"Don't worry Katherine, my brother knows I should be home by now. He'll start looking for me. Since you're with me then Sammi would be worried when she finds out you're late." Nya assured her. The white-haired girl felt sadness.
"She doesn't care about me. She'd be happy if she just woke up and I was gone. Samantha Joyce doesn't feel anything for Katherine Joyce." Katherine stated firmly.
Nya felt hurt hearing this. She and her brother didn't get along all the time but when she was kidnapped he would have searched to the ends of the earths to save her. She was his main priority. Nya didn't understand why Katherine would think this. Nya and Kai didn't get along when they were the girl's age but when they got older they started working together, mainly after their father died since all they had left was each other.
"Are you sure Katherine?" Nya asked. Boa had chained the two together over the boiling venom pit. There were titanium walls and only one door and the Serpentine made it impossible for them to escape.
"Nya, I don't think there's an escape from here. We're not going to be saved." Katherine-the pessimist-stated.
"Have you met the ninja? They'll do anything and everything to save us." Nya assured.
"What do you want to do why we wait to be saved?" Katherine asked. Nya shrugged.
"We could play 21?" Nya suggested.
"Why not? You wanna start?"
"Sure. 1,2,3."
"4,5,6."
"Sensei Wu, Nya and Katherine have been kidnapped by Serpentine." Zane said to the wise man meditating by the peach tree.
"I sensed it. Dark beings are stirring. We must be prepared to fight at all times. The Serpentine are just the beginning. I've felt as if my mind has been played with. It as if I'm forgetting something I should have never ignored. Blank memories, of darkness." Sensei Wu replied.
"I, too, feel that way, Sensei. It's as if part of my memory had been erased. Normally that wouldn't happen due to my systems passcodes and security protocols. The only other time I felt this way was when the Overlord's darkness consumed me and changed me. I can run a scan through my systems to tell if we've been touched by the hands of darkness if you wish." Zane replied. Sensei merely nodded. Zane opened his chest plate and flipped his S.C.A.N switch. The letters stood for: Security, Capture, Assess, and Necessary. Security was the protocol in place, Capture was for capturing any viruses or spyware, Assess was for assessing problems, and Necessary meant it was a necessary protocol.
"Um, Sensei, my scan informed me that we were attacked by darkness. There's traces of it on my motherboard and systems. My memory archive has the most traces of darkness. That means-"
"Our memories have been tampered with." Sensei Wu finished for his student.
"Shall I tell my brothers?" Zane asked but Sensei shook his head.
"It's better if they do not know. Some things are better left a mystery. Like whether the cat in the bag is alive or dead."
"This Schrödinger, why was he foolish enough to put a cat in a bag? There is no reason to do such a thing." Zane answered. Sensei merely shook his head.
"Sometimes the wisest do not find sense in sense filled acts." Sensei Wu replied before taking his walking stick and leaving.
"Zane!" Sammi called as she ran towards the white ninja in her gray ninja garb.
"You look like a ninja." Zane commented. Sammi had tears streaming down her eyes.
"We got a ransom from the Overlord. Cole said Sensei Wu was with you. Where is he?" Sammi gasped, she was out of breath and still out of shape.
"What does the ransom say?" Zane asked. Sammi looked into his hazel eyes with her blue teary ones. She shook her head.
"You don't want to know Zane." Was all she managed to say.
"Sensei Wu went that way." Zane replied pointing towards the direction he went.
Curiosity claimed Zane like a newborn cat. He knew that he must have been involved for him not to be told. That or it will affect him dramatically. A part of Zane wanted to spy and find out what the ransom was. Zane had never had such humanly desires before. However, he noticed some parts of him were human, like longing. He knew that eventually everyone around him will die and him-being a nindroid-will live eternally. That thought always saddened his mechanical heart, of being the only survivor, of being alone, of having to watch the world end and know that you won't end with it.
