Guest: I am planning on writing a one-shot series about C.J., and one of them I'm planning on being about C.J. and Lou meeting. At this point in time, it's already happened, but I should be coming out with that one-shot probably sometime after I finish writing Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu and before Prime Empire.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ninjago or the lines from the episode Once and for All.
Chapter XXIII: Once and for All
Akita traveled through the snow, shivering. Her arm hurt from the fight with Boreal, and she felt as angry as ever.
"First my people, then my brother, and now Lloyd?!" she thought. "I must end his rule before anyone else is hurt."
As she traveled, she told herself time and time again that she was doing this for the rest of the people in this realm, but she knew that was not true. She was saddened to admit this, but she was only doing this because of her hatred towards the Ice Emperor. She knew her anger had consumed her, and she wanted it to go away, but she didn't care enough to actually make it leave her. Instead, she continued towards the Castle of Ice hoping beyond hope that she could finish her mission and destroy the Ice Emperor who had taken everything from her.
Akita stopped when she saw the guards to the castle. She hid behind a rock and got an idea on how she could get past the fools who works for that-that murderer.
The formling used her power to turn into a wolf and ran up to the guards before sitting down nicely. The two samurai looked at her curiously, wondering what such an adorable, living creature was doing here, but they did not have to think for long because Akita turned back to her normal self, grabbed both of their hands, and threw them off, turning them to nothing but shards of ice on the ground.
Akita then ran into the castle, hoping she wouldn't be caught.
Meanwhile in the Land Bounty, Cole was trying to take a nap while Kai and C.J. were playing a game, but Jay and Krag's arguing over their Lava Zombies arcade pod was rather noisy.
"This is a Milton Dyer classic, Krag, so pay attention," Jay was explaining to the yeti right before the fight started. "We're talking golden age here. It's called Lava Zombies, and you need major skills to beat this game, which I, heh heh, luckily have. Watch and learn."
Krag was a very impatient yeti, as it turns out, and watching Jay play the game made him rather jealous. He growled a little before he pushed Jay onto the floor and started playing himself.
"No! Y-you gotta wait until I lose! It's my turn!" Jay responded as he got back off the floor and started trying to push Krag out of the way.
Krag growled again, louder this time before trying to grab Jay, but the lightning ninja wasn't having it and began pushing the yeti off of him like he would to an annoying little brother.
Cole sighed to himself as he sat up a bit to look at his friends before saying, surprisingly calm despite his interrupted sleepy state, "I don't think he understands Jay."
"Well, tell him it's my turn!" Jay yelled.
Cole just smiled as he did to C.J. whenever he was getting upset about something silly and said, "I don't speak Krag. And can I point out, you're trying to reason with an eight-foot-tall creature who can pancake you with his foot?"
Jay's eyes went wide upon hearing that statement. He turned back to Krag with a new fear in mind, and said, "Good point! Your turn, Krag."
Krag was very happy with the news. He picked Jay up and threw him behind his head before playing the game contentedly.
Cole just shook his head smiling while Jay sat down next to him.
"It's no fair," the blue ninja whined.
"You can play soon. I doubt he'll be interested for long," Cole replied.
Jay just grumbled at the idea of waiting when suddenly, Kai came into the room with C.J.'s hand in his saying, "I thought you said he knew how to say his name."
"What?! He does," Cole responded, surprised that this was the conversation he was going to have now.
"Well, I keep asking, and he won't say it!" Kai told him.
"Okay. Show me," Cole told his brother, not entirely sure whether to believe what the fire ninja was saying or not.
Kai sat down in one of the seats next to Cole and Jay, looked C.J. in the eyes, and said, "Okay, bud. Say 'C'."
"'C'!" the toddler exclaimed.
"Now say 'J'. You know, like, Uncle Jay."
"'J'!" C.J. responded.
"Now say 'C.J.'!"
The blond just looked at his uncle with a big smile on his face before spitting.
"C.J.!" the tone of Cole's voice was all C.J. needed to stop.
"Sowwy," C.J. told his uncle.
"It's fine, Bud. But you see this, right?" Kai turned to face Cole now. "He just doesn't respond when I talk to him. It's like he views this as a game."
