Jay was having a great dream (one that involved him, Nya, a rainbow with hidden treasure at the end, and a monocle-clad narwhal) when he was rudely awakened by a leprechaun cop car arriving to arrest the narwhal for tax evasion. The cornered narwhal grabbed both of them and jumped off the rainbow, yelling you'll never take me alive! Jay screamed.

"Hey!" Something was shaking him. He bolted upright, head slamming straight into that something.

"Ow," he moaned, clutching his head. His ears were ringing. Cole was in front of him, hands on his temples.

"That's the last time I try to wake you up," he grimaced.

"And just why would you do that?"

"You tell me. You know you're supposed to wake up when an alarm goes off, not start yelling in your sleep."

"What...oh." As the throbbing in his forehead subsided, Jay realized the ringing sound he heard wasn't internal. The shrill sirens were somebody's morning alarm going off. Someone who only had a short time to live once Jay found them.

"Gods, your head is so hard."

"You're one to talk," he retorted.

The door to the last bedroom opened and Nya came in, rubbing her eyes. Kai's arms were wrapped around her shoulders with his knees dragging on the ground.

"Nnngh," he said coherently.

"If you drool on me I'm gonna drop you," Nya warned. "Jay, can you please turn off...whatever's making that racket?"

"Why do you think it's my fault?"

"You do kind of have a track record…" Cole pointed out. Jay rolled his eyes.

"So I forgot to put my phone on silent mode one time."

"We got banned from that monastery for life!"

"Those monks were so mad," Kai laughed sleepily. "It was hilarious." Nya let go of his arm, causing him to fall to the floor. "Ow."

The ringing sound was becoming louder, to the point where Cole was half-expecting the hotel staff to throw them out. Garmadon walked into the room, fully dressed in his formal suit and tie. (Jay wondered if he had any pajamas, which led to an image of the old man in an anime kigurumi. He shook that particular mental picture from his head fast.)

"What are you all standing around for?"

They shrugged. "You know."

"Just hanging out."

"Enjoying the sunrise."

"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

Garmadon opened the refrigerator and took out the alarm. "Where's Lloyd?"

"Why the refrigerator?" Kai stage-whispered.

He ignored him, instead shoving open the door to the middle bedroom and pushing Zane out of the doorway.

"Good morning," he greeted the others cheerfully and receiving equally pleasant replies such as hmm and ughh.

There were a couple of thuds and murmurings coming from the room before the blasted alarm finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, finally shut off and the last of them was dragged out to join the fun.

After some blunt instructions to be dressed and downstairs within the quarter hour, their tormentor vanished. It took a lot of effort (plus the promise of caffeine - they'd have to remember to thank Zane later) but they eventually got dressed and went to the breakfast lounge, sans Nya who was off doing...something else. Girl stuff, probably.

The buffet was quiet this early in the morning, with only a few pairs of senior citizens up and about, sitting at tables and drinking their coffee silently. Lloyd grabbed a paper plate and went down the food line, dishing up some scrambled eggs and toast. Cole piled his up with fruit, while Kai all but shoved his way to the cappuccino machine and Zane dropped some waffles into the toaster.

Jay, meanwhile, had found something even better: a line of dispensers, all filled with cereals of varying sugar levels.

"Awesome." He ran down the queue, pressing every lever until his bowl was filled with some sort of hybrid sugary monstrosity. He lifted his creation up triumphantly. "Look at that! I'm a culinary genius."

"You forgot to leave room for the milk, dork," Cole said, appearing beside him. He stabbed a piece of cantaloupe and ate it.

Jay looked down. As much as he hated to admit it, Cole was right. But he couldn't toss any out, wasting perfectly good food was the cardinal sin of teenage boys. And he wasn't about to eat the stuff dry.

"Drat. Hey Lloyd, you want some of this?"

Lloyd's face looked almost as green as his sweater. "I think I'll pass."

"Okay, it's your loss."

They found a table and sat down.

"Has anyone seen Nya?" Lloyd asked. "I thought she'd be down here already."

"She's probably off doing...whatever it is girls do." Jay surmised. Kai rolled his eyes.

"Very astute, Sherlock. And can you not do that? It's disgusting."

"Wha's wron' wiff id?" Jay asked. He had found a way to circumvent his problem, but the solution involved filling his mouth with cereal and then drinking some milk, to pretty much everyone's chagrin.

"Everything," Cole said.

Jay swallowed, but before he could think up a decent protest Nya slid in next to him, holding a croissant and looking harried. "What's up?"

"Hey, where've you-"

"Girl stuff," she said quickly, before cramming half of the pastry into her mouth and swallowing it in two seconds. Jay shot Kai a smug look. The latter rolled his eyes.

