A/N WARNING! PLEASE READ! From this point on all events take place after the story In Need of Polish. As such, some things won't make sense if you haven't read it, and there will be spoilers for events in that story. Not to mention set up for the coming next story, One Heck of a Wedding (which is not Skybound). Check out that story, as well as Kay Hau's Greener Gift-Fics to get caught up.

Becoming the Hunted

The Ultra Dragon shouldn't have come.

They had been feeling homesick for a while now, and with Little Lloyd's blessing, they had returned to their original world.

The First Realm.

At first, it had been wonderful. They saw their mother and leader, Firstborn, again, and were able to fly with their Thunder over the vast deserts of their home, and sleep in the caves of their youth.

But even with the Oni gone, this world was far more dangerous than when they had left it, as they were now finding out.

At first, the Ultra Dragon had been curious and pleased to see the pale ones. These strange people looked almost like the humans of Ninjago, and they hoped perhaps they would be friendly like them too.

They were wrong.

The pale ones were not friendly! The pale ones were fierce, and threatening, and carried weapons made from the bones of Ultra's fallen siblings. They came after Ultra on their smelly vehicles and made jeering shouts as they chased them down.

The pale ones were Dragon Hunters!

Above all, one thing was very clear. The hunters wanted to add the Ultra Dragon's bones to their collection of weapons and were willing to chase them to the ends of the First Realm to achieve this.

The Ultra Dragon began flying faster, attempting to open a portal and escape, but a sharp pain in their wing caused them to roar in agony.

Shard turned to look at the wing causing them pain and saw a chain wrapped tightly around it and pulling it taut. Even as they watched, more chains shot up to join it, wrapping around Ultra's other wing, legs and tail, and necks and burned in the way only Vengestone did.

The Ultra Dragon fell from the sky.

As they were dragged away by the jeering pale ones, they realized something.

They should have never left their Little Lloyd.

It seemed the hunters were intent on eating them.

At least that's what the Ultra Dragon understood from the way they were piling wood around them in the middle of their ramshackle village.

It seemed their coming death was the cause for celebration among the hunters. Many were happy and cheering as the woodpile grew larger.

Despite this, the Ultra Dragon would not take their death lying down. They struggled against the chains as best they could, Flame struggling the fiercest. But all their attempts to escape did was cause the chains to tighten and the dragon-bone weapons to bite into their scales.

They could sense other dragons hovering just out of sight of the village, worried for their safety. Despite wanting to escape, Ultra didn't wish them to risk harm by coming closer. The earth and fire dragons the hunters had already captured were looking on in defeat, knowing what fate would soon come to them.

A particularly ugly hunter with one arm, one leg, and a tall hat stepped before the rest while holding a torch ready to set the wood ablaze. Apparently he was the leader of the group. With a nasty grin, he turned to address his people with a self-important drawl. The crowd cheered at his words, and the captured dragons looked away in remorse.

When the leader was done, he raised the torch into the air and made to throw it.

The torch flew through the air.

The Ultra Dragon prepared for the worst.

At the very last second, there was an earth-trembling 'THUD' and a large fluffy paw swiped the torch out of the air.

The hunters began screaming in fright as the owner of the paw seemed to appear out of nowhere and crouched protectively over the four-headed dragon.

There, standing taller than any dragon and immune to all their weaknesses was the giant demon cat guardian of the other Ninjago.

Meowthra.

And she was furious!

Hissing and snarling at the hunters, she swiped her claws at any who dared come close. Not even the dragon-bone weapons biting into her paws and legs were enough to stop her attack.

Then, when she had an opening, she bent down to pick up the Ultra Dragon by the scruff of their four necks and bolted.

A moment later, they were in the other Ninjago and she carefully placed them down in her bed on the docks beside the warehouses.

Meowthra then let out a yowl that caused the bigger Lloyd who lived in that world to come rushing over. At the sight of them both, he stopped dead for a brief moment, before rushing to Ultra's side, worry coming off him in waves and asking questions neither of the world-traveling creatures could answer.

At his touch, Wisp nuzzled him in assurances they would be fine, and Rocky started trying to bite through the chains.

Seeing this, Lloyd rushed back into the warehouse only to come back a moment later with a sword. He started working on cutting them free so he could assess their injuries, speaking rapidly into a radio in his ear as he did so.

When Meowthra was satisfied they would be taken care of, she vanished.

Only to appear again a moment later with the chained up fire dragon that had been held captive in the village held in her jaws, the forge he had been chained to and forced to work still dragging behind him.

Meowthra placed the bewildered fire dragon down and vanished again, this time bringing back the earth dragon the hunters had been tormenting for sport and placed him in the bed next to the fire dragon.

She then curled around all three dragons and licked at the fire and earth dragons wounds while Lloyd finished cutting Ultra's chains free.

But when the Green Ninja of that world stepped closer to unchain the other two, they snarled and snapped at him as he tried to approach, disliking the way he smelled.

The Ultra Dragon snapped back in his defense, and Meowthra batted at them with her paw like she would misbehaving kittens.

