Sorry for the long break I took, I've been working on two new stories. Well, they've both been released, but I'm still working on one of them. Anyway, this is the new chapter of "Help her!"
Enjoy.
Replies to reviews:
SJtiger: no and yes. No, you didn't miss Nya's explanation, since that will come in this chapter. Yes, we heard what the prophecy said. Heck, I even named the chapter 'Prophecy' XD it's okay hat you forgot though. Even I had to go through again and check that I had included it. By the way, guys, sorry for that really bad poetry in the prophecy. I hate poetry with every bone in my body, which is a nightmare when you consider the fact that I want to be a singer-songwriter and I suck at writing songs. :(
Dyphen: aww. I'm sorry to hear that you're feeling down, but I'm glad that my chapter cheered you up. Just know that if you ever want to talk about something, just message me. I'll always be there for ya, pal! ;) Anyway, glad you enjoyed the chapter. Just know that things will get better. Even when the wave goes down, it will always come back up again, as will your mood. I promise ;)
Wyvern42: I'm sorry that this reply is late. Thanks for the review, and I'm glad that you're glad that Nya's back. You'll get your reason, just keep scrolling lmao.
Okay, now onto the chapter! Enjoy!
Chapter 16 (JEEZ WE'VE COME A LONG WAY BOIS!)
A month after Nya's reappearance, she still refuses to give an explanation of her return. Until one night. Everyone has been pushing her for the last week, night after night, and she has finally snapped.
"It's a long story, so sit tight." She warns before launching into a monologue. "I fell down, yes, but I managed to grab a ledge as I fell. The fog covered my descent, so you guys couldn't see me land. When PIXAL came down to find me, I thought she was Steven in his giant mech, so I hid, and didn't say anything. The ledge was just above a crevice in the rock face, which was big enough for a few people to sleep in, so I spent a few nights there. I then tried to climb around the mountain to get to the steps to climb back up to the monastery. There were no handholds or footrests above me, so I couldn't just climb upwards. I mean, I'm not a dragon. I don't have claws that dig into rock that will help me climb a cliff. Anyway, it took a few days for me to get around, and my arms, back and legs were killing me from my landing on the rock. Also, I had to keep stopping every time PIXAL came down to find me because I thought she was Steven or Claire coming to find me, to finish the job. So I would hide during the day and sleep through the night in any gaps in the rock I could find that would hold me. The stairs aren't easy to climb at the best of times, so try doing it with no energy, a battered and bruised body and a dwindling will to live. I was hardly sleeping, and I've never had my energy drained so quickly. So I came back up. The fact that Claire and Steven had been patrolling the area anyway hadn't helped me out. So finally, I reached the top, with no energy. I barely managed to lift my arm to knock. I honestly thought that that movement would be my last. At least if it was, I would have been able to die knowing that I was home and that I would actually get a decent funeral, instead of just rotting in a cave in the mountain to be discovered in thirty years." Nya's explanation leaves everyone shocked into silence. Jay stares open-mouthed at his yang, uncharacteristically lost for words. Skylor can not find her voice either.
Everyone jumps when laughter fills the silent air. Kai.
"How in the name of the First Spinjitzu Master did you think that PIXAL was Steven?" He giggles. "His mech is, like, twice the size of PIXAL's!" Nya rolls her eyes in sync with Lloyd.
"Well, she was really close to me,so her mech looked so much bigger than it is, and I was so tired, my vision was messed up." Kai still laughs. "You try hidin our there for a week after nearly dying from the cold, thirst and starvation, not to mention the impact of the fall! I'm allowed to think I'm about to be captured or killed!" The Smith siblings end up in a full-on row, and Skylor excuses herself from the room, trying to suppress her own chuckles. Once again, she steps out into the courtyard and gazed around at the twilight above her. I understand why Nya loves this time of day, but I still prefer the sunrise. The air is cool against her skin, and she lifts her arms slightly to welcome it. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, taking in as much of the fresh evening air at once as she can.
"I knew you'd be out here again." A voice pipes up from behind Skylor. She knows that voice all too well, and it certainly isn't welcome here after what the owner of the voice has done to her little sister-in-law.
"You couldn't live with your own failure to kill Nya." Skylor replies, her voice echoing in the courtyard. She opens her eyes, but keeps her back to the voice. "Where did that bring you? Back to me." She finally turns her head and glares upwards at her younger adopted sister. Claire sits on the roof of the monastery, Steven beside her. She returns Skylor's stare, and they burn into each other's eyes for a few seconds before Claire breaks the eye contact. Weak.
"We never intended to kill Nya." Claire announces as she stands up. "We only wanted to take her in for questioning."
