Announcer voice: Today, on Way of the Dragon: Jinlong tries to escape a burning monastery! But how did it catch fire? Who is to blame for this?
Jinlong voice: Chapter three: The Burning of the Monastery of Spinjitzu.
Jinlong had never really considered herself a fast learner, but within 5 hours of getting her first real job, she had already learned a lot.
First of all, she wouldn't be going home anytime soon, seeing as the 4 dragons she'd been charged with couldn't make a portal to Kigana, because they'd apparently never heard of it.(What kind of dragon didn't know about the land of dragons?!) Jin tried to explain what it was, but apparently, it wasn't enough. She also learned that Dragon-Sitting was much harder than actually being a dragon. And, finally, she learned that teenage boys did indeed have massive appetites, just like her mother always said. Luckily she didn't have to cook for them, or clean up after.
A few days after she'd gotten the job, Jin was washing down the ice dragon, Shard, with cold water when she heard footsteps pounding down the stairs that lead to the dragon cabinets.
"Huh?" She asked, poking her head out. "What's going on?"
"Lord Garmadon's attacking Jamanakai Village!" Nya told her, following behind the 4 boys with Wu.
Helpful, Jin thought, once more frustrated with how little she knew about Ninjago. Such had been a common occurrence recently.
"What are you going to do?" She asked.
"Stop him, of course!" Cole cried, mounting the lighting dragon, but dropping what appeared to be a golden scythe.
"What's this?" Jin asked, picking it up with some difficulty. It was heavy, and despite what everyone said and her thin arms, she was pretty strong.
"Hey- don't touch that, kid," Cole said, snatching the scythe back, although he gave no explanation as to why.
After the 4 struggled onto their dragons, shiny golden weapons and all, they took off, albeit clumsily.
Nya sighed. "Will they ever reach their full potential?"
"In time," Wu said. "Maybe a long time, but in time."
"Uhm," Jin stared at both of them, wide-eyed. "'Full potential'? What is that? And what were those golden weapons? And-and why are they going towards danger? Why were they in those suits? Have I missed something here?"
"You didn't know?" Nya asked. "They're ninja."
"What?"
"They're ninja. You know, like the ancient warriors."
"Come, Jin," Wu said, seeing the girl's confusion. "I believe I have some explaining to do."
oOo
"Alright," Jin said once they'd been seated inside the monastery. "So, they're ninja. As in Shinobi. As in weapon wielding, butt-kicking fighters."
"Yes."
"And this explains the suits and gold weapons?"
"Not exactly," Wu explained. "Long before time had a name, the First Spinjitzu Master created Ninjago using 4 elemental weapons. But when he passed, a dark presence set out to collect them all- Lord Garmadon. So I, his brother, sought out to find 4 ninja to collect them first, for I knew that if these weapons- the Golden Weapons- fell into the wrong hands, it would spell the end of all that is good."
Jinlong blinked. She'd gotten stuck on First Spinjitzu Master. Who was that? What was Spinjitzu?
"Oh," Was all she could say. "So...you trained them?"
"I did, and still am," Wu said, nodding and sipping on a cup of tea.
"Good...job?"
The old man laughed quietly for a second, before becoming serious and looking Jin in the eye. It was then that the girl noticed his eyes- the exact same shade as smoke, filled with wisdom and knowledge from many years, but also great sadness and suffering.
"I feel there's something you're not telling us, Jin," He said kindly. "Is something troubling you?"
Now, at that moment, Jinlong wanted so badly to tell the old man of her predicament. That she was stranded and homesick, with no way to get back. That she was a dragon. But, something stopped her. Likely self-preservation, although her mother always said how she was lacking that.
"No, sir," She lied. "Everything's fine."
"Please," He said, standing up. "Call me Sensei."
oOo
Later that day, when the boys- ninja, Jin reminded herself- arrived back, they told some crazy tale about a kid who'd escaped his boarding school and tried to demand candy from the villagers.
