Ruby ran toward the beach, which involved a brief run through a small forest area. She brushed a branch out of her face as she did so. "I don't know how much time I have left." She said to herself as she ran. She could already feel the undergrowth and the branches in her hair, not that it was hard to do considering her hair was even longer than her mother's had been at her peak. That length would hopefully be a great asset when it came down to it but she had to make it to her destination first.
The last thing she had seen before leaving the command center to help her friends was all of them being surrounded by several monsters that had been destroyed in the past. Manticore, Reviveslime, Heartwrecker, Restrict Eyes, Chakra, Dark Mist, Spider Spear Shark, Nightmare Shark and the Shark Drake the last she knew. The fact that they were currently losing the fight was all the more of a shock to Ruby given that she was now aware of what they really were.
She thought back to her question to Doug as he had presented her with his plan. Why aren't you doing this? Not that I have a problem with it but you've been in the know for a lot longer than me. She didn't want to point out that they hadn't even told her; she had figured out the truth on her own and had been doing what she could since then, eventually proving herself to be trusted.
He had smiled a bit at her. This is my place. He had told her simply. A lot of ranger teams need that person who fills the techie and creative roll. Billy eventually took that position full time for the rangers, Cam held the position for a while before doing what Jane did. Mrs. Fairweather still does that for the Lightspeed team. Someone has to be responsible for bringing it people like you. Again he had laughed just a little. Just do your part, and I'll keep doing mine.
She ran as fast as she could and found herself at the beach. Before this point she had hoped somehow what Doug had found wasn't true, but now that truth was staring her right in the face. She wasn't sure how it was possible but it was. She was watching as her friends the Auradon Rangers were fought against air, against nothing. "They really are just that, illusions." She whispered. "But how?"
She noticed that Ally was closest to her and she moved to try to get the crystal ranger and try to talk her down but hit some sort of barrier that flashed green from the impact. "Ah." She gasped in half pain and half annoyance. She noticed that none of them were paying any attention to her arrival and wondered what the barrier was made of that kept them inside and unaware.
With sudden inspiration Ruby glanced around the beach for anything that didn't belong. With all the 'monster's' flying about right now she was sure another one would attract attention for as many that her friends though they were fighting. Then she spotted the long shadow that didn't quite belong in a small cove of palm trees. "Come out of there right now." She demanded.
For a moment it seemed as if she wouldn't get a response. Then she heard, almost as if from all around her, "I didn't think anyone would even think to look for me, if they even know where to look."
"What did you do to my friends?" Ruby demanded to know.
"I simply gave them back what they've been dishing out ever since they became power rangers." The voice responded.
Ruby narrowed her eyes as she scanned the terrain. The initial shadow she had seen was gone though obviously the troublemaker was still around. "You're making them see things, things that are still able to hurt them because of that barrier I ran into." She commented to herself. "Almost like magic, but…" Suddenly she understood. There were very few magic users in Auradon and even fewer that could pull off this kind of elaborate trick. Maleficent and Fairy Godmother came to mind, but the former wouldn't be playing shadow games and the latter was obviously exempt from it. Paradias could but was gone. But there was one other strong magic user that had been forgotten about due to all that had been happening. She had never met him but had heard about him. "You might as well come out Red Magi." Ruby announced.
From the sands about three feet behind her she heard him rising to up. She turned to face down one of their longest lived adversaries if one ignored Chad and Maleficent. Something seemed different about him, which was almost no surprise to her since he had been an 'old man' the last time her friends had seen him. She just couldn't put her finger on what was different.
"I was sure I'd contained all of the rangers inside my trap." Red Magi said as he folded his arms to glare at the daughter of Rapunzel. "How did you escape it?"
"I'm not a power ranger." Ruby said simply. "I wasn't with them when you set that trap."
"Then what do you think you can do to stop me?" Red Magi questioned as he unleashed magical burst of energy from his long staff toward the blonde.
She rolled to the left to dodge the attack. She found it fortunate that he had aimed for her chest rather than anywhere lower because she realized right now the extremely long hair could be a huge burden in a fight the way it currently stood. "How did you do that to them?" She asked the magician.
