Disclaimer: I do not own Ninjago or the lines from the episode The Skull Sorcerer.
Chapter VII: The Skull Sorcerer
"I'm really not good at making decisions like this," Princess Vania said as she paced back and forth in her bedroom, "which is why I need your advice. The ninja have been underground way too long, and I think something terrible might have happened to them, and I think I should go after them, but...they're ninja. They can take care of themselves, right?"
The only response she got was a small roar from the baby dragon sitting on her bed. Chompy. He had always been her best friend, and he was the one to go to whenever she needed help with things like this.
"Master Wu even said I shouldn't go after them. But...what if they've been attacked by crazy monsters? I should at least alert the palace guards, right?" the princess asked as she grabbed her spear. "But...if my father knew the ninja went down into the tunnels he'd banish them from Shintaro forever! Even if their intentions were good. Oh! What should I do Chompy?"
Chompy roared a little bit as he hopped down from her bed onto a trunk and spun around a few times before sitting down.
"You're right!" Vania realized. "Oh, you always know what to say. I need to relax. I'm sure Cole is doing just fine."
Meanwhile, Cole was not doing just fine. In fact, he was hanging upside down as his foot was now stuck in a tree jutting out of a cliff under the mountain.
"Help!" Cole screamed. "Someone help me! I'm in serious trouble here! Please!"
No one answered the young man's cry for help, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. He reached up to the branch so that he could try to pry his foot loose and climb up, but when he moved the branch began to break and he was now swinging on the flimsy tree.
"Okay. That's not working. I'll just hang real still into I come up with a plan. I just have to think. Think, Cole! Think!"
As he thought, Cole looked down to what was underneath him and saw a skeleton hanging from some other jutted out tree branches.
"Oh, great! Now I feel much better!" was Cole's sarcastic reply. "Hey, a hook!" he noticed hanging from the skeleton. "If I can get to it...you don't mind if I borrow that, do you?"
The skeleton's head suddenly lost some of its support and leaned down.
"I'll take that as a no."
Cole began trying to swing himself over to the skeleton, but the branch suddenly broke, and he had nothing but the decomposed body to hold onto.
"Oh, great! Now I'm hanging from a skeleton that's hanging from a root. And now I'm talking to myself again. Aw, I need to get to C.J. Woah!" Cole suddenly exclaimed when one of the feet of the skeleton broke off, and he now only had the left foot to hang onto.
"Keep it together, Pal," he told the skeleton. "Just hold on."
Once Cole finally grabbed the skeleton's hook, he swung it a few times before throwing it up to the top of the cliff, and just in time too. Right as the hook finally latched on, the skeleton fell off the branches and to the spiky rocks down below.
The black ninja breathed a sigh of relief when he saw this. Unfortunately, the hook broke suddenly, and he began falling too. He smacked into a rock that was jutted out of the cliff and he was back to calling for help again.
"What am I doing?" he finally realized. "What if the Skull Sorcerer hears me? That would be terrible! Oh, you don't really have a choice, Cole, do you? Help! Someone help me!"
His cries were met with a roar coming from below.
"Hello? Is someone down there?" Cole called down.
Suddenly, a bunch of Dire Bats began flying past the ninja. They attacked the earth ninja and caused him to fall off of what he was holding onto dearly before grabbing him and most likely bringing him to their nest.
"Thanks, I guess," Cole told the bat, but it was then that multiple bats began fighting over him.
"Get off!" Cole screamed only to be immediately dropped. Another bat grabbed him, and three more were in pursuit.
The earth master decided that now would be a good time to use his powers. He activated his earth punch and used this power to bring the stalactites down onto some of the Dire Bats' heads.
"Yes!" Cole cheered as he no longer had to worry about them, but he was about to get skewered by a stalagmite. He used his power to break it in half and the Dire Bat ended up dropping him because of this.
Cole then ran into a nearby cave the bat was too big to fit through before using his power to scare it off.
"Ha! Maybe you realized you were messing with the wrong ninja! Nice try, Pal! Better luck next ti-!"
Cole stopped suddenly when he realized he was having trouble walking.
"What? What is this stuff?" he asked as he tried to get his feet off the ground, but they were stuck. "Really sticky. Almost like spider-"
Cole gasped when he saw the humongous spider behind him coming to attack. He was standing in her web.
The spider jumped at Cole, and he ducked and rolled underneath of her. As he began backing away, he said, "Look. I'm getting a little tired of things trying to eat me!"