Zane walked towards the Monastery and went into his and his brothers' bedroom. He lied on his bed and tried to think. Sammi was in panic mode over her sister and so Zane didn't have anyone to talk to. No, its best not to think, he told himself. Zane needed some way to wash everything out, he didn't want to end up like he was before. That star! What if it caused the girls to come here? He would sweat and worry if he were human, instead his gears locked up, he didn't even know his gears could lock up.
Suddenly there was knocking at the door. Zane was tempted not to answer but pretend he was sleeping. Of course he couldn't sleep but he could dream. Zane programmed his dreams, they were all his good memories, but occasionally he'd have a vision in his dreams. Sometimes he'd switch to Falcon vision while his body rested. Falcon was always awake and it was fun seeing what his companion was doing.
"Zane, it's me Lloyd."
"Come in." Zane answered and the green-eyed boy walked in. He seemed to be off, his patterns weren't normal.
"Zane, I think I know what the Overlord's new body is. He's, he's…it's me." Lloyd explained. Zane listened deeply now.
"Whenever we went on that mission, we were all swarmed with darkness and I fought it. Eventually I got the darkness to go away but before the Overlord could escape we all caught a glimpse of him but none of you remember. Anyway, I remember who it looked like. The Overlord was using me." Lloyd explained more.
"But how can that be possible? You are right here." Zane asked.
"I think it was the future. I dreamt it."
"The Overlord isn't back. We went there, it was just Skales using a voice to trick us. Lloyd, they knocked you out during this. Remember?" Zane answered.
"I know what I'm speaking is the truth Zane." Lloyd pushed. Zane remained calm unlike the others who would have blown up.
"I can do a truth scan just in case, so we know if someone's memory has been tampered with there." Zane offered. Lloyd considered it a good while before agreeing. A blue laser went over both of them and then it started scanning on Zane's arm.
"Lloyd, Zane! There you are! Come on! We've got to go now!" Cole shouted to them down the hallway. They didn't even get to see the results. Both ran towards the giant dragon with four heads.
"What is the problem?" Zane asked as he helped Lloyd mount the beast.
"No time to explain. We've got to get to the Underworld and fast." Kai answered before Sensei Wu snapped the reins and they flew spinning into the ground.
"AHHHH!" Lloyd screamed since he'd never been there on the first ride. Jay started laughing at his high pitch girl scream and Lloyd shoved him off. Jay clung to the tail for dear life before Cole used his scythe to pull Jay back on. Jay shut up then.
"Finally! The mouth of lightning shuts up!" Cole announced happily before Sensei Wu bonked him on the head with his bamboo staff.
"Hush Cole or they will know we are here." Sensei Wu warned.
Sammi sat behind Zane and Lloyd sat behind her with Jay in front of Zane, Kai in front of Jay and Cole in front of Kai and behind Sensei Wu. Sammi had clung to Zane when the dragon ascended and she dug her face into his shoulder blade when the dragon nosedived. Now Sammi clung to Zane as they flew deeper into the Underworld. Where Katherine and Nya were being held captive, as the Overlord had stated in his ransom.
Where Nya and Katherine were, hanging above a pit of boiling venom, Katherine was thinking. Her game ended with Nya long ago and now Katherine was scared she was going to die and Sammi would never know of the letter she wrote. Tears welled in her eyes, Samantha would never know of all the good things that Katherine did for her, she'd only think that Katherine hated her and wished she was never born when in reality Sammi was one of the best things that ever came into Katherine's life. She was a gift to a soul that was lost since the beginning.
"Katherine, why are you crying? Everything's gonna be fine." Nya assured her again.
"I'm a teenager. It happens." Katherine answered before the chain started lowering them a centimeter a minute.
"WE'RE GONNA DIE!" Nya shouted. Katherine cried harder.
"THANKS FOR NOTHIN NYA!" Katherine sobbed.
