I am so sorry that I haven't posted in so long. I don't even know how long it's been, honestly, but the important thing is I'm back now, and I'm hoping to finish the fire chapter very soon, and hopefully I can finish the ice chapter before the year is over.

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

Chapter X: Under Siege

"You're the deceiver?" Jay was finally aloud to ask once Wu's story was over.

"W-wait, wait, wait, let me get this straight," Kai started. "You broke your own father's law, snuck into the land of the Serpentine, and nearly started a war?"

"It-it wasn't quite that-" Wu started.

"And you befriended a snake and thought it would be a good idea to teach her spinjitzu?" Cole questioned as he was now holding C.J. again.

"Well, it was a complicated-" Wu began again.

"And then you stole a dangerous scroll from your father, the First Spinjitzu Master, and broke the law again to defeat her?" Pixal asked.

"Bad Wu!" C.J. scolded.

'Yes. Okay? Yes. I admit it all," Wu told them. "What can I say? I was young and reckless and-and...foolish. I never thought to hear the name Aspheera again. I thought all of this was in the past."

Suddenly, the building began to shake violently.

"What was that?" Pixal asked.

"The past catching up to us," Kai answered.

As everyone ran back outside, Wu followed much slower than usual, but no one seemed to notice as Cole, Jay, Kai, and Pixal hopped up to the top of the wall surrounding the monastery, while Wu stayed with C.J on the ground. The ninja on the wall could see Aspheera riding Fire Fang up the steps. It looked like her entire army was following very close behind.

"Look out!" Cole screamed as Fire Fang shot a blast of fire right at the ninja. They jumped out of the way to the wall on their right before Cole said, "Looks like Lloyd and the others didn't slow Aspheera down much."

"This is because of you, Wu," Kai blamed. "You're supposed to be our teacher. You're the one who's always lecturing about responsibility a-and true potential!"

"I made a mistake," Wu pleaded for his forgiveness. "I never thought this would come back to haunt me."

Another burst of fire suddenly hit the door to the monastery as Aspheera grew ever closer.

"I can't believe this!" Kai shouted.

"Get down!" Jay screamed as another blast of fire was about to hit.

The ninja jumped down and C.J. immediately went to Cole for protection.

"You said your father created two Scrolls of Forbidden Spinjitzu, correct?" Cole asked.

"Yes," Wu replied. "We used them to defeat Aspheera, which made my father very angry. He hid them from us."

Another fire ball hit the door, causing the walls to become slightly unstable.

"Hid them where?" Cole asked.

"I don't know," Wu replied.

"Well, someone must have found them because Aspheera got one of the scrolls at the museum," Kai mentioned.

Another burst hit, so everyone hid behind the golden statue in the center of the courtyard.

"So, where's the second scroll?" Jay asked.

"If the scroll was at the museum, logic would dictate an archaeologist or explorer found them," Pixal said.

Everyone immediately remembered Clutch Powers, who they had met earlier. He had to know something about it.

Back in Ninjago City, Lloyd, Nya, and Zane were still in the Shuricopter, and they couldn't find Aspheera anywhere!

"Great! The whole city is under attack, and we have no idea where Aspheera is," Lloyd said as he looked over the city. There were flames everywhere, snakes were terrorizing the civilians, and the ninja had no clue what they were supposed to do about it.

"Lloyd? Nya! Zane!" Cole's voice suddenly came over the radio.

"We are here, but we have bad news. We have lost Aspheera," Zane told him.

"That's okay. We found her. She's attacking the temple!" Cole exclaimed.

"What?" Lloyd asked.

"Yeah, that's not all. We found out who the deceiver is, and um, well I'm just gonna say it," Cole said. "It's Wu."

The three gasped when they heard this. Their master was the Treacherous Deceiver? There's no way!

"It's a long story," Cole told them, "but the good news is, we have a plan. We know how to defeat Aspheera. There's another scroll out there somewhere, and we think Clutch knows where it is."

"Great! So where's Clutch?" Nya asked.

Aspheera had finally made it up to the doors to the monastery. She ordered Fire Fang to destroy it, but when he sent a huge blast of fire at it, it still didn't budge. A Pyro Viper tried to climb the wall, but Wu used his staff to hit the snake with a nearby rock.

As Fire Fang kept shooting the doors, Cole said, "Well those doors aren't gonna hold much longer."

"And we've just replaced them!" Jay complained.

"What do we do?" Cole asked.

"We still have a few surprises in store," Wu said. "Pixal!"

"Come on," Pixal said as she ran up to the wall to the right of the door.

She pressed on the wall ever so slightly and it opened up to reveal a computer screen. Pixal put in the code, and two machines came out of the ground and faced the invading snakes. They then began shooting water at two snakes guarding Aspheera. The snakes turned to charcoal, and they both fell apart. Two other machines came up and shot a bunch of rubber shurikens at Char.