The spider used her legs to try to strike Cole, but he kept moving out of the way. He did a front flip to get even farther away from her, but this landed him in a particularly sticky place, and he was once again having trouble moving.
The spider tried to eat Cole, but he grabbed her fangs to try to keep her at bay, only angering her. She butted him away from her, freeing him from the sticky spot, and he hit the nearby cavewall. Cole was about to use his earth powers against her, but she webbed his fist stuck and then webbed his other against a wall.
"Don't think about how gross this feels. Do not think about how gross this feels," Cole told himself. "Oh, I'm thinking about it! I'm thinking about it!"
Even when he was stuck against the wall, Cole tried to hold his fort against the spider, but he was no match for her, and soon enough, his whole body was webbed up.
Groaning, Cole said, "I'm now willing to discuss the terms of your surrender."
The spider was only inches away from Cole. He was about to be eaten whole, but it was then that a familiar Shintaran jumped down from above and used her spear to get the spider away from the earth ninja.
"Princess Vania?!" Cole exclaimed.
"Back! Ugh!" Vania yelled at the spider.
"Oh, wow! Am I glad to see you!" Cole exclaimed.
"I hate spiders. Especially huge slobbery ones with fangs. Don't make me step on you! Chompy help!" she yelled to the dragon.
Chompy began trying to distract the spider while she figured out what to do. The dragon was soon knocked to the side, though, making her mad.
As the spider shot webs at the young princess, she jumped up into the air and threw her spear at the creature, but it did nothing against her armored body.
The spider walked up to Princess Vania and tried to strike her down, but the princess rolled out of the way while the spider released her leg from the rock it was now stuck in.
"Okay. Now you've made me angry," Vania said.
Cole gasped as a gold light appeared from the dragon as he grew bigger and bigger, towering over the princess, but she did not notice. The spider ran away in fear, and Chompy returned to his normal size.
"What? What just happened?" Cole asked. "Did you see that? Your dragon. He-he-"
"What?" Vania asked.
"He-he just got bigger!"
"Chompy? Don't be silly. He just growls a bit sometimes...when he gets angry."
Chompy roared in agreement.
"Are you sure?" Cole seemed skeptical, "cause I could swear."
"Oh, dear. Let's get you out of these," Vania said as she began breaking the spider web Cole was stuck in.
Master Wu and C.J. were taking a little walk around the Shintaran gardens. It was a truly magnificent place, and the toddler wanted to see how many flowers he could hold at once. So far, he had gotten to fifteen. Wu thought that these flowers would make a great bouquet.
"Wu?" C.J. asked as he toddled over to his father's master. "Count?"
"You now have sixteen," Wu smiled at the toddler.
C.J. smiled before going off to find some more.
"If only the ninja were here to enjoy this," Wu sighed as he breathed in the freshest air he had ever breathed.
"Come on," Cole groaned as he attempted to move the gate to the mines.
"I can almost hear them now," Wu sighed as he sipped his tea. The noise of the gate crashing down scared him so bad that he spit it right back out.
"Cole! Princess Vania?" Wu said in surprise when he turned around. "What happened?"
"Daddy!" C.J. exclaimed as he ran to his father and gave him a hug.
"Hey, Buddy," Cole smiled as he hugged him back.
The blond couldn't contain his happiness as he showed his dad the bouquet he'd made.
"What's this?" Cole asked. "It's very nice."
C.J. laughed at this before yelling, "Nice! Nice!"
"Cole, where are the others?" Wu asked when he realized no one else was coming.
The smile on the earth master's face disappeared as he looked up at his master and asked, "You mean they're not back?"
"No! And you, Princess. You promised me that you wouldn't go down there."
"Oh, did I? Did I actually promise?" Vania asked.
"Promise!"
"Not now C.J.," Cole whispered.
"I thought it was more of a possibility," Vania continued.
"It was definitely a promise."
"I guess I'm not very good at doing what I'm told."
"I'm beginning to see that, and whose dragon is this?"
"That's Chompy. He's mine," she said as Chompy began prancing around C.J. He tried to take the flowers from him, but Cole got to them first. The dragon then went to some more flowers in the nearby bushes and returned next to C.J., proud of his new find.
"Is he a Shintaran Ridgeback?" Wu asked.
"He's just Chompy," Vania replied. She then looked down and said in a much stricter tone, "Chompy, will you quit eating the flowers? Ugh! You're just gonna barf!"