Outside the snakes were laughing at what they were hearing. The girls were having a breakdown and the ninja were headed in the wrong direction. Now they can see if the Master of Energy was Katherine and get rid of the Master of Fire's annoying samurai sister. If the girl wasn't the Master of Energy then she'd die and they knew about the Green Ninja's relationship with the girl, the death of her would weaken him. If they could kill the little white-haired brats sister then that would weaken the bucket of bolts.
"Skales! Did you miss me?" A long thought deceased voice asked. The large snake slithered in and others covered before him. He didn't look the same.
"P-pythor?! I-well I thought you were dead." Skales answered somewhat shaken.
Pythor had patches of scales and flesh missing from his long purple body. Now instead of purple he was a fades purple and sickly green color. His eyes were red with rage and on his large body green goo dripped onto the floor with a splat. Pythor looked like he'd been through the wash, badly.
"I'm not you idiot. Now, I'm here to command the Serpentine once more." Pythor declared boldly.
"No, Pythor! I'm in control of the Ssserpentine. You got eaten by the Great Devourer after my attemptssss to ssstop you!" Skales said before the two got into a fight. The other Serpentine started cheering their favorite leader on.
"Nya, if we die here, I just want to tell you know I like." Katherine said as if that would save them.
"But you said you liked my boyfriend." Nya asked confused.
"I lied."
"So it was Cole!" Nya jumped. Katherine shook her head.
"My brother?"
"No! Let me get on with it!"
"Zane?"
"My sister likes him…." Katherine answered and Nya smiled.
"That's great! Zane and Sammi make a great pair."
The boiling venom was getting closer and closer to them. Forty-five minutes had passed since they started moving down. Struggling had made them go down faster.
"I have a big fat crush on Lloyd!" Katherine admitted and her face turned red like Nya's clothing. Nya gasped.
"Lloyd, you'll never believe this." Zane said after snapping out of Falcon vision.
"What?" Lloyd asked.
The found out tragically that the Underworld wasn't where the girls were being held captive. Instead they were at the Serpentine lair where Lloyd had suggested in the first place but nobody listened to him, as always. Not even his Uncle listened to him all because of the stupid ransom. If you get a ransom from the so called Overlord who misspelled Underworld then you should know it's a trap. He put Underwearworld. Seriously, even when Lloyd was a child he could tell the difference.
"You were right." Zane answered. That was half of the truth, the other half was Falcon had seen the girls and could hear them. All he heard was 'I have a big fat crush on Lloyd!' but Zane knew not to interfere with their privacy.
"Well duh…." Lloyd exclaimed childlike reminding them all that he was still a child trapped in a fourteen year olds body.
"Ah young nephew, sometimes we forget that you are not a deceiving young kiddo anymore." Sensei Wu replied.
Forget, you had a hard time forgetting when I was saving all of you from the Overlord. You know, after I became an adult! Geez sometimes I'm glad I have Katherine to talk to, well not right now, she's kind of kidnapped. She's almost my age and we relate a lot….I'm not thinking about her, am I?
"Lloyd!" Kai whispered and gestured forward. The Green Ninja had been so consumed in thought that he hadn't noticed anything happening around him.
"Sensei Wu, you're not really going to trade him, are you?" Sammi asked. The thought brought salty and thick tears to her eyes.
Sensei Wu thought of what to say before he said it. He didn't know how close the two had gotten over the past month. How would he react to the tough decision that would need to be made? Would he understand it was for the best or would he say that a new plan was in order? They had no choice at this point, he had to be willing to make this sacrifice or else all will be for nothing.
"I'm sorry Sammi, but in order for us to get your sister out we need to send him in." Sensei Wu replied with a hint of sorrow in his voice.
Sammi looked at him with blue tearful eyes. Those eyes pleaded and begged and screamed for Sensei to change his mind. The air grew unbearably humid with salty-watery air. The more her eyes cried the more humid the air became. It swelled and got sticky and in a matter of seconds everyone was sweating except Zane who instead was becoming slow and his gears were locking up.
"The humidity has risen twenty percent in the last minute. I think they know we're here." Zane reported after reading a scanner on his arm.