"Maybe because he does. Just don't patronize him so much. He's not stupid," Cole told his brother before he turned to face the wall to tell him that he was done with this conversation.
"Here, let me try," Jay said. "Okay, what's my name?"
"Jay!" C.J. replied.
"What's his name?" he asked as he pointed to the fire ninja.
"Kai!"
"What's her name?" as he pointed to Nya.
"Ña!"
"What's your name?"
"C...J.!" he drew the word out so he could pronounce it better, gaining a laugh from everyone in the room, including C.J.
"Guys!" Nya called down to the others. "We're almost there."
Everyone, except for Krag ran up to the front of the Land Bounty to see it.
"Yeah, that definitely looks like a spooky castle where an evil ice emperor would live," Kai said with his usual smirk on his face. "Buckle up."
The other ninja nodded before going back to where Krag was playing his game. Cole was trying to get him off of it.
"Krag, you gotta stop playing. We gotta get in our seats," Cole told the creature.
Krag just growled as he pretended not to know who had spoken to him before continuing his game.
"Krag," that same tone Cole used with C.J. just moments earlier came into play as he stepped in front of the game so Krag couldn't see what he was doing.
The creature growled at Cole, trying to see his game.
"Don't you growl at me! That is unacceptable. Do you want me to revoke your video game privileges?"
Krag looked at Cole with wide eyes and shook his head quickly, whimpering the whole time.
"Okay then," Cole said as he showed Krag the way to their seats.
Krag growled a bit to himself as he sat down. Cole then went up to the front and got in his seat with a happy C.J. in his lap before buckling up.
As the Land Bounty drove past the mountains leading up to the Ice Emperor's castle, some piles of snow began falling to reveal a white dragon with icy blue eyes, but the ninja didn't see this.
Suddenly, Nya noticed something. "We got something on our radar," she said. "Something big. Moving fast."
"What? What is it?" Kai asked as he leaned over to look at the radar.
"Well it isn't a welcoming committee," Nya replied.
"I'm on it," Kai said.
He ran out of his seat and to the outside of the Land Bounty where a cannon was. He looked all around for whatever could be on the radar, but he couldn't find it. Until he did.
The ice dragon came suddenly from behind the clouds. He dove down to the Land Bounty with the same icy power he used to freeze the fishing village only days before.
Kai fired the cannon at the dragon, but he missed when Nya turned out of the way quickly.
C.J. immediately began crying when he saw the dragon again.
"We'll be okay, C.J. Nya's got us," Cole told his son in an effort to soothe him, but his crying continued.
Suddenly, the dragon breathed his ice again, and the entire vehicle began to freeze up!
"Kai! Do something!" Nya called to her brother.
Kai grunted as he kept firing the cannon, saying, "I'm trying! It's not doing anything!"
Time after time, Boreal was hit, but it seemed more like a disturbance to him than anything else, and the disturbance was making him very angry.
Boreal dove down to the Land Bounty and ripped the cannon right off of it. Luckily, Kai had jumped off before he could get him too. He did not want to feel that kind of cold ever again.
"What was that? What happened? Did you get him?" Nya asked as the Land Bounty was screaming warnings at them. Cole was desperate to keep C.J. calm, and Jay was trying to help him now too.
"Uh, not exactly," Kai replied.
The fire ninja watched as Boreal flew a little ways further from the Bounty and dropped the cannon down so it broke in half! He then dove back down to the Bounty to try to grab Kai, but he was already inside before he could. Seeing as he couldn't get Kai, the dragon ripped an entire other piece of the Land Bounty off and threw it back onto the vehicle to try throwing them off, but it was too strong to break. That didn't relax anyone's fear at all, though.
Boreal continued to try to freeze the rest of the Land Bounty, and Nya continued to dodge these blasts. She drove as fast as she could across the ice, and she did not even begin to slow down when she saw a snow mound up ahead. It was at the perfect angle to use as a ramp!
"Nya? What are you doing?" Jay asked when he noticed this too.
"Hang on, Everyone!" Nya yelled.
She drove up the ramp and crashed head on into the dragon in mid-air!
Unfortunately, no one was in a seat belt except for Nya, Cole, and C.J. so Kai, Jay, and Krag were being knocked all over the Bounty.