Their defense of him startled both dragons enough to let Lloyd placed the sword down, and begin approaching them carefully. He spoke in a soft tone, and a calming sense of kindness and willingness to help wafted off him as he slowly coaxed the dragons into letting him come to them. It was only when they were comfortable with him that he retrieved his sword and proceeded to cut them free of their bindings.

Satisfied they were now safe, the Ultra Dragon lay their four heads down to rest, for once not begrudging Meowthra for her mothering them as she licked at their wounds as well.

It was that very mothering nature that had saved their life, after all.

"I don't know how to tell you any clearer, Dad," Lloyd said into his radio headset as he cut the chains off the dragons. "Meowthra brought the Ultra Dragon and two other dragons to the docks, and she and the dragons are all injured. I need you to send me whatever vets you've got (I know you have some on staff) and if you happen to have any scientists who study dragon biology, that might be helpful too. I'm also going to need some medical supplies in bulk. I'll work on patching them up with what I've got here in the meantime."

"Yeesh, what could be tough enough to hurt dragons and that lousy demon cat," said his father, sounding slightly impressed.

"Dad!" said Lloyd impatiently.

"Alright, alright, chill out, Luh-Loyd. I'll send some nerds over," said Garmadon. "I'll also text your mother, see if the Lady IronDragon knows anything about her namesake." He then paused as though he'd thought of something else. "Wait, what about that magic, healing cup you've got?"

"The Holy Grail is tiny, and these guys are huge," Lloyd explained, having already thought of this. "I've already called Cole to bring it over, but splashing it on all four of them is going to take forever. Better to patch them up as best we can along with it."

"Meh, sounds like a design flaw you should work on," said Garmadon dismissively. Of course he would criticize the miraculous healing chalice. "See you soon, son."

Lloyd rolled his eyes but was satisfied.

He then ran back to the warehouse for the first aid kit and whatever clean towels they had around, despite knowing there weren't nearly enough supplies inside the kit to cover three whole dragons and a giant kitty, but it was a start.

As he did, he pulled out the dimensional communicator Dr. Gary had created and pressed the button to call Cliff Cole. If Ultra looked this beat up, that might mean something bad had happened over on their world.

"Hello?" Cole answered.

"Hey, it's me," said Lloyd. "Are you guys okay? What happened to Ultra?"

There was a beat of silence. "Luh-Loyd? We're fine, what do you mean about Ultra?" asked Cole, his voice sounding confused and slightly worried.

"Meowthra just brought them here, and they're in bad shape," Lloyd replied, pinching the communicator between his shoulder and ear as he began working on the worst of the bleeding on Meowthra's paws.

There was a sharp intake of breath, and Cole said, "Will Rocky be okay?"

"They should be fine," said Lloyd, glancing over at the four-headed dragon. "It's just some cuts, but none of them are too deep, and they're feeling a bit weak after being tied up in Vengestone. Dad's sending some vets and supplies over as we speak, and our Cole will be here soon with the grail."

Cole let out a sigh that sounded one part relieved and one part frustrated. Lloyd could understand the feeling. With both their dimension traveling creatures injured, there would be no visits between worlds for a few days until they healed, and that meant there was no way for Cliff Cole and his team to come and check on their dragon.

"Lloyd told us Ultra was feeling homesick, and he let them take a vacation to whatever realm they came from. When they didn't come back for days we were beginning to get worried," he explained. "Whatever happened to them must have happened in that world."

"That explains the two other dragons Meowthra brought too," said Lloyd as he wrapped a towel around a bleeding cut on Ultra's thigh. "They're not as beat up as Ultra, but they were also chained up and have some nasty scars. Plus the fire one used to be attached to a forge, so someone was using these dragons for labor."

Cole let out an angry growl. "Well, whoever they are, they better hope they never run into me. I'll bury them for this," he said.

"Get in line," said Lloyd, having an up-close look at the abuse they suffered and was furious.

He then spotted one of his father's boats approaching and ended the call with a promise to keep Cole updated, and Cole said he'd break the news to the rest of his team. None of them were going to be happy about this either, and Lil'Loyd was sure to be devastated.

Little did the two Ninja know, Meowthra was already planning to make sure the hunters paid for what they nearly did.

No one messed with her kitten.

If they did not change their ways, the Dragon Hunters of the First Realm would soon become the hunted.

A/N Meowthra's going to be a pain in the butt for the Dragon Hunters. If any of the Ninja ever end up in the First Realm things are going to be pretty dang different because of that. Still, Ultra is safe, and won't have their canon fate of being killed by the hunters. They'll still be around kicking butt in future stories, though more tolerant of Meowthra's mothering now. Luh-Loyd's also going to be adopting more dragons into his collection of monster friends after this, especially when Meowthra keeps dragging them home.

A big thanks to Kay Hau for beta reading and contributing ideas for this.

Next Time: Zen Zane did promise Skales he and his team would need to talk about the Golden Master. Now's the time to do so.