"I don't think even Fairy Godmother truly realizes the amount of magical resources that are around Auradon that haven't been tapped into for centuries." Red Magi said to her as he started to toward her. Ruby started to move to the side and he in turn started to pace her. "But I'm starting to learn then all, including my newest little acquisition; the power of illusion."
"Hmm, kind of ironic." Ruby replied as she started to stand up. "I guess we have something in common right now."
Red Magi had been about ready to unleash another burst of energy at her but stopped at that. "What do you mean by that?" He questioned.
"We're both learning how to use our powers." Ruby answered simply and from her jeans pocket took out an iPhone that looked just like the one the others used to transform. Where the others had gems of their color; except for Ben, Melody and Jane, she had a ruby colored gem. "Now granted, you have more experience, but I have the heart and I think that will make all the difference." With that she input her numbers 5318.
Before Red Magi's eyes he witnessed the daughter of Rapunzel transform into a power ranger. Her coloring was a darker red, very much like the gemstone she had been named after. The long blonde hair that had been all around the beach beforehand seemed to condense around her right leg, and all around her body until it ended at a long bun on around the helmet that seemed to be far too small for the amount of hair she really had. It was a feat of both science and magic that Ruby did not really want to think too heavily about the details of it to make it happen.
"A nice trick." Red Magi finally decided. "But how will that save you from me? Or your friends from their own demise?"
"I'd actually wondered that too." Ruby admitted as she let some of her hair loose and it curled around her hands. "But the neat thing is I don't have any trouble summoning my weapon. I already have it, and it's closer than even Evie's." With that statement she unleashed the end of her hair as a weapon, as straight and narrow as a whip.
Red Magi dodged the attack and unleashed another magic burst at her, which the new ranger was unable to dodge and it slammed her hard into the barrier where her friends were fighting the illusionary monsters that he had cast to weaken and ultimately destroy them. She let out a little shriek of pain as she hit it and fell to the ground.
"You don't stand a chance against me, new girl." Red Magi said with a wicked laugh. "You may have the power, but you don't have the experience to fight me."
He's right. Ruby had to grant with a small frown. I don't have the experience to fight a monster solo, especially one that has already seen the others in action. She chanced a glance back at the field surrounding the other rangers. Then inspiration struck and the new ruby ranger got up to her feet.
"You still want to take a chance against me?" Red Magi questioned. "You must be very foolish."
Ruby shook her head. "Not at all. You're right when you say I don't have the experience. But I know how to get it." Again she wound up her hair and unleashed it like a whip. Red Magi took several steps back with a laugh, but that was okay with Ruby as the illusion magician was not her target.
She instead moved with the seemingly off throw, her hair magically extending as she went, unfurling to seem more like her natural hair length. Even she was a bit surprised as that length managed to wrap itself around the magical force field like object that trapped the others within the illusionary attack. She caught it with the end of her hair with her other hand. "Now I guess we see what this power has really done to my hair." She commented. By normal logic it shouldn't be powerful enough to do what she wanted but by normal logic it shouldn't be able to be a weapon and it was so…"Here goes nothing."
She started pulling her hair as hard as she could toward her. Red Magi watched with amusement at first as he doubted that she could use her own hair to break his spell. That amusement slowly faded as she worked and it started to pull through the field. "Stop that at once." He demanded even as he started toward her.
"No chance of that." Ruby replied as she gave a final tug, feeling almost like she was trying to get a nasty tangle out of her hair which was something she had had to do a couple times in her life and then the magical bubble shattered, and she hoped so would the illusion.
Mal was in fact moving at that moment to try to slam her dragon's eye staff into Reviveslime's chest when all of a sudden he just wasn't there. "What?" She gasped.
"Where did he go?" Aziz demanded to know as he was fighting Chakra claw to spear before he vanished as well.
Amy had been trying to roll to the side to avoid a strike from Spider Spear Shark, possibly her least favorite monster out of the ones they had seen with the possible exception of the gladiator that had almost killed Mal when, when he vanished. She however noticed the long haired ruby ranger and the other monster. The last time he had actually been seen was when Jane had become a power ranger, and so really half the team had no experience with him other than his actual existence. "Where did those two come from?" Amy wondered.
Jay looked up from where he had been fighting Heartwrecker before they had vanished. "I'm going to guess by the long hair that's Ruby, wonder when she got powers?" The black ranger wondered before he focused on the second part and his eyes narrowed. "That's Red Magi."