"Lloyd, I need to talk to you."

"About what?"

Garmadon appeared in the door.

"Not now," she muttered.

A pile of leaflets dropped onto the table, grinding all conversation to a halt.

"Uh, what's all this?"

"Tourist brochures," Garmadon answered, pulling an extra chair up. "You didn't think you'd be staying at the hotel all day, did you?"

Cole picked up one labeled Harrisburg and Surrounding Counties: Points of Interest while Lloyd grabbed Historical Landmarks in Pennsylvania's Capital.

"Anything interesting?" Nya asked.

"There's a Revolutionary War Museum, a Civil War Museum, an Art Museum-"

"Yo, she said interesting," Jay interrupted. "Everything you said is the exact opposite of that."

Lloyd felt a tinge of annoyance. "You could look yourself."

"Alright. Give me one, then." He snatched up Current Events and Attractions.

"We could go to the State Capital," Cole suggested a few minutes later. Garmadon shook his head.

"Vetoed. Could you try finding a spot with more government officials?"

"Riiiight."

Lloyd bit his bottom lip, a this is why people usually pre-plan their trips itching on his tongue.

"What about the - cover your ears, Jay - what about the fire museum?"

"A fire museum?" Kai leaned back. "Sounds lit. I'm in."

"Of course, you'd be." the decidedly-not-ear-covering Jay sighed. "But as far as museums go, I guess there could be worse."

At least he wasn't going to a postal museum. There was that, at least.

The fire museum was only a couple blocks away, so they decided to walk the twenty minutes on the road parallel to the river. Along the street, colonial-style houses were lined up neatly in their red brick and tawny stucco. Had it not been for the Mazda parked on the side, Lloyd could almost imagine Paul Revere was about to turn the corner on horseback to warn them about incoming redcoats, or George Washington leading a battalion. He started humming unconsciously.

Nya caught on after a few bars. "I'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal, tryin'a reach my goal, my power of speech unimpeachable-"

"Only nineteen but my mind is older," Kai joined in loudly, "these New York City streets gettin' colder, I shoulder every burden, every disadvantage I have learned to manage…" He nudged Lloyd.

"I don't have a gun to brandish, I walked these streets famished! The plan is to fan this spark into a flame but damn it's getting dark so let me spell out my name! I am the...!"

"A-L-E-X-A-N-D," Zane added, "E-R, we are meant to be a colony that runs independently."

Garmadon looked at them like they'd just sprouted cauliflowers from their heads. "The hell are you singing about?"

"Nothing," Lloyd smirked. "You wouldn't get it."

"I AM NOT THROWING AWAY MY SHOT!" Jay screamed, causing a passing couple - most likely tourists, judging by their pink fanny packs - to look at them disapprovingly.

"Hey, yo, I'm just like my country, I'm young, scrappy, and hungry-!" he poked Cole.

"No way," the teen said flatly.

"Come on!"

"Fine." He sighed, murmured something under his breath, then said in a low, not-really-singing kind of quick mutter: "Andiamnotthrowingawaymyshot."

At least he could see the museum across the street, so he wouldn't have to deal with much more impromptu street performances today. He pushed the button for the crosswalk impatiently, automatically grabbing Jay's neck before he could dash across.

"The road is empty!" he protested. "You really want to just stand around for no reason?"

"I think avoiding death by vehicular manslaughter is a perfectly fine reason," Zane pointed out. "If you were to cross the street, hypothetically, and a semi-truck suddenly sped through, you would be killed instantly and we would suffer adverse psychological effects such as trauma, grief, and survivor's guilt."

"Speak for yourself," Garmadon said.

"Aww, are you trying to say you'd be sad if I died?"

"I would be sad if you died."

"In other words," Kai leaned over just as the red hand switched to a white pedestrian, "don't be a jaywalker."

"Oh, ha ha. Very funny." Jay said sarcastically. "Never heard that one before, Kai Santos."

They crossed the street and entered the Victorian building. A man with a red buttoned shirt emblazoned with PNFM 10 greeted them.

"Hi there! Welcome to the museum." he eyed the rather large group. "I assume you have a reservation?"

"We don't." Garmadon said. Why was everyone so obsessed with reservations? "Is that a problem?"

His tone might be threatening to a person of lesser fortitude, but the fireman just waved them in. "Not at all! We just need those for guided tours, but if you don't have one you're still free to look around on your own." He pointed to a sign reading Adults - $7, Seniors - $6, Students - $6. "That'll be forty-three dollars. Cash or card?"

"Card." He slipped a billfold out of his pocket and procured a pitch-black credit card, which the other man scanned using a handheld device. It beeped in confirmation. He opened the door to the exhibits.

"Have fun!"