Kai slowly opened his eyes, trying to figure out what had happened, and why he had been unconscious in the first place. The last thing he remembered was being surrounded by smoke and then a hand came out of no where and… he couldn't remember anything from there.
The red ninja looked around taking in his surroundings. He was in what seemed to be a hotel suite just a lot smaller and for some reason it seemed to reflect his elemental power. There was a lavafall beside his bed, emanating an impressive amount of heat. As it hit the ground a small river curved across the top of his bed and circled around his room. The floor boards were smooth and well polished and the wood that formed the walls and his bedside table was a deep shade of reddish brown.
There was a small empty cupboard in the corner made from the same wood as the walls, one wall and a huge mirror and there were several tapestries everywhere, each with different patterns and shapes that Kai recognised as fire dragons. One of the tapestries that was hung in front of his bed held the fire dragon emblem on the top and five portraits. Kai only recognised two of these portraits as his Father and himself.
Kai approached an iron door he presumed led out of the suite. He carefully pushed the handle not daring to breath incase this was some sort of trap. The door swung open despite it's presumably heavy weight and Kai quickly walked through it as it slammed behind him.
He had stepped into a circular chamber, with the same dragon patterns on the walls that were inside his room, except they were all different colours representing different elements. A large stairwell was in the centre of the chamber and lead to floors above and below. Eighteen iron doors the same as the one he had just walked though encircled the chamber. Each had an inscription on it; Kai looked over his inscription and read 'Master Of Fire'. He barely had time to question this before he heard a muffled conversation coming from the floor below.
Kai walked down the stairs and looked across the room he was now in. the chamber was identical to the one above, but it was lighted much better and there was a bar, and several clusters of tables and chairs. Kai got the idea that it was probably a dining hall.
He was surprised though at who were the ones having the conversation. "Neuro? Turner? Shade? Tox? Skylar? What are you all doing here?" Kai noticed the Skylar looked really worried, what that girl could be worried about he had no idea.
"We were all captured by Ronan. All the Elemental Masters are here and I have the strangest feeling we're not in Ninjago."
"Are the rest of the ninja here?"
"Well, most of them anyway." I raised my eyebrows at that answer. Who was missing?
"If you would like to know where your friends are. They are two floors up from here, on the television floor." Neuro looked distant, yet slightly amused.
"Television floor?"
"You'll see what I mean."
He thanked Neuro and raced up to flights of stairs and came into a chamber that seemed to be covered from roof to floor in TV screens. Several lounges were placed around the room not in any specific seating, though.
"Kai!" Nya lunged herself at Kai knocking the fire ninja onto the ground. The embrace was slightly awkward, and he felt heat begin to rush to his face.
"It is good to see you are okay my friend." Zane smiled, his glowing eyes seemed to reflect a lot of relief. Nya finally realised him and Kai got to his feet frowning.
"Okay, where are we and why you all acting like I nearly died." My friends looked at each other concerned.
"Ronan was hired by some buffoon to capture us and take us here. He was aided an army of Serpentine,' Zane gave Cole a disapproving look,' okay so he said they weren't Serpentine, but I they were snake-people. You were taken while we were surrounded and then Nya was knocked out… and we began to fight the army and we were attempting to retreat…" Kai looked at Cole whose ghostly face had paled. He began to look at the other ninja to finish the sentence but they were all looking at the ground.
The red ninja finally felt like something was missing and then he pieced two and two together. Panic began to settle in the pit of his stomach.
"Guys, where's Lloyd?"
'I was climbing down the stairs of a monastery, going slowly. I could tell my young self was feeling pride in being able to tackle the mountainous wooden passage to the upper levels. I couldn't help laughing, and I had no idea whether that was apart of my memory or if I did that myself.
When I reached the ground floor I began to run. I didn't really know where I was going, so I just let the memory do it's thing. I entered what appeared to be a kitchen. Some sort of cake sat on the bench and my little body seemed attracted to it. I tried to reach up and grab the cake but I was no where near the top.
I could hear footsteps coming down the hall leading to the kitchen and I suddenly felt tense and kept on reaching to try and get the cake off the bench. Soon the footsteps stopped behind me and I looked up to see my Dad's face smiling down at me.
"Can't wait for the party, huh? Nah, me neither, but your mother would kill me if I ate this thing so we're going to have to wait." My little self frowned, but I was longing for my Dad to speak again.
"Come on let's head outside, I'm sure the guests will be arriving soon. We can greet them together." I nodded and my Dad picked me up.
I didn't want this dream to end. This was time I never really had experienced with Dad and I didn't want it to go away. But I could feel the world was fading, but it stopped only half way.
I was seeing flashes of memories. Me eating the cake, opening presents, playing with my Dad. Then there were screams, and I saw fire, a snake person approaching me and chaining me to a pole. Then the horrible pain again, my Dad yelling for the torture to stop and two red glowing eyes, looming closer and closer.'
"NOOOOOOOO!" I sat upright, trembling in cold sweat. I began to breathe deeply to calm down but it wasn't working. I ran my hands through my blonde hair, my eyes wide. I felt nervous and jittery, my anxiety levels rising. I had no idea why though. Nobody was dying, nobody was hurt, and… I couldn't say nothing was wrong, but there was hardly any reason for me to be worried. I looked up into the ruins of Uncle Wu's old monastery. No, didn't want to be here anymore, it reminded me too much of dream-memories.