Finally, the Bounty stopped crashing, and all was calm.
"We should've worn seat belts," Jay groaned as he and Kai got off the floor.
"Everyone okay? Jay?" Kai asked as he stood up as well.
"I told you we'd be okay, Little Buddy," Cole told the toddler in his lap, who was beginning to smile now that the danger was gone.
Jay looked around for a second before he realized someone wasn't there.
"Nya!" he yelled as he ran to the driver's seat, where Nya was currently frozen by her fear. She couldn't even let go of the wheel.
"It's okay, Nya," Jay said as he touched her shoulder tentatively, hoping that would bring her back. "You can let go now."
Nya slowly, carefully looked over to Jay and asked, "The dragon?"
"Got him. It's over."
Nya sighed in relief before physically forcing her hands to let go of the wheel.
Akita was still attempting to make her way through the Ice Castle. She turned down every corner, every hallway, but she couldn't find the throne room anywhere. Finally, when she was certain she had made it to the last hallway, she checked around the corner very carefully to see if anyone was there, only to be met with a sword pointed straight towards her heart. It was one of the many samurai guarding a double door. That had to be the throne room, but how could she get in?
She put her hands in the air, and said with a smirk, "Alright. You found me. Now what? Are you gonna take me to your leader?"
"I might as well just kill you where you stand," the samurai replied before he tried striking her with the sword, but she turned to a wolf and ran under his feet to trip him over before he had a chance. She could see many, many samurai coming her way with swords and spears and crossbows, and she knew that she didn't have a chance against this many warriors. So she looked around to find a way out and found it.
She turned around and ran as fast as she could out a window and slipped from the roof of the castle to a ledge. She turned back to a human so she could grab on better before pulling herself back up and crawling along the roof until she made it to another window. She looked through to make sure she had come to the right place and smiled when she saw the humongous ice-covered throne. Before she could get in, though, she felt a horrible pain in her head before her vision was clouded with darkness.
Akita did not know how long it had been when she had finally woken up, and she wasn't even sure if she had woken up because the voice that she heard was a voice belonging to one that had been long dead.
"A-Akita? Please wake up, Sister," the voice belonged to her brother.
"Kataru?" Akita asked as she slowly opened her eyes. It looked like she was in some sort of dungeon. "Am I dead?"
"No, Sister. We are in the Ice Emperor's dungeon. The only way out of here is if someone lets us out," Kataru replied.
Akita was overjoyed that her brother was still alive, but she couldn't help but groan due to the horrible headache she had.
"I-I wish I could see you again, Brother."
"As do I, but at least I know you have not fallen to the Departed Realm as I had originally thought."
"You-you thought I was dead?" Akita asked. She felt horrible that Kataru had to experience the same pain she had all these years. "I-I thought you were."
"I know. Lloyd told me."
"Lloyd? Is he here?"
"Yeah, I'm here," Lloyd's voice sounded rather weak, which seemed unlike him.
"He's been trying to break his chains all day," Kataru explained. Akita looked down at the chains made up of dark ice. Everything that her form made her feel had been stolen from her. They blocked her powers from even wanting to come out. "He hopes to get out of here, but it is a pipe dream."
"No, it's not!" Lloyd argued. "I know we can get out of here. Ninja never quit, and my friends are out there. Some of them are probably on their way right now."
"I hope you're right," the siblings said together.
Seeing that the dragon had finally been defeated, the ninja, C.J., and Krag all went to investigate the creature.
Cole was holding C.J. and Krag was standing right beside him.
"I hope Pixal wasn't expecting us to bring the Bounty back in one piece or anything," Cole said as he saw the damage that Boreal had done.
Nya began examining the dragon. He felt so cold. Like how Zane's elemental dragon used to feel. Just "Ice. It's pure ice," she said. "It's an elemental creation!"
"What?" Kai asked.
"Are you sure?" Cole questioned.
"The emperor must be an elemental master of ice. Just like Zane. What are the odds?" Jay concluded, but Cole had read enough books on the elemental powers to know that couldn't be true. Unless Zane wasn't alive anymore, but Sorla's fire had showed them that he was, and the element of ice would never choose someone as cruel as the Ice Emperor.
