A/N: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm back! Did you miss me? Probably not, it's only been a week. School's started back up again (for us peeps in Australia anyway) so I might not be able to update as frequently. I'll aim for once a week but it might end up being once a fortnight or possibly a month, depends how much free-time I get.
Also I have just realised my own continuity error… Cole's still a ghost. Oops, XD. I'm about to go back into the previous chapter and make that a bit more obvious now. Sorry, it completely slipped my mind...
Anyway, please enjoy!
Chapter Two: The Invitation
Oh. My. Lord. I take it back, this was the second biggest snake I had ever seen. It's scales were a crimson red, with green slits for eyes and it's fangs were literally dripping with venom. Almost as if it was drooling over the idea of consuming my sister, Jay and me.
I gulped and gathered fire into my hands hoping that my attacks would at least damage the serpent. Without an actual plan of attack, except attack, I ran at the serpent hitting it with the biggest blast of fire I could.
It did absolutely nothing. Though it did move it's attention onto me... brilliant.
"Kai! Continue to distract it!" Nya yelled. I didn't even look at what they were doing. They had a plan and I clearly was the distraction, that's all I needed to keep going.
"Hey! Fang face! Over here!" I called out. Yeah, not my greatest insult, but my mind was a bit focused on the massive flippin fangs that were quickly getting closer and closer. At the last second, I blasted myself out of the way, continuing to hover in the air using my fire.
"Come on! You can do better than that!" I teased. The snake reared and lunged forward and I dodged the attack. Over and over again it continued to lunge and over and over again I dodged the serpent. Sometimes I was able to punch him in the eye or the snout, but that was mainly just so I wouldn't end up being eaten.
I was beginning to feel slightly fatigued from continuously using fire to hover, and I wondered what Nya and Jay were trying to do. Whatever it was, they needed to hurry up fast.
"Nya? Jay? Whatever you're going to do, do it now! I don't know how much longer I can keep this up." I tried to look around to see where they were… in hindsight, that wasn't a very smart move.
My slight distraction gave the snake enough time to rear back and lunge and I didn't have enough time to get out of the way before one of it's venom saturated fangs sunk into my arm.
I screamed out in agony and fell to the ground. Immediately, my vision began to blur and I felt extremely groggy. I couldn't stand.
Panic-stricken, I turned around to look at the blurred red serpent, but something wasn't right. It was completely still. Then I realised, it was in a very large puddle of water and that was alive with electricity. I smiled slightly as I thought with satisfaction that I had completed my part of the plan. The red blur suddenly begin to keel over and hit the ground with a mighty thud.
I groaned a bit as a burning hot agony coursed through me. Whatever venom this snake had, it worked fast.
"Kai! Kai you okay?" Two coloured blur's ran over to me, asking me questions I could barely comprehend.
"I-It h-h-hurts." I managed to breathe out pathetically. I could feel my consciousness slipping and my arms, which were no longer able to hold my weight, collapsed. I was now lying on the cold metal floor.
"Kai, come on buddy. You need to stay awake." I barely took in the words. I turned to look around past the coloured blurs of Nya and Jay.
Black spots were appearing in my vision but there was no way I could mistake that red blur slowly rising higher and higher above us.
"Kai, please just say something." Nya begged desperately, tears falling down her face. Jay and Nya were oblivious to the danger behind them… I had to warn them.
"B-b-behind… y-you." The two looked over their shoulders a moment too late. The snake lunged. Nya screamed and Jay yelled in… agony? But before I could register anything, the world went black.
'No…no…no...no...' I thought as I flicked through Borg's files of information on the super-computer (as the blueprints called it). I was beginning to second guess Borg's amount of important information on here. There was heaps of random stuff on inventions he'd made, invention's he was planning on making before the Overlord took over, inventions he was making, but nothing on history and… you know… important stuff.
Just before I was about to go back to Cole and Zane, a thought struck me. Borg wasn't this obsessive with himself and his inventions to put all this random and, slightly cool, stuff into a super-computer. No, this was clearly a ruse to disguise the real information… but where was it.
As I continued to flick through the files I noticed something. There was a single file that was named, 'My Most Boring Inventions', but that wasn't what caught my eye. It was the fact that this file had tons of terabytes of content. It was hardly noticeable and if I hadn't been looking for something off, I probably never would have realised it. Heck, I wouldn't even have looked into it, half of the files here were labelled something similar.
