(A/N): Oh gosh, what is this madness. I'm actually writing a fic.
And attempting to stick to it. Wow. ...Anyways, this is hopefully going to be a long fanfic. I will warn you though. Updates will be sloooow. I have put things on hiatus for over a year before.
Anyways, this is an idea that's been bouncing in my head for a while, so I decided to try it! You might recognize where this idea is from; if you do, great. :)
Disclaimer: Unoriginal ideas in here belong to the Hageman brothers and Tomoyoshi.
A deserted house in the mountains about an hour from New Ninjago City.
Trees, houses, rivers, all flashed by in a blur of green and blue and marbled patches of other colors. Wind blew into its pointed face, over its streamlined body, helping it forward. A flap of black wings, all parts and gears, propelled it forward, into a thick spot of forest. Slowing, lowering in altitude, flapping its wings to control the partial descent, before spreading them again and resuming flight.
Something twitched in the corner of its vision.
A black-feathered head turned towards the miniscule disturbance. Two clawed legs reached for a branch, the rest of it perching soon after. Two eyes glowed faintly blue, illuminating the bark of the trees in the otherwise dark area, and scanned the area.
Nothing.
A rustle in the leaves below.
When the sound registered, it found itself face to face with two empty, black abysses.
It was the only warning it received.
No one knows how long it has been there or who used to live in it.
"Whoa. That is a huge mansion."
Four people stood in front of a old, large mansion that had probably been painted white once (now, the paint was a bit faded, and peeling in some places.) For a few moments, they just stood, letting the wind blow their clothes and hair a bit to one side, and dead leaves from the trees, whose thick, dark green leaves blocked out the sun almost completely and left the sky a dark grey. A patch of sunlight fell on an auburn brown head of hair, making it shine bronze in the dim forest.
The brown-haired boy spoke up, breaking the silence, blue eyes gleaming. "I know. Those rumors about this place are really something, aren't they?"
The person on his right, dressed in red with spiky, dark brown hair, turned to him, looking faintly deprecating. "Don't get your hopes too high up, Jay. Some of those rumors were pretty ridiculous if you ask me. I mean, a monster that hunts down anyone in there? Who do they think they're fooling?"
"I would not be so quick to dismiss these rumors, Kai. There may be an element of truth to them," remarked the boy on Jay's left. A patch of sunlight hit his shoulder, and it glinted a metallic silver.
To his left, Cole nodded. "Zane's right. We thought dragons and Serpentine were just stories. Look how that turned out."
Kai seemed to consider this for a second. "...I guess. Besides, it is pretty creepy-looking," he added with a smirk. "Who knows, maybe going in there will show us who the real men are."
"...I do not understand. Are we not all fully-grown already?"
"It's a saying, Zane, it means...uh, it means-oh, never mind," Jay muttered.
Cole tilted his head up, scrutinizing the mansion from top to bottom. "We know the plan, right? We find Lloyd's group, inspect the place, see if there's anything interesting, and leave. We have a duty to protect Ninjago-" He stopped when he heard a soft 'hah' come from someone, almost like a laugh. "Did you say something, Jay?"
Said ninja looked up and shook his head. "No...keep going."
"Like I was saying," Cole continued. "We have a duty to protect Ninjago so we can't leave it unwatched too long. And I need to eat some cake when I get back to the Bounty."
Kai promptly facepalmed.
Jay held up the phone he liked to carry around in his pocket while holding the book he'd taken with him in his other hand-the screen showed the connection he had established with the falcon rather recently (with Zane's permission, of course.) The blue light from the screen washed over their faces and glowed eerily in the greyness of the sky.
"The falcon is flying around here to check for things, right, Zane?"
Zane nodded, following the motion of the red dot that represented his falcon with his eyes.
Cole spoke up. "I think we've got everything under control for now. We go in, meet up with Lloyd, Skylor, and Karlof, look around, and come back out after a while. We have Zane's falcon to warn us about stuff and contact the Bounty if we need to. There isn't anything that could go wrong."
"Don't say that!" At the note of emotion in his voice, everyone stared at him in surprise. Hurriedly trying to explain himself, he added, "You'll just jinx any luck we have! If there's one thing to learn from Murphy's Law" -here Jay stopped and continued in an overly-serious, dramatic voice- "it's that there is always something that could go wrong."
Kai and Cole rolled their eyes.
"Stop worrying, Jay," Kai said, voice a bit softer. "You too, Cole. We'll be fine. Let's go in."
With that, Kai gingerly opened the door. When it opened without so much as a creak, he walked in. Zane went in after him, shortly followed by Cole, who both took a swift look at the outdoors before going in.
Jay waited a moment more to go inside, looking at the mansion as Cole had earlier, something flickering in his eyes. Then, putting the phone in his pocket and clutching the weathered book tightly, he walked in and closed the door, not looking back.
Rumors said that it was...haunted.