I tried to decipher what had happened in this dream. It was my birthday, the sorcerer had attacked on my birthday. That snake army that had attacked my friends before had been the same one that had attacked my childhood home and the one that had chained me.
Anger boil up inside of me and I was suddenly afraid. Now whoever had hired Ronan, had my friends and I had an awful feel in my gut that kept telling me it was that evil sorcerer. Somehow I had to get to them, but I had no idea where they could be or how to find them.
"So… where to next Lloyd? Still running?" Ronan was sitting atop one of the ruins of Uncle Wu's old monastery.
"Stay away!" I had no idea why I yelled that, and I heard the traitor smirk.
"Look kid,' I gave Ronan a death glare, I hated it when people called me 'kid',' My boss was pretty mad when I turned up without you. So if you come with me, I'll take you to your friends, and then you'll be happy, and I can be paid!" I saw out of the corner of my eye, several snake-people closing in on me. I sighed.
"I guess I've got no choice, do I?"
"No, not really." Ronan did his familiar whistle and Rex came flying out of no where and stopped beside the smuggler, hovering mid-air.
"Well? You coming?" I rolled my eyes and smiled. I jumped up, flipped and landed on Rex. I saw Ronan roll his eyes and mouth 'Show off'. He ruffled though a satchel and pulled out the Realm Crystal.
"How did you-"
"I have my ways,' He lifted the crystal and let it catch the sun rays,' Elemental Realm!" He yelled and a blue portal opened up. Ronan revved Rex's engines and we dived into the portal.
Skylar heard Kai's loud yell echo through the palace. She looked at Neuro and twitched her head upwards, Neuro nodded. They got up and together left the table where Shade, Tox and Turner were still chatting.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE ATTACKED YOU!"
"He made this huge blast, I've never seen him do it before, well… in anger anyway."
"Wait, anger?" Kai had calmed down but he was still worried. Skylar knew something was up with Lloyd. Knowing the green ninja, he hardly ever acted out of anger, and was generally quite well tempered... most of the time.
"What do you think is up with him?" Skylar asked.
"I don't know. He's been acting pretty strange lately, showing up late to training, and he's been in a really bad mood."
"And why is showing up to training bad?"
"Well.. because, well... Kai says he's been having these nightmares and when he started them he wasn't this normal self."
"Cole I hate to say this, but I don't think Lloyd does trust us. To tell us what's wrong anyway."
Skylar watched Kai's face get overwhelmed with fear. She knew the red ninja was fond of Lloyd, and she also hated what would happen to Ninjago's best warrior.
Suddenly a booming voice sounded from… well she couldn't tell what.
"COULD ALL ELEMENTAL MASTERS PLEASE REPORT TO THE FOURTH FLOOR, ALL ELEMENTAL MASTERS REPORT TO THE FOURTH FLOOR!"
The voice sounded unused and raspy. Skylar then noticed that there was a plaque attached on top of one of the TV's and it read '4th Floor'. Several of the masters came up after climbing the stair case, looking highly annoyed.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"Well I just wanted to introduce myself to you all."
Skylar turned to the sound of the voice and saw very old man approach them. He had white blonde hair, dull scarlet red eyes and he was wearing robes with several snake patterns on them.
"I hope young Ronan treated you well." The man rasped. Many Masters grumbled and rolled their eyes, while the ninja had stone-cold looks plastered onto their face.
"Apparently not. Well my name is Master Katan and I am here to invite you all to…"
"Invite? You had us captured! I hardly consider that as a welcome!" Skylar looked over to Kai who seemed to be fuming and noticed he wasn't the only one contorted with anger.
"Yes, well. After your previous Tournament I merely presumed that you would reject my invites, so I got Ronan here to get you all here by, well… force. Anyway I have invited you all here because I wanted to recreate an old tradition of the Elemental Masters. Long ago your ancestors would have a Tournament each year and this would determine which element is the most powerful and their accommodations were in this very palace. I have decided to invite all known Elemental Masters to a realm of peace, and harmony. The Elemental Realm!"
There were several whispers that went throughout the group, Skylar knew this place hadn't felt right. She wished she could see outside, the only problem was there were no windows in this building.
"In this Realm your powers are yours to keep, and cannot be taken away from you. This should hopefully be reassuring for you after your previous ventures."
"Where's Lloyd?" Many Elemental Masters called this out and Katan's face simply smiled.
"Ronan is… collecting him as we speak. You are welcome to explore the realm, but do be careful of the Fire Forest to the north, it doesn't welcome visitors, and hardly anyone has entered it."
Obviously Katan realised that none of them were content with his answer and he merely sighed.
"If you are worrying about… Lloyd then you are worrying for nothing. The boy should get here without any trouble at all, so just stay calm. If you were wondering what I meant by a Fire Forest, each location here is themed after a different element. There are the Ice Plains down south, and the Toxic Bogs are south west. There is a map on the first floor if you wish to explore the realm."
Skylar looked at the ninja who had really worried looks on. Katan left the Masters to continue what they were doing. Skylar immediately walked up to Kai and the others.
"Was it just me or did he try and avoid saying Lloyd's name?"
"It wasn't just you. Something is up and removal of powers or not, I don't like the idea of this Tournament."
Sorry about the late update, I've been a bit busy so it's been difficult to write. I've already started on Chapter 3 so that'll be coming out soon.
Anyway I would just like to thank EnergyBlastDiamond, PixelatedNinjas and RandomDragon for their reviews and I wanted to let you guys know that the reviews mean quite a lot to me.
Until next chapter, SkyDreamer out!