A triumphant smile tugged at my lips, and I clicked on the file. Immediately I was disappointed, not because it wasn't what I had expected, it was because all the information was encrypted. Even the sub-files were locked under fifty levels of encryption.
Sighing in frustration, I pulled out a USB I had brought along… just in case something like this happened. The only problem was, this USB wouldn't be able to handle this much information. Meaning, I would only to be able to choose one file. Quickly looking over the encrypted information I saw a sub-file that had a symbol on it… it looked familiar.
It was a single line with several other smaller lines surrounding it. Almost like an explosion occurring at the tip of a stick? A wand perhaps? It didn't matter, what did matter is that this symbol was on the front of my book (Okay, my Uncles book, whatever). I clicked on it and stuck the USB into the computer.
I sighed hoping this would give me at least some information. As I waited for the USB to copy the encryptions, my communicator buzzed.
I frowned. It was from Cole to Nya… I shouldn't have been able to access it. Curious, I still answered the call.
"Cole? What's the matter?" Nya asked. What was the matter? I did tell them to only call each other if they found something… or of course if they were in trouble, but that really didn't need to be mentioned, it was pretty much common sense. A sense of dread began to rise in my chest.
"Lloyd's run off. Don't know why, he just has. We thought we'd tell you cause Zane thought it best…oh and is your communicator full of static?" I felt slightly guilty. So they were telling the others he had run off… also why was Cole's communicator full of static? It was the best tech out of Borg's supply. Shouldn't it be clear and fine? Unless… someone else was trying to prevent Cole getting to the others.
"No. We're fine here. Anything else?"
There was a very brief pause before-
"Um, yes. There's-"
"Just wait, Cole. Something's here." My eyebrow's furrowed as I frowned. Both of them sounded… scared, nervous. What was happening? I immediately began to regret leaving Cole and Zane so soon.
Suddenly both communicator's cut out, but not before I heard a voice… a voice I was very familiar with.
What was Ronan of all people doing in Hiroshi's Labyrinth?
"A second chance to what exactly?" I asked Ronan. He was just standing there beside the large serpent, so calm and amused by our current predicament.
"You guys remember the… Anacondrai incident?" I felt Cole's transparent form tense beside me. It was very clear in my mind, especially since we lost Sensei Garmadon that day.
"We remember it better as the 'Tournament of Elements'." Cole spat with disgust.
"I see your memories are slightly unhappy when it comes to this." Ronan remarked and then smiled.
It was not often that I felt angry. I was supposed to be the cool and collected one on the team, the eye of the storm if you will. But right now, I wanted to pierce Ronan with the sharpest icicle I could conjure… okay that was going a bit far, maybe I wasn't that angry.
"Slightly unhappy, does not even cover it, Ronan. We lost a lot during that Tournament, and not just our powers." I replied as coolly as possible, trying to not let my anger show. Unlike Cole, who was shaking with fury, though it was a little hard to tell, due to him being a ghost.
"Yeah that's right. Lloyd's Dad died during that last battle didn't he?" Ronan asked so flippantly. Like he did not even care! To be fair, he probably didn't.
"Just get to the point, Ronan!" Cole hissed. It was unlike him to be so angry, but I couldn't blame him. Ronan was being absolutely infuriating.
"My point being, is that I'm here to offer you an invitation to a second tournament of elements-" Before Ronan had finished however Cole had hit the ground with his fist, causing the Earth to tremble. Ronan merely frowned before nodding toward the giant snake, who had stood immobile this entire time.
"I suggest immediate evacuation from your current situation, Zane. That serpent does not look like it will play nice. Calculating possible escape routes." Pixal cautioned.
I began to look all over the room as the green serpent drew near. "Possible escape routes… none found. I'm sorry Zane, looks like you're going to have to fight your way out of this one." I nodded and turned toward the lime green snake.
The ground was still trembling from Cole's hit and now he was lifting rocks from within the ground (despite the floor being metal) to throw at the snake. But when he threw the rock, it merely dissolved into dust before it could hit the snake.
"Pixal, what just happened?"
"It appears that this snake has the ability to neutralise Elemental abilities." She replied. I gave the serpent a calculating gaze and it gave me one back, almost daring me to use my elemental power. Slowly, I raised an orb of ice and threw it at the serpent.
As I predicted, it melted into thin air before it could reach the snake.
"I would suggest you stop guys and let me finish explaining. There's no point in fighting this." Ronan gestured to the lime green serpent who began to back off.
Cole took a reluctant step back, glaring daggers at Ronan, waiting for him to continue.