"What did you do with him?" Jin asked absently, tying her hair back with a piece of twine to go to her evening chores.
"Hung him up on some sign-post," Jay said. "Kid had it coming."
"That's...mean," The girl muttered, walking towards the door. Once she was outside, she spoke louder, although just to herself. "I hope he's alright. He was probably hungry if he wasn't at his school."
All through her chores, and there were quite a few, Jin talked to the dragons, and herself.
"...and I'd like to think I'm finally their friend, you know? I do try and speak with them. I think I like Zane and Nya the most, and would very much like to be their friend." She rambled on as she fed the dragons, each with their own special kind of food.
"Of course you're their friend," Shard said in her calm, cooling voice.
"And you're our friend, too!" Rocky, the earth dragon, added.
Jin smiled. "Thank you. I do want to go home, though. My family must miss me."
oOo
The next few days were exciting- at least, for the ninja. Apparently, that kid they'd dealt with earlier had gone and awoken some ancient race and terrorized the village. They'd chased him off, again, though. Jin still felt bad for him, to be honest.
Speaking of feeling bad, the dragon also was sympathetic towards Zane. He was odd, sure, but the other boys constantly reminded him of this and laughed at his quirks(although, admittedly, some of them were funny). And, that night, they'd laughed at his pink apron(once more, kind of funny) and ended up throwing the food he'd made at each other, rather than eating it. A mess that poor Nya was tasked to clean up. Jin felt so bad that she volunteered to help.
"I don't know," She told the dragons the next morning, opening their stable so they could fly around and she could clean. "Maybe that's how it's just done in Ninjago."
"You really miss your home, huh?" Wisp, the lightning dragon, asked sympathetically as he flew out.
"Yes," Jin sighed, getting a pushbroom. "I do like it here, but...it's so different, and it does nott have my family. Or my friends from Kigana."
"Well," The fire dragon, Flame, said. "I'm sure you'll get home eventually."
Jinlong wondered about that as the dragons flew off and she started sweeping. Would she ever get home? Honestly, the dragon dreaded the thought of living in Ninjago for the rest of her life, but...what was she supposed to do? She'd never been taught to make a portal, and she was still too young, so she couldn't generate enough power.
As she thought, voices- odd, slithery voices- slowly floated down the stairs.
"Are you ssssure we're ssupossssed to do thisss?"
"Of courssse. Don't you trussst me?"
Jin frowned, setting her broom down. That didn't sound good. Both curious and suspicious, she began to creep slowly up the stairs, peeking over the last few. What she saw nearly took her breath away.
"What in all of Kigana..." The girl breathed, peering up at the creatures. "First Dragon, I think they're snakes."
Unfortunately for Jin, they were snakes with exceptionally good hearing, so talking really hadn't been a great idea. She was made aware of this when all the snakes, about 10 of them, turned their heads towards her simultaneously.
"Creepy," Jinlong said before getting up and bolting back down the stairs. She dashed into the empty stalls and grabbed the most lethal-looking object around.
"Back, overgrown lizards," She yelled, swinging her pushbroom around. "Stay back!"
"Hey!" One of the advancing creatures yelled back. "We're sssnakes, not lizards!"
"You have legs," Jin said, whacking them away with her broom. "Therefore, you're lizards!"
Now, the dragon would've liked to say that she easily defeated the lizard/snake-people with nothing but a broom and her wits. But no. In reality, she was quickly overpowered by the sheer number of them.
"H-hey!" She shouted as her hair was yanked back and her pushbroom wretched from her grasp. Jin struggled, put up the best fight she could, but she was bound to lose. Then- WHACK!
Everything went dark.
oOo
The smell of ocean water and the feeling of gentle, rhythmic rocking was all there was for Jin, until, slowly, voices started drifting into her consciousness.
"How's...better? ...woken up at all?"
"No, sh...same..."