Nya gasped as she shook her head. "Oh, no."
"What?" Jay asked her.
"The emperor. What if he's not an ice elemental like Zane? What if he is Zane?" Nya told them.
Everyone gasped.
"That can't be!" Cole exclaimed. "Although, that would be the only logical explanation to why he's a master of ice."
"What? Are you kidding? Zane would never hurt anyone!" Kai argued.
"Not in his normal state, no," Nya replied, "but he was holding the Scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu when Aspheera blasted him to the Never-Realm!"
"Which Master Wu said would corrupt anyone who held it!" Cole's heart began racing when he realized how much trouble they were actually in.
"What about the time difference? How do you explain that?" Jay asked, hoping to find a reason that dispproved his yang's theory.
"I can't, but it's the only thing that adds up," Nya answered. "Somehow, Zane is the Ice Emperor."
"We gotta warn Lloyd before he-" Kai stopped when the dragon suddenly stood up, knocking the Land Bounty off of his back, and C.J began crying once again.
"Run!" Kai screamed.
Everyone began running away from Boreal, dodging his icy breath, but while Kai was doing so, he ran right towards Boreal's tail, which slapped him across the frozen ice they were all on.
"Kai!" Nya yelled as she began chasing after her brother.
Boreal noticed this and began chasing after her.
"Nya, look out!" Jay yelled as he shot lightning blasts at the dragon in an attempt to protect his yang, but Boreal didn't even notice Jay.
It was then that Krag noticed the Land Bounty and tried to push it over to Boreal.
Cole maneuvered C.J. over to his back so he could use his earth punch to help Krag. He punched the ground, loosening the Bounty out of its spot so Krag could punch it up into the air, almost landing on Boreal, but close enough so that he stopped chasing Nya and started attacking that. He then tried freezing Jay, Cole, C.J., and Krag, but they all jumped out of the way before Cole ran off to a nearby rock and hid behind that with his son.
Finally, Nya had made it to her brother. She leaned over to him and began begging him to say something. Anything, but he wouldn't move.
Nya gritted her teeth as she looked back to the dragon now coming towards her and her brother once again. She looked up at some icicles right above his head and desperately wished that she could control it and end this nightmare once and for all.
"You must only remember who you are," Sorla's voice was now stuck in her head. It was simple, but maybe it'd work.
"I am Nya, Master of Water," she said as she began feeling for the water inside the icicles. "I am Nya, Master of Water," she could feel it moving inside, beginning to bend to her will. "I am Nya, Master of Water, and you will obey!"
The water inside the ice was so strong that her control helped it to break the ice, and it fell right on top of Boreal's head, causing him to fall to the ground. Jay and Cole began cheering as they ran over to her.
"Nya, you did it!" Jay exclaimed happily.
I knew you could do it!" Cole laughed.
Their victory was short-lived, though, as Boreal was not down yet. He slowly got up from under the ice and began heading towards the ninja.
"I'm sorry. I tried," Nya said in defeat.
Cole guarded C.J. as best as he could while Jay began shooting lightning blasts at the dragon to try keeping it at bay. Fear filled them all, except for one person. Kai opened his eyes slowly. The picture was blurry at first, but as he saw his friend's and nephew's fear, he became angry. No one was going to do this to his friends. Not even a corrupt version of his friend, and whoever had convinced Zane that this was okay was going to pay. Heat and anger flooding through his veins, Kai let his rage out against the dragon in the biggest inferno he had ever created to reduce the dragon he was so sick of seeing to nothing but water that quickly froze over on the ground.
The power had drained Kai, and he immediately felt week in the knees. Stumbling over, he was caught by his sister and her yin with big smiles on their faces.
"Your powers, Kai. They're back!" Nya exclaimed.
Kai began smiling slowly as he realized that he no longer felt cold.
"Better late than never," Jay laughed.
"Come on. Let's get to Zane and Lloyd," Cole said as he and the others began running to the Ice Castle, which surprisingly didn't have that many guards around it. Something was going on inside. They just knew it.
I hope you all liked that. Leave a review if you'd like. Last chapter should be out next week.
As always, have a great day/night!
#God'sNotDead