"Aha! Rubber shurikens! Nice!" Jay cheered as he watched what was going on over the wall.

Pixal kept shooting water at them, but that only seemed to make them more mad.

"The deceiver uses his weapons against us!" Char said as he plucked a rubber shuriken off his armor and threw it off to the side.

"Bah! Parlor tricks for one who possesses the Scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu!" Aspheera said before using her scroll to disintegrate each of their weapons. "Fire Fang, the doors," she then ordered.

Fire Fang shot the doors again, this time destroying them. While Wu, Pixal, Jay, and Kai flew across the courtyard, Cole used his body to shield his son from harm. It seemed to work, but he got hit pretty hard in the back with a bit of debris.

"You okay, Buddy?" Cole asked, trying to keep his own pain unnoticeable.

"Yeah," C.J. answered.

"Run!" Kai yelled to his friends.

Everyone got up, ran inside, and made their way to the secret elevator. Just as Aspheera entered the monastery, it looked as if they had never even been in there.

"Come out, You Coward!" Aspheera yelled. "Come out and face me!"

"Yes! Face Aspheera, Queen of the Serpentine and rightful ruler of all Ninja-" Char announced.

"Oh, stop blathering, You Fool, and ransack the temple! Find him!" Aspheera told him.

"You heard her! Stop blathering and start ransacking! Go!" Char screamed at the other snakes behind him.

As the ninja made their way through their secret base, they tried to plan their escape.

"We'll have to make our way through the vehicle bay doors," Jay said.

Pixal turned on the security system to be able to see where the snakes were, which was just about everywhere, and said, "Negative. We are surrounded. We cannot get out that way."

"Great! Now we're trapped! Another thing I blame you for," Kai told Wu.

"Kai, uh, maybe it's time we back off Master Wu and focus on what to do next," Cole said as he placed a hand on his brother's shoulder.

Kai didn't seem to like that idea. He shrugged Cole's hand off of his shoulder and began to walk away.

Cole sighed as he turned to his master. "Aspheera stole his elemental fire," he explained. "He feels useless now, and-and that's why he's so angry at you."

"Pix, if we can't get out of here on foot, what's the plan?" Jay asked. "You usually have something up your sleeve."

"Well, it's not complete yet, but, there is this," Pixal said as she walked over to a console, pressed the button, and a huge white mech with green stripes appeared.

Jay began cheering wildly, along with Kai, who had seemingly forgotten his anger for the time being.

"What are we waiting for? Let's get to work," Jay said as he ran over to the mech.

Pixal then ran over to a piece she had not put on yet and threw it up to Kai saying, "Weld that onto the manifold."

"On it," Kai replied.

He lifted the piece over to it's designated place and tried to weld it on using his fire, but he forgot he didn't have it anymore.

"Oh. Right. I'll just grab the welding torch I guess," Kai said.

He jumped down to Pixal's desk and grabbed the welding torch before lighting the fire. He looked at it sadly for a moment, wishing that he could make it himself, or at least feel the warmth of it through his veins again. He felt so cold without it now.

"If it weren't for me, he'd still be able to control the element of fire," Wu said as he saw this. "He paid the price for my mistakes."

Meanwhile, in the Ninjago City hospital, Clutch was writing something on a typewriter. Apparently, when Aspheera shot Clutch on a fire ball, he had broken his leg and bruised his skull, but he was happy that he was now being taken care of when he wanted, and not being bothered unless he wanted to be. That was until his visitors came barging in and yelling stuff that sounded important.

"We need the second Scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu," Lloyd shouted.

"It is logical for you to comply," Zane said.

"Time for you to earn your keep, Explorer Boy!" Nya told him.

"No, no, no, no. Don't tell me. I don't wanna know," Clutch said. "You wanna know why I don't wanna know? Because it sounds like you want me to go on an adventure, and no thanks!"

"You're an explorer!" Lloyd exclaimed. "All you do is adventure!"

"No. All I did was adventure," Clutch corrected. "Now, all I'm gonna do is cash big checks writing books about those adventures. Cha-ching!"

"Dr. Powers. All of Ninjago is at stake," Zane pleaded.

"Can I tell you something about Ninjago?" Clutch asked as he pushed his typewriter aside. "It's fate is always at stake. Besides, I've got a broken leg. I couldn't help you even if I wanted to. Which I do not," he said before taking a drink of his soda.

"But without the second Scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu, we'll never-" Nya started.

"Oh, the second scroll? That's what you're looking for? Ha! No problem. It's at the Explorer's Club," Clutch informed them.