"Liar!" Skylor shouts, refusing to hold her fury in any longer. "You wanted to recruit her! You wanted to do what Chen did to Kai during the Tournament of Elements! But guess what? Newsflash, the ninja won't betray one another! They're family! That's what family is supposed to do for each other!" Claire glares daggers into Skylor's eyes, and Skylor reflects them, sending them flying back through the air into the flesh of the one who threw them. Claire shudders at the force in the eye contact. She drops from the roof, landing in front of Skylor.
"You only wanted to bring Nya into the darkness. But she'll never give in to the darkside." Skylor is confident in Nya, just as she should have been in Kai during her father's tournament. I will not be wrong this time.
"Oh she will. In time." Claire replies slyly, and Skylor has to fight herself to stop a chill from shaking her entire body from tip to toe. Nya will never leave us behind. She'll always fight with us. Not against us. I swear.
Claire reaches her left hand up, and Steven lifts his feet off the roof, hovering in the air with his jet pack. This is my chance. Reacting quicker than she ever knew she could, Skylor summons a fireball in her hand, using Kai's power against her ex, something she has done plenty of times. She hurls the flame at him, and he doesn't have time to move. The fire smacks him in the chest, sending him backwards from the force. Skylor then turns her attention to Claire, who flings herself at Skylor. The master of Amber barely has time to react, but Cole, Lloyd and Zane come bursting out of the monastery, heading the shouts and yells from the conversation and fight. Together, the four elemental masters grab Claire and Lloyd thrusts Vengestone handcuffs onto her wrists. Cole then leaps up into the roof, firing rocks and earth towards the boy with the jet pack. Steven ducks and soars off without a single glance backwards to Claire. The ninja were successful.
Claire is held behind more Vengestone bars inside the monastery. Skylor's reassurances to the others about Claire's lack of powers fall on deaf ears, so her cuffs and cage stop the flow of something she doesn't have. The sight of her adopted sister scowling at her from behind her jail bars makes Skylor laugh every time she sees Claire, and it makes her more resentful by the day.
"Stop, drop and drag me into place..." Claire mutters under her breath as she is pushed into her cage in the corner of the room.
"And lock the fire escapes!" Skylor calls over her shoulder to Lloyd, who quickly runs to lock any other doors in the walls, except the main door in and out of the room. Skylor slowly turns her head back to Claire, and she finds the younger girl right in her face.
"I'll break your pretty face..." she growls, and Skylor shoves her into her cell, slamming the door shut behind her. She locks the door and hold the key tightly in her hand before passing it to Zane, who puts it in one of he many secret compartments his metal body has.
Evan after two weeks, no information comes out of Claire about a base or a team, despite the questions from the ninja and their friends, so they end up dropping the idea of interrogating her, instead deciding to simply keep her behind bars for the rest of her life. That way, no one else in Ninjago would have to face the wrath of Claire, her boyfriend and 'the traitors', whoever they are. However, drama follows Claire everywhere she goes, and she and Skylor are fighting day after day. It's a nightmare for everyone else in the monastery, but they soon learn to block it out.
One morning, about three weeks after Claire's capture, Lloyd decides to call a group meeting. The team, including PIXAL and Skylor, huddle around the table, discussing tactics for finding Steven and his team. Zane recommends sending the Falcon out to search the entirety of Ninjago, and that is the plan that gets supported the most. That same night, the Falcon doesn't return, merely sending a message to the monastery's new screen in the briefing room, where Claire is being held. The ninja and team all watch through the Falcon's eyes as it soars over Ninjago, circling above one field. After a closer inspection, however, the man the Falcon had been watching turns out to not be Steven, just someone who slightly resembles him. Another week slowly passes until the Falcon returns to the monastery. Zane welcomes the mechanical bird back, and Nya notices a small sheet of paper clutched in one of its silver talons. Kai pulls it from the bird's grasp when Nya tells him to, and he passes it to her. Nya unfolds the paper, and Skylor walks over to her while the rest of the team just turns to look at her as she reads the paper out.
"Modern Day Cain. Social Climb. Do It All The Time." Nya reads, her brow furrowing. "What does it mean?" She raises her eyes to look at Skylor, who shrugs and takes the note from Nya. Skylor silently reads the message again and again, checking for any spelling errors or things hidden in the words. She realises that the first letters of each word are capitalised, and she points it out to Nya as they return to the table. Skylor puts the sheet of paper down gently, and the two girls examine it for any hidden messages. After two hours, it hits Skylor.
"There isn't a hidden message!" She exclaims, and Nya looks at her in shock after her sudden outburst of noise.
"That's what I was thinking, but you didn't need to shout it out loud." Nya replies, dropping her gaze back to the words on the paper.
"No, I mean that they don't have a secret word or something. They share one thing in common instead!" Skylor is smiling like a little kid, and Nya raises one eyebrow. "Modern Day Cain, Social Climb and Do It All The Time are all songs! I used to listen to them all the time as a young teen! I just can't remember who sung them..." Nya gapes at Skylor.
