Disclaimer: I do not own Ninjago or the lines from the episode Powerless.

Chapter VIII: Powerless

Aspheera had laid siege to Ninjago, snakes made of fire were terrorizing citizens, and balls of fire were falling from the sky. As civilians were being attacked by giant flaming snakes, the police were trying to help.

"Halt!" the Commissioner said as his officers put down some signs to tell the snakes not to go any further. "As Police Commissioner of Ninjago City, I hereby inform you, you are in violation of city codes 54-1, wanton destruction, and 63-6, open flames in public. You are under arrest!"

The snakes seemed incredibly confused as they looked at each other, but one decided to step up and shoot a ball of fire at them, which the Commissioner barely avoided.

"Okay, that's it! Let 'em have it, Boys!" the Commissioner ordered.

The two officers with him were now holding a hose and began spraying the snakes with water, but it hardly came out at all.

"Oh, great," the Commissioner said as he noticed that the fire hydrant the hose was connected to had been destroyed!

The serpents began to surround the police force when the ninja came to the rescue.

"Hang on, Guys!" Cole called to them.

"How about a fair fight?" Lloyd asked.

The ninja ran up to the snakes and began punching, kicking, and destroying the snakes with their powers.

"Nya, can you get us some water?" Lloyd asked as he destroyed a snake with his power.

"I'll try!" Nya said as she ran up to a hydrant, kicked open the lid, and used the water inside to shoot the snakes.

Some of the ninja then began using spinjitzu while Kai noticed some people were in danger.

"Pick on someone your own size!" Kai yelled to the snakes before trying to blast them with his power, but he forgot that he didn't have any. "Oh, right. No powers."

The snakes began to turn away from the civilians and over to Kai, and Kai could do nothing about it. Suddenly, a burst of electricity suddenly came from behind Kai and destroyed the snakes.

Kai looked in the direction of the blast to see Jay giving him and the civilians a wink. Something Kai would usually do if he was feeling especially good about himself.

After destroying the last of the snakes, the ninja ran up to the Commissioner and his men.

"Oh, thank you," the Commissioner said. "It's good to have you all back."

"Good to be back, Commissioner," Lloyd replied.

Suddenly, the Commissioner's phone began to start beeping. He picked it up and looked at it a moment before telling the ninja, "We're getting reports the leader of the serpents is heading for the Ninjago History Museum!"

"Her name's Aspheera, and she's deeply nuts," Cole told him.

"Whatever she's after, we'd better not let her get it," Lloyd said.

"How can we help?" the Commissioner asked.

"Evacuate as many people as you can and set up a perimeter. We'll handle the rest," Lloyd answered.

"You heard him!" the Commissioner told his officers before they all ran off to do as Lloyd said.

"We'd better get a move on!" Lloyd said as he and the others put their hoods on and started running. All except Kai, that was.

"Actually, I'm sitting this one out," Kai told his friends.

The ninja all turned around and exclaimed in shock.

"Aspheera stole my powers, remember?" Kai asked. "I can't help. I mean, Jay had to save me just now. Jay!"

"Huh. That's a weird way of saying thanks," Jay said.

"Just go without me. I'd only get in your way," Kai said.

Lloyd came over to Kai, put a hand on his shoulder, and said, "Powers don't make a hero," but Kai just scoffed, and replied saying, "Dude, that's just something people with powers say to make people without powers feel better."

"That's not true! We need you," Lloyd argued.

"We don't have time to argue," Nya scolded. "The people in that museum need help!"

"She's right. We gotta go," Cole said, but Kai just turned away form the group.

"If you change your mind, you'll know where we'll be," Lloyd told him before running off to the museum with the rest of the ninja.

Kai began to walk away, hoping to get to the monastery to ask Wu for a tea or some way to get his powers back when a kid bumped into him and fell onto the ground from the impact.

"Ah! Where'd you come from?" Kai asked the kid.

The kid stood up quickly with a big smile on his face, and said, "I saw you and came to get your autograph. Can you make it out to Jake, your biggest fan? You guys just probably saved my home and every other building here!" He said as he showed him his notebook.

Kai sighed before saying, "The other ninja did that, Kid."

"Why didn't you go with them?" Jake asked.

"My powers aren't so...powerful anymore," Kai told him.

"So what? You can't just quit! Ninja never quit."

"I'm not quitting."

"You're quitting."

"It's complicated, Kid."