"Chen, the guy who set up the Tournament of Elements, was not how you would say… original when he came up with it." I couldn't help but feel some slight curiosity, who came up with the idea of the tournament?
"Before the Serpentine War, the Elemental Masters would travel to another realm, once a year to compete in a tournament to see who was the best fighter and to also improve their skills. The one who arranged them, has decided that now it is time for them to continue."
I glanced at Cole and he gave me an unsure look. I didn't know if we could believe Ronan. He had betrayed us before in the past, I wasn't unwilling to bet he could do the same thing again.
"Who exactly is this person who arranges the tournaments?" Cole asked suspiciously.
"I believe his name is Katan-"
Suddenly another giant snake, identical to the one in front of us, except it had red scales and green eyes, slithered in. And in his coils were…
"Nya! Jay! Kai! What happened?" Kai was limp and he looked extremely pale. Nya was slightly dazed but alright and Jay had a large gash on his forehead that was still bleeding. Except for that he was fine and he seemed to be in a bad mood… not that was unexpected of course.
"Let us go, you stupid snake!" Jay yelled.
"Jay, y-your bleeding!" Cole called back, more than a little worried.
"I'm fine, it's very shallow. One of those coils kinda cut me… they're a little sharp." Jay growled and continued to struggle, while Nya kept her arm around her brother.
"Let them go." Ronan sighed in exasperation. The red snake released the three ninja with very little care. The three were sprawled on the ground. Jay and Nya put Kai's arms around their shoulders and dragged him over to where we were standing.
"What is wrong with Kai?" I asked concernedly.
"What's wrong is that Mr Red Scales over there bit him!" Jay yelled hysterically.
Ronan sighed once again in exasperation and threw Nya a small bottle filled with a purple liquid.
"It's the antidote. The entire bottle should heal him up within about… say fifteen seconds." Nya's eyes widened and she tilted Kai's limp head back. She poured the concoction down his throat and I wondered if maybe Nya might have just poisoned her own brother.
"Do not fret Zane. I have scanned the antidote and it carries no traces of poison or anything that could harm Kai." Feeling relieved, I turned back to Ronan.
"Why did you let this happen? What are those serpents?"
"They come from the realm the Elemental Masters used to compete in. My employer told me I could take some. I set off the alarms and waited for you guys to turn up. Once you did, I came out in the open to attract your attention and sent out… what was it? Mr Red Scales to track you three down so I could talk to all of you." Ronan explained triumphantly. I couldn't help but feel like there was a few things missing from that story. How did Ronan manage to get around this place without being seen?
"Wait… what?" Jay asked in confusion.
"Apparently Jay, the Elemental Masters of old used to compete in a realm to see who was the best fighter. Ronan's 'employer' is extending an invitation for us to continue this tradition." I explained. Jay and Nya raised their eyebrows in disbelief.
"And what makes you think we'll believe you?" Kai asked hoarsely, surprising everyone. He shakily got to his feet, but Nya still kept a firm arm on her brother to stop him from falling over, clearly the antidote hadn't fully worked.
"Nothing. It's your choice whether your want to come or not." Ronan said and handed me a piece of paper, with note explaining everything Ronan had just told us and below was room for six signatures.
"It's also a choice we're not going to make." A blast of green energy sent the serpents hurtling across the large security room. Lloyd had dropped from the ceiling... no, he had dropped from a platform that went around the entire room. There was a door in the wall above explaining how Lloyd had gotten to this second level without us noticing.
"And why is that Lloyd?" Ronan asked, clearly amused.
"Because we have no interest in it. We… we need to stay here to protect Ninjago." Lloyd said, but he sounded slightly unsure.
"Well, here's something that might interest you, Lloyd. My employer, the one who's arranged this entire event, is Katan Kage." Lloyd's eyes widened. He then narrowed his eyes at Ronan, but said nothing.
"I'll leave you here to decide whether or not you're going to join in on the fun. All you have to do is sign the sheet and you'll be transported to the realm." And with that Ronan walked out of the security room, the two serpents following him and sending Lloyd a small glare.
I stared at Lloyd in confusion… how could he attack those serpents? Did it have something to do with his element?
"Come on guys, we need to get back to the Bounty." Lloyd said curtly.
"Aren't we gonna capture him?" Cole asked slightly hopeful, it was clear Cole was not happy with Ronan.
"No."
"But-"
"No, there's no point."