"We must have been under a spell of his." Ben said, somewhat needlessly at this point.
"I'd almost forgotten he was still around, we haven't seen him in a while." Audrey commented.
Lonnie and Carlos were now beside Ruby. "He was the one summoned those monsters, some kind of illusion trick of his." The new ranger said to them.
Carlos remembered the last time they had seen him as an 'old man' he had said to call him the Crimson Sage. "What should we call you now, the Crimson Illusion Magician or something?" The yellow ranger questioned sarcastically.
"I'm sure Mikey would be very proud of your ability to name things Carlos." Lonnie deadpanned as she extended her hurricane tessens and got ready to fight their long lost enemy. "Finally crawled out of the woodwork huh?"
"You should have stayed there." Mal said simply as she and Amy came to stand by Lonnie's side. "Your plan failed, and now you have to deal with nineteen…" She glanced at Ruby and had to correct herself. "Twenty irritated rangers."
"Alone." Audrey added as she stood by Carlos and Jay.
Red Magi, or Crimson Illusion Magician if they wanted to take Carlos's nickname to heart, didn't seem too concerned. "I can handle it, or rather we can." With that he summoned something they hadn't had to fight in a while now; the soldier's Paradias had used.
"No troubles." Jay said. "We got this."
Mal laughed. "You're darn right Jay." She agreed. She was just about to have him, Carlos, Lonnie, Audrey and Evie come with her to deal with Red Magi and finally put him down while the others took out the soldiers when two things happened almost back to back.
The first was that Amy let out a horrendous scream that Mal had never ever heard from her before, even back on the Isle of the Lost where most people looked at her with nothing more than disdain or as a target. Even as Mal started toward her, they all powered down.
"What just happened?" Ally asked.
Jordan couldn't help but say it. "We lost our powers." She deadpanned.
"No duh Sherlock." Audrey snapped a bit harshly, almost sounding like her old self a moment. The next point though overshadowed any argument that could have resulted from it. "The question is why did we lose our powers?"
Jane and Evie were already contacting Doug about that; Mal could vaguely hear it even as she came to Amy's side. "Amy?" She asked.
"Mal…" She whispered as she was trying to regain herself. "What happened?"
"You should tell us." Alex said as he took her hand gently. "You were the one who screamed."
"It was a psychic overload." Aquiella now said. They turned to see she was being supported by Ellie and her cousin Melody. "But I don't know why."
"Have you forgotten about someone?" Red Magi questioned angrily. "Destroy them." The soldiers started toward the rangers.
"We haven't forgotten anything." Jay said as he snap kicked an approaching soldier in the chest hard. He hadn't fought the soldiers without powers since they were initially chosen to be power rangers but times had changed since then.
Audrey dodged under one of them that tried to slash her. Then Ben was there knocking it back with his Praeleanthor sword, which stayed around because it was independent of the morphing grid.
"M! Is Amy okay?" Evie asked her chosen sister.
The purple haired girl and the rose haired girl nodded at the same time. "Aquiella felt it too, she called it a psychic overload but we don't know why." Mal answered. It worried her a little but she had to admit that first things had to come first. "What's the story with our powers?" She asked now as she helped Amy to rise to her feet.
"An overload in the morphing grid according to Doug." Jane answered her. It took her a moment even after all that had happened to remember that despite the difference in height Mal and Amy were twins. "We should have our powers back," They were interrupted as they all appeared transformed into rangers again. "Any time now." She finished anyway.
"Awesome." Jay said gleefully as he took down another soldier, this time with his soul scimitar.
"But why did it happen?" Alex asked now.
"Maybe it's related to your psychic overloads." Ellie hypothesized as she looked to Aquiella and Amy.
"Maybe." Aquiella agreed. "But we have to survive this fight before we worry about that."
"She's right." Amy said. "So let's do it."
Mal secretly worried that it might not hold. With the way things had been developed with the reconstruction of the command center Billy had told them that it would be almost impossible to short out the morphing grid again like what had happened with Maleficent's two monsters and Paradias's final attack. She wasn't going to separate them now. "Let's take down the soldiers and deal with Red Magi together."
"That'll be a new one for me." Ruby said a bit unsteadily. She had just now gotten her powers and yet it seemed for just a moment she was going to lose them.
