Disclaimer: I do not own Ninjago or Mockingjay.
A/N Here it is! Finally, here is chapter one of the final story in the Snake Games trilogy! Read and please enjoy!
Chapter 1: A Start
Acciala's POV
I stared down at my boots, a thin ash layer started to cover them. Almost nothing remained of the All-Element Quarters. Days before, or maybe it was weeks, the Central Snake, with Pythor as the head, destroyed the Quarters.
Only the very inner parts of Winner's Wonderland survived, even though the luxury houses still took damage.
Probably saved for the snakes. I thought bitterly. I had always hated snakes, but at that moment, I truly loathed them.
I walked down what was once a road in the burning remains of what was once the All-Element Quarters. I was so deep in thought; my feet just carried me where they wanted to go. When I came back into reality, I was standing in front of a small shack-like house.
Curious, I climbed into the wreckage. I found a shattered picture frame and, looking at it, I gasped. The picture was of Lloyd, Lord Garmadon, a woman who might have been Lloyd's mother.
I shifted around the wreckage some more until I found another picture. This was of two boys and one girl. The girl looked like a younger version of the woman I saw in the other picture. One boy had red eyes, much like Garmadon's. The other boy, I couldn't tell. I put the picture in my right arm, which was already cradling the family portrait.
I then left the remains of the home to find any survivors. It took me five hours, with help from Garmadon, to convince the leaders of the Life Quarters to let me go.
They saw it as a pointless and stupid trip, but they eventually gave in.
Skalidor, the Head Snakers during the last Snake Games, was the first to give in and let me go.
"Jussst let her go," He told the others, humans and snakes. "Let her have sssssome closure."
"You alright, Acciala?" I heard Faolan's voice in my ear through the chip I was given. It was then that I realized I was sitting on the ground, my knees against my chest.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I told him. I stood up and continued walking in my sub-conscious state of mind.
A few minutes later, I heard a soft groan. I was snapped again into reality and quickly walked over to the pile of dirt and stone the sound was coming from.
After I finally cleared away a decent deal of ruble, what was underneath shocked me. Underneath the stones and dirt was Lou, Cole's dad. Immediately, I saw he wasn't in good shape at all. He looked as if something hit him on the right side of his forehead, just under his temple. His left shoulder was bleeding slowly, but the gash was clearly deep.
"Acciala?" Lou asked, tired and exhausted.
"Lou, don't worry, you'll be alright." I told him, helping him out of the pile. "Faolan, I found a survivor. We need to take him back to the Life Quarters."
"Sure thing, I'll be down in a second." Faolan replied. Sure enough, a few seconds later, Faolan was in front of me, holding onto a latter that dropped from the hover plane. "Who is it?"
"Lou, Cole's dad," I told him. Faolan nodded solemnly, and then helped Lou up the latter and into the hover plane. Suddenly, I noticed something on the ground that made me freeze.
In the dirt, a symbol was scratched out. The symbol was an Ouroboros. In Greek, Ouroboros meant a snake eating its own tail. The Ouroboros was the Central Snake's symbol of power. The space that the snake circled was meant to represent the Quarters and the people of Ninjago.
This is no accident. This is a message, a taunt from Pythor! I thought angrily.
"Are you ready to head back now, A?" Faolan asked through the chip.
"Yeah, I've seen enough now," I muttered venomously as I climbed up the latter after him.
Once I was seated in the hover plane, I just wanted to scream. I wanted to scream about the Ouroboros, about Pythor's maddening persistence, and, most of all, how sick I was with the dictator.
I sat down and started to feel dizzy again. A throbbing pain started growing in my right arm, where Jewel had stabbed out my tracker in the Landscape.
I felt even dizzier, and soon it was hard to know if the dust and dried blood from Lou on my hand was real or if everything was just a dream.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and started an exercise the doctors at the Life Quarters taught me. I started with the simplest thing that I was absolutely sure to be true, and then made my way to not-so-sure topics.