"Well-"
"NO COLE!" Lloyd snapped. I felt a little bit of shock. Lloyd hardly ever lost his cool. "Cole, the serpents will be pretty difficult for you guys to fight because of... you know what they did. But they don't seem to be able to defend against my element. I…. I don't think I'd be able to defend against two of them, let alone defeat them."
Cole nodded, his transparent form sagging a little from the disappointment of not being able to go after Ronan. But I noticed how Jay and Nya gave a slight frown at that statement...
"Lloyd, your powers are very strong, maybe-"
"I think it's best we get back to the bounty." Lloyd gave me a firm look and I nodded, not giving away any of my shock or hurt at the fact that Lloyd had just blatantly ignored my suggestion.
"Good. Let's go."
I know, I was being such a jerk. We probably should have gone after Ronan. He had broken into a government high-tech facility. Of course, he hadn't stolen anything but… I still shouldn't have let him leave. I could have easily defeated those two serpents, okay… maybe not easily but if the others had tried to distract the snakes I would've been able to take them out.
Then again, the serpent's wouldn't be the only living things taken out. Shivering slightly, I let my grip tighten further on the USB containing the encrypted file. If I could get Zane to scan through the encryptions then maybe he could de-crypt it. Worth a shot.
I went out onto the training deck and was surprised he wasn't there… or any of the team for that matter. The last I had heard from the others were that they had wanted to get some extra training in. I had sighed and said it was fine with me, but I wasn't going to join them. That had earned me some concerned looks from my team. If anything, their concern infuriated me further than I already was.
Ever since I had joined the team they had been treating me like the younger brother I knew I was and hated. Sometimes I didn't mind it, but now I just wished they would give me some space to deal with my own problems.
Letting out a huff of frustration, I headed inside and made my way back to my room that I shared with the others. But as I walked down the corridor towards our room, I heard voices… their voices.
As quietly as possible, I crept up to the door and poked my head around the threshold just slightly.
"Do you really think we should do it?" Cole asked. My eyebrows furrowed. Why were they discussing the tournament? I had already said we wouldn't be going. I didn't trust this Katan Kage (nor would I ever, for that matter). I could just tell that he spelt trouble, for us and Ninjago.
"Why not? It'll be a great chance to have some fun with the other Elemental Masters! From the sounds of it, there isn't too much risk in competing. I mean, the previous Masters viewed it as a fun tradition, why can't we?" I was about to step in there to tell them exactly why not, but then Kai spoke.
"What about Lloyd?" My eyes narrowed. Had they been planning on going without me?
"What about him?" Cole asked. Okay, that hurt. Then again, I had been pretty rude toward him in the Labyrinth...
"Well, we can't just leave without him! He's our leader! Besides, I think he was right about us not going. This could be the perfect chance for our enemies to make their move if we're out of the way." I gave a small sigh of relief. I could always trust Kai to have my back.
"I don't know. He's been acting a little off lately. You know? Avoiding training, reading-"
"Jay, there is nothing peculiar about reading." Zane stated bluntly.
"Lloyd doing it is peculiar, Zane." Jay bit back.
"Why don't we just go and ask him?" Nya asked. Yes, just come ask me! It's not like I would immediately say no. I was a little interested to find out more about this Katan Kage… but then I would have to fight the other Elemental Masters… and my best friends!
"Because he's obviously going to say no, Nya." Jay replied. "And you didn't let me finish before. Didn't you say he ran off during the mission Cole? Yeah, well he hasn't told us anything about what he was actually doing-"
Okay, this was going a little too far. I needed to step in and let Jay voice his mutinous thoughts with me in the room.
"Hey guys! I was just wondering if I could talk to Zane for a moment." I felt a small triumph at their pure shock and slight nervousness at me entering the room.
"Why do want to speak with me Lloyd?" Zane asked completely nonplussed.
"Oh, well while I was on the mission, I found this computer. It had a bunch of encrypted files on it and this one really caught my attention. I downloaded it to this USB and I was wondering if Zane could de-crypt it for me." I couldn't help but note that everyone seemed to glance at Jay as I said that and gave them all a knowing smile.
"So… can you do it?" I asked again.
"Yes, it shouldn't take too long." Zane followed me out of the room and we walked up to the bridge.
There was a rather awkward silence, as he scanned the USB and plugged into the Bounty's central computer. I stood behind Zane watching the screen. He began to type in several complicated algorithms, all a little too fast for me to see (not that I would understand what he was doing if I could see the formulas).
"I am putting in a list of algorithms that could possibly de-crypt the file. Pixal and I came up with the program." I nodded as Zane answered my unasked question.