Red Magi watched with not a lot of surprise but lots of annoyance as the ranger's managed to easily slash, blast or slam their way through the soldiers that most of them had fought pretty consistently over the last few months. He powered up a huge burst of energy and shot it at the group of rangers, sending them flying hard.
"I think he's become more powerful." Jane said as she started to get up. "And I don't just mean because of that illusionary attack."
"No I think you're right." Jordan agreed. "As a genie I can kind of read magic, and his really strong. I don't know what it was like before but this is definitely close to my level."
"It's still twenty on one." Grant said. "That has to mean something."
"Only if we take advantage of it now." Mal said. "We're moving onto the big guns here. We need the Auradon Launcher." The team quickly took two by two positions and summoned the launcher. They drew energy into it and fired it straight at Red Magi.
"A foolish choice rangers." Red Magi chided them as he formed two objects that looked to be cylinders in his hands. One collected the energy of their own attack and then as that disappeared the second one unleashed their attack straight back at them.
Evie however had not forgotten about his magic tricks. She quickly released her hold on the launcher and drew her mirror force shield. She let the attack slam into her weapon, forcing her to lose a bit of ground in the sand, before she sent it out again. Her aim was off and it flew harmlessly into the skies.
"We have to try that again." Audrey said.
Mal was about to agree with her when it just vanished. "What the?" She started.
"The morphing grid must be struggling to hold out." Jane said. "We almost overtaxed it."
"I don't get it." Carlos said. "I thought it was reinforced to the point that this shouldn't happen. It's connected to main morphing grid the other ranger's use."
"Forget that for the moment." Grant said. "We have to drive this weird magic guy off or we might be following our powers trail."
"Okay step two." Mal declared as she took her sister's hand and placed it on her dragon's eye staff. She looked to Jane, Jordan, Evie, Melody, Aquiella, Ellie and Alex. "Let's give this creep all the magical energy we've got."
Audrey wasn't quite sure that was a great idea but she didn't have anything to counter it with. "I guess this is the part where we hold our breaths." She said to Jay.
"Looks like." He agreed. He reached out and took Audrey's hand in his.
The magic enabled members of the group moved together. While the twin girl's channeled through the dragon's eye staff, Jane used the magic wand that was also held by her mother Fairy Godmother so long ago, Evie channeled through her mirror force shield, the two mermaid girls Melody and Aquiella channeled together through their grandfather's trident while Alex and Ellie just channeled their elements together. Jordan just did the best she could with her own energy gathering before they unleashed it all in the most powerful stream they could concoct to blast right at Red Magi.
He seemed stunned for a moment, unsure of what to do. It wasn't just one type of magic or one attack but a combination of several different ones. When he finally decided the best course of action was to dodge it he wasn't entirely successful. He hit the ground and rolled to a stop.
Again their powers started to flicker. Ben noticed his seemed to take longer to do so, he assumed it was because of the Praeleanthor sword and the power it contained, arguably one of the few that was older than what Zordon had used to construct the morphing grid.
"Not again." He heard Lonnie say. "This isn't good." Ben moved in, drawing whatever power he could into his sword and struck Red Magi as hard as he could. The magician monster went flying and landing into the waters of the ocean. It took a minute for them to realize he was not coming back to the surface.
"Did you defeat him?" Ally asked as she looked at Ben.
"Or did he escape?" Jordan wondered now.
Mal brushed it off. "Forget him for the moment." She said to her friends. "Right now we need to get back to the command center and find out what's going on with our powers, and find out what caused this psychic overload."
"Add to that the communications problems we've got." Carlos said. "I'm starting to think we've got a few bugs that need to be worked out." Evie and Jane started to nod in agreement.
"Oh, about that." Ruby said as she followed her friends and now team members. "Before this happened I went to drag Doug down here with us. He told me the communications systems are just fine, at least on our end."
"That's impossible." Miranda said now. "If our systems were fine then we should've been able to contact Earth."
"Unless there's a problem on their end." Aziz suggested.
"Could the Megaship have been destroyed?" Melody asked worriedly. So far all of their contact with the rangers of earth and their allies had been done with the ship where the Space Rangers basically lived.