"We've got bigger problems, Guys! There's an evil sorcerer in the mines, and he's got a magic skull, and he commands an army of skeletons! We got separated and barely escaped. They must still be down there!"
C.J. whimpered upon hearing this, so Vania picked him up to comfort him.
"How?" Wu asked. "How could all that be down there without anyone up here realizing it?"
"I don't know, but we have to tell my father immediately," Vania tried to keep her voice calm, which reminded Cole that he should probably do the same.
"King Vangelis will send his guards down there to stop this weirdo if we do," Cole said, trying to sound more confident for his son. "He of all people would know that if this skeleton army ever reached the surface, his kingdom would be destroyed."
The five went as quickly as possible to the throne room, where King Vangelis was currently giving orders to his guards.
"Father! We must speak with you. It's an emergency!" Vania exclaimed as she slammed the throne room's doors open.
"Vania? Wu?" Vangelis asked as he handed his scroll off to one of the guards to dismiss them. "What emergency? What's this all about?"
"The mines!" Vania continued, becoming nervous of how her father may react. "They're not as empty as we all believed."
"You went underground?" Vangelis asked. He was furious.
"I had to, Father. Cole and the other ninja were trapped!"
"It's true," Cole added as he grabbed hold of her hand. "She saved my life."
"I told you never to go down there," Vangelis scolded.
"Please, don't be angry, Father," Vania said as she walked forward, letting go of Cole's hand in the process. She wasn't sure why she never placed C.J. down or handed him to his own dad, but something about this whole situation was becoming unsettling to her.
"I'm not angry. Just...saddened," Vangelis continued. "You have forced my hand."
"What do you mean?" Vania asked.
"I love you, Child, but why don't you ever listen? I was trying to protect you."
"I know. I'm sorry, but you need to understand. There's a dark evil down there called the Skull Sorcerer!"
"Yeah! And he's got this evil magic skull that glows red, and these two huge wings and-!" Cole began, but he was cut off by Vangelis saying, "Are you certain?"
"I saw him," Cole confirmed.
"And you're certain it wasn't...green?" Vangelis asked as he lifted the skull out of a nearby box, transforming him into the Skull Sorcerer.
"No!" Vania screamed as she clutched C.J. tighter to her. Her entire world fell apart in the span of a second. Her mother, assassinated when she was a child, and her father, the evil man plaguing the lives of so many innocent creatures. She was officially an orphan, and it seemed as if C.J. was her only support.
"You're the Skull Sorcerer?" Cole asked.
"Why?" Wu questioned.
"Perfection, I'm afraid, has a cost, and the cost is vengestone," Vangelis explained. "It comes from the mines."
"Form the mountain, from the earth," the skull added.
"The people of Shintaro may not realize it, but their magnificent city, the lives of bliss and joy that they lead, is paid for by vengestone. Fortunately, I found a customer willing to pay dearly for it," Vangelis continued.
"I don't believe it," Vania's breath quickened, her body becoming weak as she stepped backwards. "You-you wouldn't! You couldn't!"
"Well it ends now!" Cole exclaimed.
"In that respect, sadly, you are correct," Vangelis replied before having his skull shoot a green beam of energy at Wu, knocking him over.
"Master Wu!" Cole exclaimed, and the same thing happened to the earth master.
"No!" Vania exclaimed again, and C.J. began crying.
"The skull. Get the skull!" Wu exclaimed.
"Chompy go!" Vania ordered.
Chompy flew at the evil king, only to be violently forced to the ground by his wing. He then flew up to his throne and pressed a button, causing the floor to cave underneath of Cole and Wu, and they fell down into a deep pit used only for executions.
"Cole! Wu!"
"Daddy!"
Vania knew what she had to do. She was not going to leave C.J. with this monster, but she had to save his dad and Master Wu, so she ran for the golden wings stacked up against the wall and placed a pair on her back. The only sound she heard was from her father screaming, "Vania, no! You'll never reach them in time!"
"I have to try!" she yelled back.
"If you do this, you will be my daughter no longer! You will be nothing to me!"
"Nothing. Nothing! Nothing!" the skull screamed.
Vania stopped when she heard this. Her own father would refuse to care for her, she'd be completely and utterly on her own, wishing for love that would never come, but as she heard C.J.'s cries for his father who truly did love him and saw how hurt her father made Chompy, she didn't hesitate to jump into the pit.
"You made your choice," were the last words she heard from her father that day.
Well, I hope you guys liked that chapter. Leave a review if you'd like.
Anyway, have a great day/night!
#God'sNotDead
