Chapter 2; …Anyone… Even Our Enemies…

An evil grin shined on her new-found scaly face. Skales was terrified. He could not say anything, caught in the middle of submission and domination. Skales thought he should give her an order having changed her into his kind to do so, but the words were caught in his throat.

Glimmering with insanity, Emma's grin grew larger, "I would be surprised if you still felt like I would just follow your lead, Skales… At least Pythor had some sort of purpose and plan. What is yours?"

Skales thought about it. Perhaps if he were to turn the other ninja and Cosmic Legion members into snakes… but what good would that do for him? Emma is living proof; having been only fully transformed for a few minutes and already acting as if she was in charge: it was like him handing over command on a silver platter. He thought he probably was doing that already.

Emma took Skales' silent pondering as an answer. "Exactly my point, what I would suggest is we rebuild the serpentine empire."

Skales finally spoke; "And how will you do that?"

"We will gather allies first. Then we will rebuild Ouroboros."

"Why would you want to help us? Aren't you angry?"

"Oh Skales… This is not the same soul in control of this fleeting embodiment. I simply need a cover… I simply need to follow the plan of the Cosmic Master. Luckily, she likes the serpentine a bit more than humans sometimes… They can be more… reasonable."

Skales was perplexed and furious. "Who put you in charge!? I was the one who turned you into a serpentine! You should be following my orders!"

Swaying smoothly, Emma traversed the inside of the helicopter and looked down at Skales. Holding his chin, Emma held Skales' faces centimeters apart away from hers. Skales gasped. Intimidated and slightly aroused, Skales would be sweating if he was human. Besides for the different hair lines, he could hardly tell the difference between Emma and Emilia.

"You pathetic fool, always trying to climb to the top. How about you stop climbing before I shoot you down?"

The words rolled off the tongue like satin and rose petals while it petrified the snake king.

Emma enjoyed intimidating Skales and it helped that her transformation made her grow few inches taller. Obviously, she was no Pythor, but her neck looked longer. Emma released Skales from her grip. Looking at herself, she noticed the torn navy blue rags that addressed her body. Perhaps she should go native? Emma thought against it, still feeling her previous modesty.

Wandering around the helicopter, Emma found the gun Skales used. Inspecting it, she noticed how familiar it looked. Searching through her human memories, she recognized the hidden symbol of doctor Julien. While she explored these memories, she found herself thinking of a nindroid. She felt her heart flutter but immediately buried the old feelings.

Eventually, the helicopter stopped and Emma and Skales got off. It was nighttime in Ninjago city and they had errands to run.

Emma did not ponder where she was laying, but if she did and looked at the floor she would see shards of glass in a river of crimson fluid. The stained white walls around her seemed to be a prison of consciousness. Her clothing was torn and drenched.

Yet Emma focused on her wrists.

Binding her ankles and wrists were shackles that looked like metal. The metal was however a deep metallic red that faded into a pitch. The chains sank into the river below her.

The pain of lying on her back was caused by the shards of glass suspended in the stream of red flowing into the wall. Emma dipped a finger in the fluid but felt no current.

Her whole body ached, and the pain was distributed equally. Her whole body felt the same sensation.

Emma's blue eyes sharpened from their haze. Sitting up, Emma thought pensively.

Suddenly, Emma saw the dark drops on her torn skirt like rain falling onto asphalt. Feeling liquid running down her cheeks like oil, Emma blinked but could not stop the black liquid that seemed to increase in volume.

Emma stood up. The black puddle in her palm overflowed while more tears escaped her tear-ducts.

Despite the pain, her thoughts were as clear as crystal. Wiping her hand on her skirt, Emma listened for any sound at all. She could only hear her own thoughts until she heard…

…

Zane's screech rang in the room like a church bell. Emma tried to cover her ears but it did nothing.

Emma sank inside the red and the shards dug into her skin. Suddenly, a pair of arms pulled her out and the ringing stopped.

All she could do was screaming. Scream and flail every limb she got. Emma tried to close her eyes to hide from the torture but every time she closed her eyes, slowly the darkness would fade away and she would see everything that was around her. But as she was pulled out of the red fluid, she felt scaly hands on her body.

Dark images of the serpentine flashed in her mind while she turned away.

"For heaven's sake, would you stop?"

Immediately, Emma recognized the voice. It was not the Cosmic Master's though.

'Emilia?' Emma thought.

"Who else would it be?"

Emma stopped moving and saw the ghostly Anacondrai figure. 'What is going on?'

"Like you don't know…"

It dawned on Emma and she remembered everything. Emilia frowned at Emma's self pity that was forming at the moment.

"Sorry to be your pity party pooper. But we both got jobs to do…"

'Right…' Emma thought and looked around the room. 'Just as I imagined it would be.'