My name is Acciala. I am seventeen years old. My home was the forest. I was in two Snake Games. I survived. Pythor and the Central Snake despise me. Lloyd and Cole were taken as prisoners. They might be dead. Most likely they are dead. What will I do if they are dead? I love Cole. And Lloyd is so sweet. His father is Lord Garmadon. People say Garmadon is bad, but he's not very bad. Maybe he can change…
"Acciala? Are you alright?" Faolan asked again. I snapped up. I realized I was again in the same position as before; seated with my knees to my chest. I quickly put my feet back on the floor and I crossed my arms across my chest.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I responded. I received the same solemn nod as before. Faolan left me alone after that. He knew I didn't want anyone with me on that day. Not even him, my best friend since childhood.
About fifty minutes later, we arrived at the Life Quarters. From above, it looks as happy and cheerful as the All-Element Quarters looked after demolition. The rumble wasn't smoking, like the Central Snake always showed it, but if one was quiet enough, she might have heard a faint howl. Aside from that, there was next to no life above ground.
In the few years since Pythor took over and destroyed the Quarters as a reminder of his power, new development flourished beneath the surface of Ninjago.
The most important thing of the Life Quarters when the Central Snake was involved was the fact that the Life Quarters used to make the Serpentine's nuclear war weapons, and any weapon.
When I arrived, a man from the Light Quarters, Trenk, told me the real story.
"Pythor didn't kill everyone from the Life Quarters, he struck them a deal; play dead and don't communicate with anyone outside your boundaries and we'll leave you alone," Trenk told me.
Trenk also told me why people in the Life Quarters were so happy to see survivors for population increase, as well as breeding.
"Years ago, there was a huge disease outbreak that rendered more than half the population infertile. They want new people, who haven't suffered the disease, to keep their population going." Trenk informed me.
When we landed on the ground and got off the hover plane, I went straight to my assigned room. There, I sat on my bed and put my knees to my chest again. I still held the two pictures I salvaged from the remains of Lloyd's home.
Survivors from the All-Element Quarter passed by my door. Some were happy, others were bored.
The credit for their survival landed on Faolan's shoulders. Even though he's loath to accept it. As soon as I blast open the wall in the Snake Games, all the power in the All-Element Quarter went out. It was Faolan who thought of the forest. He ran through town and herded many people out, including Garmadon and Wu. The people formed a group and tore the fence surrounding the Quarters down. Then they ran into the forest, and lived in caves for three days, surviving off of the food Faolan and other able-bodied people could gather. Then the hover plane came and carried them to the Life Quarters.
In the Life Quarters, the living apartments are all underground, everyone wears the same clothing, and the food was almost tasteless. Nonetheless, the people were safe, fed, clothed, and cared for.
I didn't notice my door open and then close. I didn't notice the tall, black, four-armed man who walked in.
"Acciala?" He asked, getting my attention. For the third time in one day, I snapped to attention. He sat down at the foot of my bed.
"Huh?"
"What did you find?" He asked.
"These." I handed him the pictures. His upper arms took the picture with Lloyd; his lower arms took the picture with the other boys and girl.
"I'd recognize these anywhere." He said.
"Who is that woman?" I asked. My question seemingly saddened him.
"Her name is, well, was, Misako. One day, she went to town to get something, but she never came back. I haven't seen her since." Garmadon sighed sadly.
"Who was she? To you? To Lloyd?" I asked.
"She was my wife, and Lloyd's mother." Garmadon replied.
"And who are the people in the other picture?" I asked.
"This was taken before I turned evil. There's Misako, me, and Wu," Garmadon pointed as he talked.
"You're not really all evil," I told him.
"No, I'm evil," He argued.
"No, Pythor's worse than you." I argued back.
"That's Pythor," He said. "Anyway, I recently found this among my other belongings. Here, I thought you would like it,"
Garmadon handed me a small locket. I opened it to find a picture of Lloyd, smiling brightly. He was smiling as if there was nothing bad in the world, smiling as if Pythor was nothing but an ancient myth. As if everything in the entire universe was peaceful.
It gave me new confidence that Lloyd was alive, and that, in the end, everything would be peaceful and fine.
He has to be, I thought to myself. He just has to be safe. Cole too. Cole has to be okay too. I don't know what I would do with myself if he wasn't.
A/N How was the first chapter? Please review!