"Of course... I don't know how but they found me!" Now it's Skylor's turn to raise an eyebrow in confusion. "That's the secret message! I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME is a band, and they made Modern Day Cain, Social Climb and Do It All The Time!" Nya copies Skylor's smile, and the redhead soon returns the gesture.
"Nice to know we had the same taste in music as young teens!" Skylor laughs.
"What do you mean, 'young teens'?" Nya chuckles. "I still love those songs!" After a few minutes of pure gigfles, the two girls regain their ability to talk again.
"Okay, so the message that Steven was trying to send to Claire was 'I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME'. I really regret telling them both about those songs and that band." Skylor gets them both back on track.
"Oh, you clever little things." Claire speaks up from behind them, and Skylor silently sighs. "You sycophantic teens."
"What a precious basket case..." Skylor says in a pleasant tone to Nya, who holds back a laugh. Claire snarls at the two girls.
"Now shut your dirty mouth!" She shouts, and Nya can't hold back her snicker, letting a small chuckle escape her lips. "If I could burn this town..." Claire mumbles under her breath, and Skylor furiously turns around, charging at Claire. Nya holds her breath, glad that there are bars separating them, and that Claire has been cuffed.
"I wouldn't hesitate to smile while you suffocate and die!" Skylor exclaims, finally able to tell her sister what she has kept bottled up for so many years. "That would be just fine, and what a lovely time that it would surely be, so bite your tongue and choke yourself to sleep!" Skylor storms away from the cage, standing beside the table again. Nya does not dare herself to say anything, so she stays silent, running the precious minute through her head one more time. That escalated quickly. Skylor is thinking the same thing, though other furious thoughts echo it, many of them containing choice words about her younger sister. Nya tries to gently pull Skylor back into the conversation, and the other ninja are all paralysed by what they just witnessed, all huddled close together in one corner, wanting to be as far away from Skylor's rage as they can be.
"So we know that 'I don't know how, but they found me.' is Steven's message, which means that Falcon must have seen him yesterday. Either that, or Steven saw the Falcon. But how does he know that Zane has the Falcon? How does he know that it is with us?" Everyone else is still silent, and Nya feels like she's talking to a bunch of brick walls until Skylor shrugs and mumbles that she doesn't know. Jay, Kai, Lloyd and Cole all mimic her, but Zane and PIXAL remain silent.
"How good of a hacker is he?" Zane asks out of nowhere, and Skylor's head shoots up.
"Well... I don't know. I hadn't seen him in years until he turned up in that alleyway in New Ninjago City when we fought him the first time. He always told me how he wanted to become the world's best and most feared hacker though. He bragged about how good he was and how he would go on to hack into anything and everything, and how no one would be safe from his hacking skills. It was all absolute crap, but he would never shut up about it. Heck, he just wouldn't shut up. He was worse than Jay, and that's saying something."
"Hey!" Jay exclaims, offended, causing everyone except Zane, PIXAL and Claire to laugh.
"Anyway," Skylor continues when the laughter dies down, "why is that important?"
"Because if he really did go on to keep hacking," Zane replies, worry and concern lacing his every word, "he may have found out about the Falcon by hacking into my system. He may have done it while I slept, so I would have no idea he was doing it, leaving me vulnerable. If that's the case, however, we are in grave danger, since my database contains a vast amount of information about Ninjago and this team, including all of our allies, our enemies, our fears, our weaknesses, our bases, and more. He may even have the locations of things like the Teapot of Tyrahn, the Realm Crystal, the Sword of Sanctuary, the Armour of the Golden Master or the Time Blades, all of which could be used against us."
"What's the Teapot of Tyrahn?" Kai asks, oblivious to the looks that Nya and Jay shoot each other from either side of him.
"It's a magical teapot that contains a djinn, which is basically an evil genie that twists your words to benefit him and make you sleep with the fish. Luckily, no one's seen it for years, and I'm pretty sure that it'll stay that way. I hope so anyway..." Nya quickly explains before Zane can speak. Her voice slowly fades out at the end, while she and Jay eye each other with concern in their eyes. Skylor thinks they're hiding something from all of them, but she says nothing - now isn't the time.
"Well then, let's just hope that Steven didn't hack you..." Kai says meekly, and Skylor has to bite the inside of her cheek to hold in a laugh. It's just the way he said it...
"Yes." Zane replies, fixing Kai with a look that could kill. "Let's."
A/N: hey guys! This was the new chapter, I hope you all enjoyed it. I've just released the first chapter to a new story I'm writing called We Aren't Heroes, so go check that out if you haven't already. Don't forget to review this or that, and if you do read and review We Aren't Heroes, make sure to tell me if I should stay as close to canon as possible, or divert a bit. Thanks for reading this chapter! See you all again soon!
By the way guys, don't be annoyed if you didn't get that reference at the end of the previous chapter about the ear rape American National Anthem. It's an MCR fan joke. Don't worry about it guys XD
-LunaPikazard.
