I will prepare and someday my chance will come.

Abraham Lincoln

~CHAPTER FOUR: THE ASSIGNMENT~

Eventually, the clock did strike eight. And when it did, the nervous energy in the room only skyrocketed.

Carnegie and I reached for our respective envelopes on the table, our friends looking on. I looked at my hands and noticed how badly they were shaking.

With trembling fingers, we ripped the envelopes open. Carnegie and I shared a glance, and then she said, "On three, we read these aloud." I nodded and prepared to unfold the piece of crisp white paper now in my hands.

"One." I tightened my grip on the edges.

"Two." Deep breaths.

"Three."

She and I began to read our letters aloud:

To whom it may concern:

Congratulations on your second Assignment. This is very important, as second Assignments are symbols of a Kiladra Jedi Academy student's outstanding performance in areas other than the academy itself. Like the Jedi Trials that your predecessors faced, the Assignment will test you in the five areas of skill, courage, flesh, spirit, and insight.

Your Assignment is as follows:

Here, the two of us started reading different things. While Carnegie was talking about her part of the Assignment, I was talking about mine. Our voices mixed into a jumble of unintelligible language, sounding not unlike the language of the Stone Warriors. I didn't process any of what I had just read until Becka suggested that Carnegie read her details first. While she did, I read over my letter silently:

You, miss Carmen Anakin Kiladra, are to go to the world of Ninjago, which you should already be familiar with. While there, you will be responsible for training and conditioning Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon to become the Green Ninja. You will also act as his personal mentor. There may also be some circumstances where you will fight alongside the ninja team and preserve the plot line.

Please come to the Assignment Office the day after you open and read this letter for a briefing meeting.

We at the Assignment Office wish you the best of luck, and may the Force be with you always.

-Jonas Gyvirr

Senior Assignment Officer

I was shocked. I had to train Lloyd to be the Green Ninja, all without without tipping anyone else off that he was the chosen one? How did that even work?

Alexa poked me softly. "You okay, Ani?" she asked. "You're looking kind of catatonic."

Lost in thought, I simply handed her the paper.

She read it, and after a moment or two, said, "Well, that's an interesting one."

"Let me see that," Becka said, taking the paper from Alexa's hands. Tera leaned over and looked at the paper, and they both read it.

Becka snorted. "Sounds like a bad fanfiction."

"Says the girl who ships Conya," Tera shot back. "I think it sounds pretty awesome."

With narrowed eyes, Becka hissed, "Don't sink my ships." Tera ignored her.

"Lloyd is your favorite character," Alexa said quickly, before Tera and Becka could start a major fight. "You two should get along nicely."

"I said that teen Lloyd is my favorite. I'm not good with little kids," I replied nervously. Oh, anxiety, why are you popping in now?

"He's about ten. Your cousin Rhiannon is ten and you're good with her whenever you meet up," Alexa countered.

"Well, it's not like I'm trying to train her to save a country."

"You taught her to play badminton at that picnic a year ago, and all you had was two paper plates, duct tape, some sticks, and a ping-pong ball," she reminded me. "Last I checked, ping-pong balls and shuttlecocks aren't similar at all aerodynamically. And somehow you made it work."

I rolled my eyes. " What does that have to do with this?" I took back the letter and waved it in the air. "This Assignment requires me to train a kid with zero former experience to become the greatest warrior in his country... singlehandedly."

"That isn't true. You've got the other ninja to do the whole elemental powers thing, not to mention part of the actual physical training," my sister reminded me. "Plus, I'll be there too!" She handed me her letter, which I scanned quickly; her Assignment was to fight with the ninja on every mission and preserve the plot.

"You'll be there between missions, sis, and-"

"That's plenty of time to help you out!" Carnegie interrupted me happily.

"I'm pretty sure you won't be training Lloyd in a physical sense until after the events of episode ten," Alexa said. "That would definitely tip the other four off that something was up, which in turn would mess up the plot, and that would mess up your sister's end of the deal."

"Not to mention the four-episode span where Lloyd is stuck with the Serpentine. Chances are you won't get much time to teach him anything useful before that happens," Becka added.

"And by the time that's over, he'll basically be called out as the chosen one. So, really, no stress until season two," Tera said, effectively saying what the other two were thinking. Alexa, Becka, and Carnegie nodded.

I sighed and placed my head in my hands. "Don't get me wrong, guys. I mean, I think it'll be cool and all, and I'm sure I can do it, but…" I paused, not knowing where to take this. As usual, my anxiety had backed me up against a wall and wasn't letting me go. I inhaled steadily to calm myself.

Tera placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Ani, girl, don't let the anxiety take over again. You'll be fine. The teachers won't let you flail."

The following two weeks were totally insane, but Tera turned out to be right when she said that the teachers would help us. We were repeatedly pulled from our normal classes to a few new ones that we'd never taken before, told that they'd help along the way in the Assignment. I took lessons in one-on-one tutoring, parkour (which turned out to be insanely awesome), and advanced mind tricks. I learned how to properly use a myriad of ninja weapons and fighting techniques. I was instructed in the delicate art of interrogations- both how to conduct them and how to deal if I found myself being subjected to one.

I also learned that Alexa liked to mess with my stuff.