"Sensei Wu, please I'm begging you, anyone but him." Sammi pleaded again. It was like a Texas summer in the middle of a drought. The only water supply was sweat and Sammi's tears.
"Sammi, stop this immediately. Your anger is causing the air to heat up. Look." Sensei Wu replied harshly. She turned to see the others trying to help Zane who was like the Tin Man before Dorothy found him.
"What have I done?" She whispered before running over to help the others.
"Zane, are you okay?" Sammi asked even though at this point he couldn't respond.
Sammi focused on getting the air to cool down so it wouldn't be sweating as well. The sudden change caused a tornado to form inside the hideout. Well if they didn't know we were here they'd sure know now. The force of the winds blew them all away from each other into separate parts. The winds grew stronger with Sammi's emotion and she clung to Zane while everyone tried to stay together.
"Sammi! Stop this!" Sensei cried over the roar of the fierce winds. It was so strong that you couldn't see two inches in front of you.
"I can't!" She shouted over the roar. She tried but she couldn't control herself. Her Spinjitzu had been unleashed without a master. It tore down the halls and ripped everything apart.
The lair was being torn apart. Things flew everywhere. The Ninja were separated from each other. Sammi was trying to make it stop and it only made things worse. The good thing was Zane was able to move again and yet the wind couldn't make him budge. The Spinjitzu was going haywire and soon Sammi would be swept away. Her eyes went from blue to gray and her brown hair grew to her mid-back and from the roots down to the ends it turned a silver-blonde, like Zane's hair. She also aged to the Ninja's age. Her powers were developing beyond the others and they weren't trained or mastered and were trying to destroy their master.
"Zane! I can't control it!" Sammi cried out.
The Nindroid realized that she was about to be blown away so he quickly wrapped her in a hug and rushed into the wall. He was shielding her from her own power. The Spinjitzu increased in power and strength and was ripping the wall apart. Shrapnel and debris flew in every direction. However one part remained, a steel wall, no titanium wall. The duo knew that was where the girls were but how could they get there if Sammi's power was out of control.
Zane knew what he had to do. He cradled Sammi in his arms and trudged head on into the wind tunnel and towards the titanium wall. A large gust slammed into his but he stayed strong. Times like these were when he appreciated the fact that he wasn't human. His father would be proud of him. This was twice he saved Sammi, now she owed him. Maybe if she could stop the winds then that would help. A Fangpyre flew by screaming and trying to dig his fangs into the breaking walls. Zane had to credit Sammi, she knew how to infiltrate and take down a Serpentine nest.
"Falcon." Zane said with realization, his friend, no companion would be blow away and to who knows where, along with his brothers.
"Sammi, if you want to save your sister than you have to stop the winds. The reason you've grown is because you've caught up with your real world. You are the same age as us here and in your world. Sammi, you have to control your emotions, you are not a child anymore." Zane instructed. The now adult Sammi took a deep breath and wiped her tears. She closed her gray eyes and concentrated but her emotions still got the better of her.
"I….can't….too….strong." She gasped through the force.
If her emotions need to be balance there is only one thing I can do….let's hope it doesn't go crazy. Zane thought before leaning down and planting his lips on hers. Her eyes grew to the size of the moon and she started shrinking as did the wind. Her hair turned back to its original length but remained the gray color as did her eyes. Zane took a step back to find that all the chaos had ended and he was looking at a ten year old girl again who was blushing madly.
"That was not quite the outcome I was prepared for." Zane said killing the moment.
"I'm sorry. I should have had better control of myself." She whispered as if she was afraid of him. Afraid of Zane. Like something was wrong with him. Like how his brothers treated him before the girls came. This plunged the Nindroid back into a spiral of wondering who he was and why he was different.
"Zane, is something wrong?" Sammi asked in a soft voice.
"What? Oh, nothing is wrong. He-he." He replied awkwardly.