Then, with tremendous effort, Jinlong opened her eyes to see a beautiful woman with long, dark hair and tears on her cheeks.
"Mother?"
Then, once more, there was nothing.
oOo
Jin woke with a gasp and immediately started coughing. She couldn't breathe, there was too much smoke, a- wait. Smoke?
The girl squinted through the smoke-induced tears and realized she was still in the dragon stable, but she was tied up. And there was fire. Curses.
"H-help!" Jin screamed, trying to get her lungs to work through the thick smoke. "Help me!"
She didn't hear anything, save for the fire, so she tried again, louder this time.
"Hey! I-I'm down here! Help me, please!"
For at least 5 minutes, Jin screamed for help, her throat growing rougher and the smoke thicker until she could only cough, wincing at the heat.
Well, she thought, half-delusional. I suppose this will be my grave.
Then, she heard voices. Familiar, teenage voices. Sounded like they were...yelling apologizes? No matter. Jin didn't intend to get cooked alive in a dragon stable. At least, not yet.
"HEY!" She screamed, forcing her voice to work. "HELP!"
Footsteps pounding down the stairs again.
"Jin!" Someone, probably Kai due to the redness of the blur that said that, cried, running forward and hauling her out into the open. The girl gasped, oxygen flooding her lungs, which just led to coughing.
Once she'd gotten her breath back, Kai untied her and the girl choked out her thanks.
"Don't mention it, kid," The spiky-haired boy said, but he was already heading back up the stairs. Reluctantly, Jin followed, and gasped once she saw the monastery...or rather, its remains.
"I-it was burnt," She gasped. "The- snake people," She must sound crazy.
But, oddly enough, no one seemed surprised or in disbelief. Just...sad.
"Hey," Jin coughed. "Where- where's Zane?"
No one answered her.
"Guys...?"
oOo
Jin frowned, although it wasn't because of their meal of mud newt. She was worried- really worried- for Zane. She hadn't gathered much information, but it'd been enough to deduce that, one, he wasn't dead, and two, he probably wasn't coming back. What in Kigana could have happened? The ninja had seemed as close as brothers.
"Not bad, for something that lives underground," Cole said, clearly trying to be optimistic. Jin admired that.
"Remember, we must be thankful for what we still have," Wu said, although he was obviously saddened.
"What do we have?" Cole asked, his optimistic facade dropping. "Our home is gone."
"You know, I don't miss our home," Kai said. "What I really miss is Zane."
"Yeah. I miss Zane."
"Zane?"
Jay looked at Nya. "Yeah, Zane. You know. White ninja? The smart, strange one?"
Nya shook her head, a smile breaking across her face as she pointed. "No- Zane!"
They all looked and, sure enough, there was their friend, walking towards them.
"Zane!" They all cried, running forward.
Jay sighed in relief. " Zane. We're so sorry for everything we've said. We're a team and that means we're all responsible."
"You don't need to apologize to me," The pale boy said, shaking his head.
"But what about all those awful things we said? Isn't that why you left?" Kai asked.
"Of course not," Zane said. "I saw the Falcon again and I followed him."
"That's our Zane," Cole said, hugging the taller boy, which prompted everyone(save for Jin, who was standing awkwardly to the side) to do the same.
After a little while more of them hugging and laughing in relief, Zane said, "Come. I want to show you what I've found. I think you will all be pleased."
And that was how the ninja, Nya, Wu, and Jin found out about their new home- a beautiful, large wooden ship with red and gold accents. Jinlong loved the color gold.
And, that night, as they all ate pie together(after getting the dragons settled), Jin decided she loved all of them, their goofy bantering, their endearingly awful manners, and their rough-around-the-edges love for each other. She loved them. Even if the feeling was not reciprocated.
Announcer voice: Next time, on Way of the Dragon: Jay's parents are attacked by snakes! Can the ninja do anything to stop this? Can Jinlong? Find out next time on Way of the Dragon!