"We are tied into a few of the other ranger's bases of operations for what that's worth." Jane answered as she picked up her chemistry book to fit into her bag. "The Aqua Base 2.0 that the Lightspeed Rangers use, the operation center of Ninja Storm, Tommy's lab though Hayley usually runs that now, and even some place where someone like Zordon who is named Gosei is."
"And Doug in fact tried to contact those areas." Evie vouched. "With the same results."
"I don't like this." Amy said to them all. "A communications blackout, regardless of where the problem is. Me and Aquiella having that psychic overload."
"Where does something like that come from anyway?" Grant asked the two girls.
They both exchanged glances. Then Aquiella answered, "If I had to guess. Something we were tied to just…just died."
"But you aren't tied to anything but your friends." Ruby said. She hoped that would include her soon if it didn't already.
"No." Amy said. "That's not true. We are connected to two other, well psychics I guess."
"You are?" Grant asked now.
It was Mal who answered it. "April and Jennifer." She said. April had psychic powers because of her family being genetically manipulated by the Kraang and Jennifer had psychic powers because of her father tampering her with some sort of demon DNA.
"So something happened to them then?" Melody wondered.
"Would you really feel it if they died?" Mal asked Amy softly.
Amy frowned. "I, I don't know." She admitted. "I guess it would depend on what happened."
They returned to the command center, dropping their bags carelessly on the floor. Evie went over to Doug and the two embraced each other for a few moments before he turned to look back at the others. "I'm glad you're all alright." He said. "That was incredibly underhanded of Red Magi to do that."
"As curious as I am about where he's getting new magic in a 'magically retired' place like Auradon," Mal started with sarcastic air quotes around retired magic portion. "I'm more interested in why our powers are going out like that."
"I've already figured that out, but I don't know how to explain it." Doug said to her. He took a deep breath as he tried to figure out how to go about it. "When the command center was redesigned our morphing grid was integrated into the main morphing grid the earth rangers use, which was supposed to make it more stable unless the morphing grid failed on their end. That should be basically impossible. Except for the fact that it seemed to have happened."
"Didn't a section fail at one point?" Lonnie asked.
"Due to tremendous pressure from a lot of enemies from what I understand." Evie answered. Some of them had heard the story from the pink Overdrive ranger Rose as she had been part of the restoration team sent to Auradon. "And it was repaired."
"We need to know what's going on over there." Ben said with a sigh. "I just wish we knew how to do that without communications." Mal reached over and wrapped an arm around his, leaning her head against his arm.
"This whole communication blackout itself bothers me." Ellie said simply as she strolled over to a console, though she didn't know what to do with it. "We have at least four ways to contact them and none of them are working." She looked to Doug and Evie. "I mean what are the odds of that?"
"Slim." Evie admitted with a frown. "I'm starting to wonder if whatever their problems are is even bigger than Maleficent."
Mal chuckled a little. "Mom would be insulted to hear someone thinks something is a bigger problem than her." She noted dryly, her voice holding no humor. Ben patted her hand gently, not entirely sure if she needed it or not but she didn't seem to have a problem with that.
"I better talk to mom and see if she can figure out where Red Magi is getting these powers from." Jane announced as she stood up and stretched, trying to work out the small kink that was forming in her lower back. "Then we can see if somehow we can figure out what's going on with our friends."
There was a massive flash of light and the team immediately scrambled for their iPhones, though it took Ruby a moment longer to follow that reaction since she was very unused to that option. "How are we getting attacked here, again?" Audrey wanted to know.
But as the light faded they realized they were not under attack, it actually been a time door opening. They could just make out the slim figure of the time mistress Renet Tilley emerging from the portal, followed by the realization it was actually too high up. Before they could react she fell from the doorway and hit the ground on her knees.
"Nice landing." Jay remarked, which earned both a giggle and an elbow to the arm from his girlfriend.
"Renet." Amy started but stopped as she felt it. She glanced to Aquiella who could feel it too.
That did nothing for Mal and Ben who were the first over to her. "Renet, what's up? What are you doing here?" Mal asked conversationally. That tone, and her stomach, dropped when she looked up at them. "What's wrong?"
Her eyes were red and full of tears, her face tear streaked as well. "It's over…" She whispered softly, hoarsely. "They're gone…our allies, our friends…the power rangers, the turtles…Mikey…they're all dead, the Earth…it's gone."
And there was total silence.