Aquiella declared.
"Grand, any idea how we do that?" Ellie asked her.
"I might at that." Aquiella replied. Amy got a small glimpse of her friend's mind and couldn't help but give a small very unlike her devilish grin. If it worked it would be a good plan. "First off I think it's time to heat up his blood pressure."
"More than one of us will have that happen." Amy couldn't help but muse softly even as she came over to Alex and took his hand. The spark was there the instant they touched and the rose haired girl for one knew the fire magic was only half of the spark that was there, even if the other half was taking a while to fully blaze. With one set of hands held the two raised their other hands and unleashed a powerful stream of fire right at the forest archer baboon that sent him back. His fur seemed to be slightly ablaze.
Melody thought she knew where this was going. First he needed to be damaged and that was fire's job. Next he needed to be weakened and that fell to the two mermaids' and Amy. Knowing what she was thinking Amy stepped in between the two cousin's and took one each of their hands into hers before unleashing a huge wave of water that slammed right into him, very literally like a tidal wave. It took care of his singed fur and he growled at them as he got ready to attack the three girls.
"You know, being wet in the cold is a really bad idea." Ellie noted as she caught on to what the orange ranger must have been planning. "And here's why." She unleashed the strongest blizzard that she could possibly could onto him and to their surprise she ended up freezing their adversary.
"I didn't see that one coming." Aquiella admitted.
"I doubt he did either." Melody said with a bit of a giggle. "But the good thing is he won't be aware of this." She twirled the trident in her free hand. Then she aimed the tri pointed object straight at him and gathered as much energy as she could into it and was not too surprised when she felt Amy's hands over hers, adding her own magical powers into it.
Melody released a huge burst of powerful magical energy that struck the ice encased archer of the forest and an explosion followed, the ice shattering and destroying the ice encased beast monster.
"Oh my pink." Amy said to herself in shock. "We did it, we really did it."
Sermaya had been trying to pound Miranda into the ground with the Highlands ranger expertly dodging but not able to get in hits of her own when that happened. He turned at the sound of the explosion to see the results. "Our brother." He growled.
Miranda took that chance to slash him as hard as she could. He was knocked back hard.
The defender baboon also noticed what happened and turned his back just in enough time to get struck by Will's recursive sword, Aziz's spiral spear and Grant's axe. He was knocked back hard too and collided, having the wind knocked of them.
Jay and Carlos moved in and around their adversary, slashing Sphinx Telia with the soul scimitar and earthquake claw daggers. She roared in anger as she reared back on her hind legs. Lonnie and Audrey moved in and under and slashed with the hurricane tessen's and elemental bow and then quickly dodged to either side to avoid the magical blow of Evie's mirror force shield attack and energy from the magic wand Jane used.
"Time for stage two Jane." Audrey said to the white ranger.
"You got it." The daughter of Fairy Godmother replied as she used the delicate looking white wings on her back to soar up and aim for Sphinx Telia in a dive. The slightly dazed monster was still able to avoid the attack but the attempt to claw the white ranger only resulted in hitting air.
Meanwhile Jay and Carlos jumped onto Evie, Audrey and Lonnie's shoulders and all five of them drew their blasters and unleashed a neon boosted Auradon Triangle Spark at the recovering monster, sending her flying backwards.
Jane landed beside the team as Carlos landed in front of her and Jay in back of her. On their right side were Lonnie, Evie and Audrey. They raised their arms as Evie said, "Time for the Auradon Cannon Doug." Her crush sent them the weapon and the six of them charged it with their neon boosted powers and fired on Sphinx Telia, destroying her as well.
"Looks like yer down by half of yer forces Sermaya." Miranda noted triumphantly. She noted though that Mal and Ben were having a hard time dealing with his duplicate, who had named himself Krona.
"I wouldn't be so confident rangers." Sermaya warned them. "As much as I'd hoped that Sphinx Telia would destroy you, her failure still brings with it a heavy price." First they noticed a claw from the destroyed monster rising into the air before shooting off into the skies.
"What…" Grant started to question.
"And now for the second step." Chiron said to them as Krona twirled around hard and knocked Ben and Mal backwards before joining what was left of his brethren. "We'll meet you all there, if you can find out where there is." With that they all vanished.
"What did he just do?" Audrey questioned.
"What happened to that errant claw?" Lonnie wondered.
"Maybe destroying Sphinx Telia summoned something stronger somewhere else." Evie speculated. She remembered a few instances of that happening, Dark Mist coming immediately to mind. That reminded her of something else. "And if we manage to destroy whatever that is, that could lead to something even worse." She recalled that destroying Lightning Skull and the Dragon of Destruction had resulted in Skull Destructor Dragon.
"Whatever it is we'll have to face it head on." Mal said to them ."And we will do so, together."
"Together." The whole team agreed in unison.
"Together?" They heard someone question scornfully. "Hardly." They turned to see Undine standing there. "I don't really know what those big apes are up to but I could care less. What I do care about is getting my revenge."
"You really want to fight us now?" Mal questioned her.
"Not really." Undine answered simply. Then moving far quicker than they really expected her too she lashed out and slammed her arms hard into Aquiella and Melody, forcing the aqua ranger to drop the trident. Then her tentacles wrapped around their necks and their waists. "Catch me if you can power rangers." She called out as she dove into the water.
"Melody! Aquiella!" Amy called out in horror as she started toward the water, Ellie right behind her. Miranda knelt down to pick up the fallen weapon.
Mal stepped up to her little sister and placed her hand on her back. "Don't worry Amy. We're going after them." She was about to ask Jane what the best way was to chase down their water bound nemesis when the iPhones went off.
They heard Doug say over the helmet intercom, "Guys, you really need to see this…"