"But it wasn't really you imagining it though, huh?"

'You know, I hoped sometimes I was just hallucinating and eventually the ninja would take me to a mental hospital… Guess sometimes you don't get what you hope for… and yet people hope still away…'

"It is though incredible what humans do with hope…"

'Huh, I guess the serpentine haven't had the same luck.'

"It amazes me you can still believe in luck at times like this."

'Me too…' Emma and Emilia talked like old friends. 'It's a pity we only talk about how much life stinks, huh?'

'So, what am I doing outside?'

"Don't remind me… I love Skales, but he really is something…"

'At least you didn't have to scratch him in the chest.'

"Right now I wish I could."

'I wish the Cosmic Master could have at least kept some mind-tea in here or something.' Emma paced the bloody river holding her head. 'Perhaps I should work on getting out of here. Sigh… but at what cost? What future lies outside these white walls…?'

After hearing a large crash, Dareth first noted the darkness in the room. His just awoken eyes glanced at his clock. It was way too early for this. Then he heard a second crash and yell; Dareth could only hear the word "imbecile."

Realizing the severity of the situation at hand, Dareth shot out of his bed. Before he left the room, he grabbed the nun-chucks from under his pillow.

Entering the dojo, Dareth confronted Skales, some purple snake chick he did not recognize, and two other snakes around them. Dareth decided it was time for them to know who they were messing with and started spinning his nun-chucks around. The two other snakes came towards him and with his dumb-luck; he managed to hit them with his nun-chucks without hurting himself.

The Anacondrai slowly bent to the ground. Dareth was a little too 'distracted' to notice her grabbing two daggers.

Flinging the knives to the wall of the dojo, Emma pinned Dareth to the wall. The last thing Dareth saw was an evil smile. Dareth wondered why her fist was getting larger, and then it hit him.

Emma glared at the two unconscious snakes and gave a second thought to practically saving their species.

"At least we won't have to worry about any coppersss."

"Not yet, Skales"

Sirens and red and blue lights flew past the window. Emma smirked. The distraction was working perfectly.

"The serpentine are everywhere in the Ninjago mall. Strangely, they are only robbing tea shops and clothing stores."

Everyone in the bridge, Anne, Cole, Laura, Lloyd, Cece, Kai, Jay, Misako, Sensei Wu, and Lord Garmadon, heard Nya say what was on the screen making the alarm go off. The moment they heard tea, they knew exactly who was behind this.

"Some people just don't change." Anne said.

"Can't we get any sleep?" Lloyd said. They had just got to bed when the alarm went off; it was 5 am, September 2nd.

"Let's go…" Cole said leaving the bridge with bags forming under his eyes and a scowl.

The bounty hovered over the mall and the Ninja and Cosmic Legion jumped off the bounty and onto the roof.

"There were way too many snakes on the ground. We will have to get in the mall through the roof." Nya said and they entered the mall by the means of the roof access.

After going down the stairs, they eventually made it inside the mall. Where they were, it was quiet. While they ran towards the tumult, they looked at the shops and looked for the ones with snakes in them.

"Looks like their hungry." Jay said watching the snakes run amuck in the food court.

"Jay, Cece, Anne, you search the northwest area of the mall and Jay, Laura, Lloyd, Kai, and I will get the southeast." Cole said. The mall's food court was near the center.

"NINJAGO!" Kai, Lloyd, Jay, and Cole yelled forming their tornados.

In sync, the Cosmic Legion slammed their hands together and lit up the mall with their respective colors.

Although there were many serpentine at the mall, it was child's play compared to what happened the day before. Sooner or later, the mall was snake-less. Yet this did occupy a few hours of their time. They made it back to the bounty at around seven thirty in the morning.

When they returned, Zombies entered the bounty. Nobody gave a shit about no possible 'bigger plan'. They just went straight to bed.

Invisible, Emma traversed the grey pod of the prison. While avoiding guards, Emma thought of something, 'Reminds me of my middle school…'

Entering the vestibule, Emma looked through the bars. Since Skales was probably hypnotizing some poor soul, the prison doors opened automatically. Grasping the helmet in her hands, Emma saw bright green eyes in the dark corner of the room.

Emma dropped the helmet on the floor. Kicking it inside the room, a black hand immediately grabbed it.

"Kozu… I am glad we get to meet at last…"

[edit] Lol... I thought Saturday was Sunday! I even apologized for updating late in the day! Sorry about that, guess you guys got an early update! [Edit] I hope this chapter was good... Mostly the serpentine and stuff. I am loosing some confidence in my stuff lately... my writing and art when I read/look at it does not feel good... especially my art though. Please Review!

thank you 1captain obvious, DJMidge, Toon Friend, mykindleisawesome, and wolfpurpledinosaur for your reviews!

SergeantSarcasm7 at your service!