Since he wasn't getting through to him, Jake decided to go with the puppy dog eyes.

"Ah, quit it with the eyes, will ya?" Kai asked.

Jake did as he was told, but he shoved the book into Kai's hands and ran off.

"Hey, Jake! Where you going?" Kai asked.

"If you won't help the ninja, I will!" Jake called back.

Kai looked at the notebook, which had a Kai and flame stickers on it before groaning. "Oh, great!" and running after the kid.

Shortly after, Aspheera had made it to the Ninjago History Museum with a couple prisoners as well. Gayle Gossip and her cameraman, Vinny. Inside the museum, two security guards were watching the news.

"Oh, man. The whole city's going crazy out there," one said.

"I heard on the news all these snakes are taking orders from some serpentine sorceress," the other replied.

The first guard laughed saying, "Well, good thing we're safe and sound in here."

Unfortunately, it appeared the guard had jinxed it as right after he said that, a ball of fire took out the computer they were watching the news on. The two guards looked in the direction of the blast to see Aspheera and her serpents coming inside.

"I seek this," Aspheera said as a snake held up a sign with a picture of a scroll on it.

"That's the serpentine exhibit!" the first guard sputtered. "Hall D!"

"And here we have the finest ancient scroll collection in all of Ninjago," a curator with a lullaby of a voice told his tourists in Hall D.

Suddenly, the door to the hall opened, revealing Aspheera to the people inside.

"Children, this way, this way, this way!" the curator instructed as he led the kids out of the museum.

Once everyone was gone, Aspheera began looking over the scrolls.

"No," she said as she looked over one. "Lame," as she looked over another. "Fake! Where is it?"

She said as she began to angrily knock over the scrolls.

"I think this is good news," Gayle whispered to her cameraman as she witnessed this.

"I don't know. She looks pretty ticked off," Vinny replied.

"Exactly," Gayle told him.

They then watched as Aspheera knocked over a sarcophagus with a black snake that looked like it was from her race inside. Aspheera began hitting the snake with her staff violently, and it suddenly woke up!

"Oh-oh my. I must've been out for a while," the male serpentine said. "Aspheera! Your eternal greatness. Is is I, Char!"

"Who?" Aspheera asked.

"Your humble servant. I have served you fiercely and loyally, carrying out your every whim, your every command," Char reminded her.

"Yes, of course. Char..." Aspheera said.

"Thank you, Mistress, for bringing me back. I'm deeply, deeply touched that you should come here for me," Char told her.

"I'm here for this," Aspheera said as the same snake held up the sign with the scroll on it, "not you."

Char gasped in delight.

"If you wish to serve me, find me that scroll!" Aspheera ordered.

"Your wish is my command," Char replied before hastily slithering away to search.

As the snakes left the room, Lloyd, who had been listening in on their conversation, turned to his friends, and said, "They're looking for a scroll. Must have some special kind of power, but they haven't found it yet."

"Maybe it's in another exhibit," Nya said.

After taking one quick look at the map of the museum, Nya said, "Hall H!"

"Come on. If we hurry, we can beat them," Lloyd said.

The five ninja ran through the museum until they made it to Hall H. The scroll Aspheera was looking for was the center display-piece.

"This has to be it," Lloyd told the others.

"Great! Kai, melt the glass!" Jay said. "Oh...yeah."

"Ah, it wouldn't work anyway," Cole told him. "It's probably Clear stone. Maybe if I caused a centralized earthquake..."

Nya then walked up to the display and pressed a button, opening the case.

"Or we could do that," Cole said.

Lloyd then walked up to the case and picked up the scroll. Almost immediately, power surrounded him and he was on fire! Lloyd didn't seem injured, though, he just stared blankly at the scroll in his hands.

"Lloyd!" Nya exclaimed as she ran up to her little brother and knocked the scroll out of his hands.

"Are you okay?" Cole asked as Lloyd began panting for breath.

"What happened?" Zane asked him.

"I-I don't know," Lloyd said. "It was like, suddenly, I felt this-this wave of energy pass through me."

"Your head was on fire!" Jay exclaimed.

Suddenly, Aspheera knocked a door to the room down and entered with her servants and prisoners.

"You! Impossible!" Aspheera exclaimed when she saw the ninja. "I left you entombed!"

"Yeah? Well, we got out," Cole told her.

"Your highness! The Forbidden Scroll!" Char exclaimed when he saw the scroll on the ground.