We waited about another minute before the screen flashed red three times and the encrypted file came up on the screen… except it was no longer confusing mumbo jumbo.
"'The Realm Of Chaos - Facts and History'. Is this what you were after Lloyd?" Zane asked me, slightly confused.
"I-I.."
I just stared at the file in disappointment. Why did I choose this one? Because the symbol on it looked familiar? It was just a stupid file on… another…
"U-Um… yes?" I sounded more uncertain than anything but Zane merely gave me a calculating gaze and then left. Glad I was now alone, I quickly got to work.
This was a file on a realm. Possibly the same realm that Katan Kage had been banished to. I could cross out Ninjago, the Cursed Realm and Cloud Kingdom… actually no, we may have been to both (well I had at least, if briefly) but that didn't mean Kage hadn't been there. So that left me with... what, fifteen options. I sighed in frustration and began to read...
'The Realm of Chaos is exactly what it's name suggests, chaotic. Said to house some of the darkest and demonic energy ever known in any other realm, the Realm of Chaos was used by an ancient, immortal race known as the Oni. From the carvings found in many mysterious temples in Ninjago, the Oni combine their dark energy with that of this realm to create extreme weapons of darkness to battle against their enemies.
No one, other than the Oni of course, has ever been able to travel to this chaotic hell but we know enough from it's many sister realms…'
As soon as I read that line, my heart sank. If no one had ever been to this realm, except for these Oni, then there was no way Kage would have been sent there… was there? Maybe if I could find one of these Oni people, though they sounded… evil. Combining their dark energy with more to make weapons? Yeah, never mind. I never wanted to meet one of those.
I continued to scroll down the page to see if any words jumped out at me… and plenty did. 'Dark...Evil...Demonic...Potential...Powerful...Danger...Fear...Uncontrollable.' Yeah, none of this sounded too pleasant… and a lot of it sounded familiar but I couldn't place where.
'Sister Realms'. I stopped. There was an entire page on the Realm of Chaos' sister realms. I didn't really get what that meant though. Were sister realms just realms that were similar in what they had within them? Curious, I decided to at least learn something from these seemingly pointless file.
'A sister realm, as you should know, (no, I didn't know), is a realm that stands parallel to another realm. The two have to either be extremely similar or vastly different so much so they're almost exact opposites. Usually when a realm is destroyed or dies, it's sister realms go down with it.'
This made me slightly concerned. Did Ninjago have a sister realm? If so, would that mean that the ninja and I will have to protect that realm, in turn protecting Ninjago? 'Argh! I think our job as Ninjago's defenders just got a lot more complicated.' I thought.
'The Realm of Chaos' sister realms include; The Elemental Realm, the First Realm and Ninjago.'
Well that answered that question. Seems like if any of those three other realms died, Ninjago would too… well… this was more than a little concerning.
'The Elemental Realm is notorious for many reasons, one of the main being that it was used by Sorcerer Katan Kage to host the Elemental Tournament. A traditional tournament used by the Elemental Masters before the Serpentine War, to hone their skills and to have friendly competitions with one another. Ironically this was the same realm that said Sorcerer Kage was banished to after his gruesome murder of...'
I stared at file in slight shock. It just ended. Was there going to be a name of the little boy who was murdered? Or was it just going to say exactly what the passage in Uncle Wu's book had said? Also Ronan hadn't been lying! And Katan Kage… he had been banished to the Elemental Realm… where the tournament was going to be held… I needed to get there.
With a new resolve, I left the bridge and headed down to where I had last seen the others. But when I opened the door to our bedroom, they weren't there.
The only thing that was there, was a single sheet of paper… with five signatures on it.
A/N: Yeah, I think I'll be evil and leave it at that. I really enjoyed writing this one. Also, the whole Oni and sister realm I hadn't actually planned but while I was writing, I thought 'Oh this would be cool' and now I have a really good idea for it.
So what do you think so far?
There are a few purposeful plot holes I put in there that will be filled DO NOT WORRY! Also, Lloyd doesn't really know what a sister realm (is that what they're even called?) is because he didn't remember the events of Season 6, I think only Jay and Nya did.
Please let me know your thoughts in a review, they really motivate me to continue and critique my writing. Especially if any of the characters are OOC, please let me know because they are not supposed to be!
Thanks so much to; NaninaDaPanda, Shanni-channi, Zena Airale, and the very special Guest, who have reviewed, faved and/or followed! You guys are amazing and so are all of my readers/viewers!
Until next time!
SkyD12 Out!