The two girls were about three feet above the boiling venom. Nya was thinking about Jay and Kai, why they might not have saved her and Katherine. The snakes had tricked them was the most logical answer but they were smarter than these string beans, what was stopping them? However the sound of a tornado destroying everything made a lot of sense. It meant Sammi must have been here and that meant the Ninja were also here. The girls simultaneously sighed in relief, they were saved.
However, nobody was coming. Two feet away from death. The heat and fumes were gnawing at them and suffocating. The toxin made them drowsy. If the boiling venom didn't kill them then surely the air would. The duo were in a metal unventilated container. Suddenly-with the soles of their shoes touching the green bubbles- the chain dropping them down went slack and they halted.
"We've got a sssswitcheroo ladiessss." Skales hissed over a microphone. His sickly voice echoed in the walls and it sounded as if he was in trouble.
"We've sent out a ransom and one of you is going back to the Ninja." A familiar voice came.
"Pythor!?" Nya asked in exclamation. He was supposed to have been eaten by the Great Devourer!
"Yes, you see. When the Great Devourer exploded I had been shot farther away than your precious Sensei. When that happened I landed in the Ice Realm where I froze inside the goo. Whenever the Ultimate Weapon had gone missing I was released from my prison and I came here." Pythor explained. Neither girl could see him since they were in the titanium walled chamber.
"Ewww, he must look terrible." Katherine muttered.
"You said one of us was going back to the Ninja, who?" Nya called back to him.
"You are my dear Nya." Pythor answered in his extremely charismatic and overly dramatic voice.
Before either of them could blink the chain broke into two and Nya was pulled through the roof. Katherine waited to see what would happen before another chain slid down with Zane. He was struggling against the bindings. Katherine was perplexed, shouldn't the other Ninja be here. Then she panicked, usually Sammi was with Zane, did they get her?
"Where's my sister?" Katherine asked.
"She's safe. In the air ducts. An accident went down and my brothers are scattered. I just know they're in the building. I told Sammi to get out of here." Zane explained.
"She's not going to leave. How big was the accident?"
"I think it would be best if you helped her control her emotions. She went unstable and the building is barely standing. Serpentine are retreating. It would be best if we tried to escape from here as soon as possible." Zane answered.
"But how?"
"Turn on your side and roll up." He explained before using Spinjitzu to spin up to the top.
"I can't do Spinjitzu!"
"Try." He urged before she rolled on her side and tried to spin up. However Katherine got her foot caught in one of the chain links and then used that to walk up upside down.
When they got to the top Zane managed to get the shaft open with his foot. He let Katherine through first before he led the way. After spinning through the chains the duo were now free. They were inside the air ducts and the ventilation was sad. Katherine kept coughing from the venom toxins that had been built up in here. The two kept crawling through until Katherine saw something.
She crawled faster to find Sammi was unconscious. She pulled her sister closer into a hug. Then she carried Sammi-ignoring the fact she was quite heavy- and carried her the rest of the way. Zane had stayed quiet, obviously something had happened between the two to make things awkward. A smashing sound came and they were finally free.
"My brothers and Sensei Wu! I must return to get them." Zane exclaimed before turning around and leaving.
Katherine carried Sammi in her arms and ran as fast as she could away from there. She'd never ran so far from a place before in her life. Her legs carried her to the Monastery and up the hill leading to it. She busted through the gates and didn't stop until she collapsed in the video game room. The door opened after Katherine caught her breath, it was Misako.
"You're back! Thank the Heavens. But where's Lloyd and Wu and the others?" Misako asked hugging both girls.
"What happened to Sammi?" She continued.
"She passed out. The Serpentine, Pythor is back! He had plans for us. He wanted all of us there. Sammi went on a meltdown from what Zane told me and blew the whole building away. He said everyone was spread out from the power explosion. I'm sorry, I couldn't do anything." Katherine cried from frustration and for once she was scared. She was scared for her life, for Sammi's life, and for her heroes' lives.