The day before we were scheduled to travel to Ninjago, I was double-checking my luggage to be sure that everything was packed.

I ran through my list of items one by one.

Lightsaber? Check.

Practice gear for Lloyd's practice sessions? Check.

A few novels and a group photo of my friends and I? Check.

Every item on my list was present, except for one vital item: my violin. After all, I planned to be there for the events of episode nine.

I abandoned my open suitcase on my bed and started looking for it. Ten minutes, an old journal, and several dust bunnies later, I hadn't found a thing.

I headed to my sister's room. I poked my head in to see her digging through a drawer looking for something. Quickly, I scanned her room for my instrument. Unlike my room, her room was very neat, with everything in plain sight. My violin wasn't laying out anywhere, which probably meant it wasn't in there at all, but I decided to ask and confirm it.

"Uh, Carnegie, have you seen my violin anywhere?" I asked. She lifted her head, shook it, and went back down into the drawer. I left.

Next I went to the screened-in sundeck out back, where Tera was busy painting a few miniatures. I asked her the same question, to which she replied, "Nope, sorry."

I exited and went to the basement, where Becka was doing some target practice.

"Any chance you know where my violin is?" I asked when she turned to me. She frowned and scratched behind her ear with the barrel of her blaster.

"I don't know exactly, but you might wanna ask Alexa," Becka answered, gesturing to the back room where Alexa worked on her inventions. "I heard a few weird noises from back there, including a couple of sour notes and a drill. You should probably check it out."

Of course, Alexa's workshop! Why didn't I think of it earlier? "Thanks, Becka," I said, starting for the back room. She nodded and returned to practicing.

I pushed open the door to Alexa's workshop, which had once been a storage room. It was a well-sized room with blue walls, several large cabinets, and countless different projects spread out on the metal workbenches. At the far end of the room stood Alexa, behind the translucent brown privacy curtain that she only used when working on what she called " the really important stuff". She appeared to be screwing something into place when I came near.

As I reached out to pull the curtain aside, Alexa said, "I'm working here!"

" I can tell. I just wanted to ask if you knew where my violin was," I said.

Behind the curtain, her silhouette stiffened. I knew right away that she knew where my violin was.

"You know where it is, Alexa. I can tell." I heard a sigh from behind the curtain, and then Alexa stepped out. She let the curtain fall shut behind her, and then looked at me.

"Remember those blueprints I was working on the night you opened the envelope?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"That's what I'm working on right now."

Suddenly, it clicked. With a little laugh, I said, "You're modifying my violin, aren't you?" She grinned.

"I'd show it to you, but it isn't quite done yet," she told me. "You'll have it before you leave tomorrow, though." She paused, and then asked, "Are you mad?"

I thought for a few seconds. "Well, no. I remember the time you added some, uh, special things to my tablet case. Honestly, that thing was awesome. Just don't put anything orange on there, okay?" I said.

"Gotcha!" she replied as she ducked back behind the curtain. As I closed the door behind me, I heard the sound of a spray paint can being shaken. I smiled to myself and went back upstairs to keep packing.

At seven the next morning, Carnegie and I said goodbye to our friends. Behind us in the school hangar, our luggage was being loaded into a small ship for the journey to Ninjago.

After embracing Tera and Becka, Alexa handed me my violin case. Attached to the handle was a small note reading, Don't open this until you get settled in wherever you'll be staying.

"I'm gonna miss you, Lex," I said as we stood there. "You didn't do anything too crazy to my baby Enna here, right?" (Enna was the name I'd given my violin. Weird, I know, but I liked it.)

She smiled softly. "No promises, Ani. Video call us at some point." We hugged one last time before my sister and I boarded the ship.

As I settled in for the long flight, I looked out the small window and waved at my roommates. They waved back, then walked away.

I leaned back into the soft white seat and closed my eyes. I felt the ship rise into the air, heard the sound of the rocket boosters starting up. My sister was beside me, fiddling with her tablet settings. The pilot was speaking into his headset.

I opened my eyes to catch a last glimpse of the sleeping campus. I knew it'd be a long, long time before I saw it again, and I wanted to remember everything. We flew over the hill where my house was, over the huge buildings that housed our classrooms, and the dormitory complex. The silver roof of the Wampa Ice Rink glinted in the morning sun. Some of the school's security clones were having a morning conditioning session on the huge flat roof of the barracks, and below us, they looked like tiny white bugs.

When we broke the planet's atmosphere, I felt ready for anything.

I have discovered a new motivational technique:

Open a Tumblr tab and let the number in the parentheses beside the word "Tumblr" rise until you've either run out of ideas or finished the chapter, whichever comes first. When that happens, you can check your dash. I hit eighty-one while I worked on this. Not only was I productive, I also honed my self-control skills.

You know what else hones self-control skills? Having to wait for season five, of course. I've had to keep myself from going totally insane over my impatience to see episode forty-five in English. But we've only got two more weeks to go until then.

In the meantime, enjoy this chapter. Next time, we'll get to the Ninjago stuff- finally. I've been wanting to write it so, so badly, and now I can.

Signing off,

4nn4

P.S. And, before you ask, I did give Carmen's violin a name. Bonus points and a waffle if you can tell me why.