"Great! You're a member. You can help us," Lloyd said, beginning to feel hopeful for the first time since he'd met this man.

"Yeah, no," Clutch replied, killing Lloyd's short-lived hope. "You see, that's the thing. Sounds like the beginning of an adventure. So, uh, how should I put this?" Clutch took a sip of his drink before screaming, "Nein!"

"That's it! You're coming with us whether you like it or not," Nya said as she walked up to Clutch and began trying to pull him out of the hospital bed, but Clutch picked up the emergency call button and began pressing it repeatedly.

"Oh, my! Doctor!" he yelled. "I'm feeling woozy."

"Oh, no," his doctor said as she came into the room. "Your visitors will have to leave."

"But we-" Lloyd started.

"Come on. We don't need his help anyway," Nya said as they were all being led out of the room.

As Lloyd looked back to the explorer, he saw him take his eye patch off and wink at him with a smile. That was when Lloyd decided that he officially hated this guy.

The Pyro Vipers were still searching the monastery for the ninja, but they couldn't find them anywhere. One looked behind a picture hanging on the wall, one looked behind the oven but was immediately attacked by a crazy, glowing chicken, and another looked inside a bin full of weapons and was very surprised when all of the weapons fell on him.

Aspheera sighed in frustration from how idiotic her henchmen were before screaming, "Enough, You Fools! Find me the deceiver!"

"But-but we've search everywhere," Char protested. "He's not here! Maybe we should take a break, get some dinner, come back with a full belly and a fresh set of-"

"Silence!" Aspheera screamed as she shot her fire at Char, but he moved out of the way, and it burned a dartboard and hit the button behind it, revealing the secret elevator doors.

A lift behind the-the," since Aspheera didn't know what it was, she cut herself off, and said, "A lift!"

"Yes!" Char cheered. "Well done, My Queen! We have found it together! All hail the queen!"

There was a moment of awkward silence as Aspheera looked at Char, hoping he'd get the memo before she screamed his head off again. Luckily, he did, and he pressed the button again to call the elevator up.

"Now," Aspheera chuckled, "I will have my revenge!"

The two began waiting patiently for the elevator, but it wouldn't come.

"Revenge in a minute," Char assured her. A moment passed before he added, "Sometimes it takes a while."

Aspheera began getting impatient so she looked at Char and hit her staff on the ground. Char, fearing for his life, began hitting the button to call the elevator over and over again to try to make his "queen" happy, but it still wouldn't come.

As this was happening, Jay noticed something.

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed. "Someone's called the elevator! Pixal!"

Pixal immediately jumped down from the mech and pressed a couple buttons on the console to stop the elevator from coming to the snakes upstairs.

"I've stopped it, but it's safe to assume they know where we are," Pixal told them.

"What do we do?" Cole asked.

"I wish Lloyd and the others were here," Jay said.

"I guess we're just gonna have to fight 'em. Power or no power," Kai said.

"No," Wu told them. "I will pay for my own mistakes. Alone."

"Wu!" C.J. yelled as their master began walking away.

"You can't do that," Cole protested. "Aspheera will destroy you!"

"Perhaps that is for the best," Wu told them.

"Wh-How can you say that?" Jay asked.

Wu turned to the ninja, and said, "Because Kai was right. I cannot be your master. I cannot teach you to take responsibility if I run away from my own. You have paid for my mistakes, and for that, I am sorry. Allow me now to make amends."

"Wu!" C.J. yelled as he ran up to the man and hugged his leg. "Don't go."

"I must. To prevent any others from getting hurt," Wu told him. He tried to get him off of his leg, but C.J. held on tight.

"Cole, please get him off," Wu told his student with a pained expression.

Cole sighed as he walked up to his son and tried to coax him off of Wu, but he wouldn't budge. Finally, Kai couldn't take it anymore.

"Master Wu," Kai said, and it surprised Wu that he called him master. He hadn't done so in so long. "Listen to C.J. Look, I'm sorry I was angry. We all make mistakes but giving yourself over to Aspheera would be another one. She can't be trusted. She'll still be dangerous and on the loose, and besides all that, we're a family. We stick together. No matter what."

Kai walked over to Master Wu and gave him a hug, which C.J. joined in. He stopped holding onto his leg now that Wu seemed to be staying.

Kai pulled away from his master when he heard sobbing behind him from Jay.

"What?" he asked, feeling more than slightly annoyed and embarrassed.

"That...was beautiful," Jay said as he wiped his eyes.

"Let's get ready to kick some Serpentine butt. Together," Cole said.

"Yeah!" Everyone cheered in agreement.

I hope you all liked that one. I know I had fun with C.J.'s parts, and should I forget about writing the Explorer's Club since there aren't any parts to add on?

Have a great day/night!

#God'sNotDead