"Attack!" Aspheera screamed.

"Don't let her get the scroll!" Lloyd yelled as the two parties charged at each other.

Lloyd and Aspheera both ran after the scroll while the others tried taking out as many snakes as they could.

The green ninja kicked the scroll up into Aspheera's chin, before kicking it again up into the air. Lloyd then jumped into the air to grab it, but Aspheera used her staff to knock it out of Lloyd's hand. The two fought to get the scroll from each other, but neither one could do it, so Lloyd kicked it across the room.

The scroll landed near Nya and Zane, but they were too busy fighting the snakes off to notice, so Char tried to grab it. When he did, though, Aspheera used her staff to knock him out of the way, but Lloyd did the same with his foot before she could grab it. He then grabbed the scroll, but Aspheera knocked Lloyd back again, knocking it out of his hands. Lloyd quickly got up and grabbed it again, but the same thing happened.

"Uh, G-Gayle, we should get out of here," Vinny told his boss as they watched the fight.

"I wanna see this," Gayle protested.

"Gayle, come on!" Vinny yelled as he dragged her away from the museum.

Aspheera tackled Lloyd to the ground, but Lloyd flipped themselves over so she landed on her back while he could get the scroll. This time, he grabbed the scroll and kicked Aspheera away at the same time. The two kept tackling each other over and over, fighting for the scroll until Aspheera punched Lloyd out of the way, and he still held on. Seeing this, Lloyd sent an incredibly over-powered force of energy at her, which she dodged, and it ended up destroying the wall behind her.

Lloyd began to feel weird. That powerful of a blast should've at least made him a little tired, but he felt fine. Lloyd looked at his glowing hands that were surging with energy before looking up at Aspheera, who was charging right at him. Lloyd hardly had any time to react before she knocked him out of the way and grabbed the scroll.

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "At last! The power of the Forbidden Scroll is mine. Mine!"

"Not if we have anything to say about it!" Lloyd replied.

The five ninja began to charge, but Aspheera used the power the scroll gave her to make her spinjitzu even more powerful. The other ninja responded with their own tornadoes, but her's was too powerful to match. All five ninja had fallen weak on the ground.

Aspheera laughed as she used her fire to take down the ceiling. She then brought all the other snakes in the nearby sarcophagus' back to life.

"My loyal serpents, rise and obey!" Aspheera ordered. "You three, finish the ninja," Aspheera ordered the flaming snakes. "The rest of you, follow me."

Aspheera then left the room and the museum with some of her serpentine while the remaining snakes began slithering to the ninja to finish them off.

They got closer and closer to cause the ninja's end until they stopped when they heard a child's voice saying, "I won't let you hurt them!"

The three snakes began looking around to see where the noise had come from before they looked down to see Jake holding his arms out wide to try to protect the ninja.

The snakes began coming closer to the child, but Kai wouldn't let them hurt him. He took out his sword and slashed their necks, which distracted them a moment, before picking Jake up and jumping over to the fire alarm. Kai hit that and the sprinklers immediately began spraying the snakes.

"Now, Zane! Let 'em have it!" Kai yelled.

Zane lifted his arm up above the ruble the ninja were now trapped under and used his ice to destroy the three snakes.

All of the ninja groaned as they stood up from the rocks.

"You-you saved the day. Even without powers," Jake gaped.

"Yeah, well, I made a new friend who reminded me, 'ninja never quit'," Kai told him.

"You mean...me?" Jake asked excitedly.

"Yeah, Jake. I mean you," Kai told him.

Kai was surprised to find that Jake was now hugging him. At least someone believed in him. Maybe he could do this after all.

Cole, Jay, and Nya all ran over to Kai and Jake to start cheering them on, but Lloyd was still feeling rather disturbed over the energy blast he had sent. It was so powerful, and somehow, it didn't feel right.

"Are you okay?" Zane asked his little brother.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Lloyd replied.

"What happened back there? What did that scroll do to you?"

"I don't know. Whatever it was, when I touched it...I felt..." Lloyd sighed. "I felt..."

"What?" Zane asked, he was beginning to feel worried for Lloyd.

"Power," Lloyd replied. "Like nothing I've ever felt."

As Lloyd spoke, Zane began to remember his vision again. Aspheera with the scroll, shooting a blast of fire at Zane.

"We have to get it back, Zane, before it's too late," Lloyd told him.

#God'sNotDead