The sixth coil was complete. The Green Ninja lay gasping on the floor of his jar, unaware of this marker in the advancement of their plans.

Well, whatever Chen's plan was, anyway. Clouse himself was quite happy to be done collecting those six coils so that he could start experimenting with Green Energy to advance his own ideas. His current favorite was to find a way to combine the jar and coil, making the boy into a portable core for a giant doomsday device. Maybe add some legs and arms and make the device into a transportable mech!

This morning's little show by the baby Garmadon had been fascinating! Watching the boy experiment with his powers, running through many of the simulations Clouse would have ordered him to, if he thought for a moment that the ninja would listen. It was incredible, witnessing the Green Energy copying other elements - and yet, in a way completely different from Amber's replication. It wasn't a perfect copy, not even really an imitation. It took on a different form, a different purpose, yet it remained Green. Even as it changed states, changed temperatures, changed behavior.

And the way it had interacted, almost played with Amber - truly fascinating! Not even Chen had been able to interrupt when he came in to the observation room to check up on Clouse's progress and his pet's condition, only to find his daughter was shirking her duties to experiment with the Green Ninja. They couldn't hear what the children were talking about, but the results of their toying around were quite clear and extremely interesting.

Man, Clouse wanted to make Green into a bomb (well, more of a grenade - didn't want to accidentally kill their prize, after all). Or maybe a ray gun. He bet he could level Ninjago City in one go with either of those. Maybe there was a way to force the boy to focus the power into a beam, or the opposite and compress more and more until it could explode on impact? Now that would be a sight to behold! But it was unlikely the child would cooperate, so he'd have to drain the Energy and figure out how to do just that on his own.

And if the Ninja came after them to recover their stolen leader, give Clouse a couple days and a few more coils, and he was sure he could have up an invincible shield around the entire island. But they shouldn't have to worry about that. Skylor reported that they were still searching Ninjago City.

The ultimate power. Clouse couldn't stop his giggle. It was stupidly impossible. A myth. A legend. Truly the only purpose for it would be to take on the Overlord, thus why it had been so deeply dormant. It probably would only have come forth in the awakening of the Great Evil that even the First Spinjitzu Master has been unable to defeat. Or perhaps in a more minor form, as a shield or something, in the event of its wielder facing an otherwise lethal situation.

~~ ! Go Ninja Go ! ~~

"Hey guys," greeted Skylor as a depressed looking quintet of teenage Ninja slumped through the door into her father's restaurant. "No luck?"

"None," groaned Kai, apparently the only one up for speaking.

Without bothering to ask if they needed menus, she gestured them to their usual corner booth. They flopped into place, obviously exhausted both mentally and physically.

"Your usuals?" They all nodded, mumbling thanks and appreciation.

Skylor disappeared to put their order in for the kitchen and returned quickly with the group's usual drinks. Well, usual since Lloyd had gone missing - they certainly hadn't used to order espresso drinks this late. She also had a tray of leftover egg tarts, custard bread, and sesame seed balls from the lunch rush that she brought over, free of charge.

She really is awesome, Kai thought as he took a deep chug of his caramel macchiato. The caffeine and sugar did wonders for his headache. He snagged an egg tart before Cole inhaled all their free goodies.

Skylor took a seat at the table, her own regular coffee in hand. "Seriously, guys, is everything going ok?"

"We haven't found Lloyd, or any leads," grouched Cole, shoving a sesame seed ball whole into his mouth. "Do we look ok?" The sarcasm was bitingly harsh, which wasn't like him at all.

"But you must have combed the whole city by now!" she fretted. "What about the east side? And I thought you said there were some petty crooks that Lloyd -"

"East side was a bust," whispered Jay, barely audible. "Almost got myself mugged for nothing. Stupid wannabe gangsters. Just upset they can't work for Garmadon anymore."

"And all of the criminals we had a hand in capturing are accounted for," added Zane sadly. "I personally walked through Ninjago Prison and matched every criminal Lloyd has ever put away to their prison ID, personal ID, and my own memories. Nya even came along, in case my memory files had been corrupted somehow."

Nya shook her head angrily, not saying anything. Probably for the better, as she looked really close to starting a fight just for some sort of release.

Skylor looked down at her coffee, swirling it sadly. There went those tragic eyes she usually sought too hard to hide. The eyes that reminded Kai so much of Lloyd's, before they became friends. Empty, miserable, devoid of any hope for change - yet she still tried so hard to be pleasant to people.

It was probably those sad eyes when she wasn't looking at anyone, coupled with that not quite sincere half-smile when she did, that had first caught Kai's attention. All these weeks later, and he still was no clearer about the reason for those eyes - but at least, for a while, they'd started getting real smiles out of her. Until Lloyd was taken.

"Well, the least I can do is make sure you guys eat. Since you have no intention of sleeping," she lightly teased, getting to her feet. She set her hand on Kai's shoulder for just a moment, meeting his eyes, something oddly hopeful but genuinely scared in them. He tried to smile back, hoping to return her attempt at comfort, but just couldn't.

Kai sadly followed her with his eyes as she headed to the kitchen to check on their orders and those of the few tables occupied in her section right now. To think, last week his greatest worry had been whether she'd say yes to a date with him. He looked away.

The five Ninja sat broodingly in their booth, overly aware of the space between Zane and Kai where Lloyd usually sat. But none of them could quite suggest spacing themselves out a little more to fill the gap.

Skylor arrived a few minutes later with a large platter of noodles and smaller platters of barbecue chicken, spicy beef, and dumplings. She passed out the plates and they all dug in.

"I'm sure he's fine," she tried, a little desperately, to comfort them. "Any time now, you guys will get the lead you've been waiting for."

Dead silence answered her. She couldn't bring herself to say any more and slipped away, softly saying something about cleaning some tables before the dinner rush.

They greedily ate in that awkward, mournful silence, not having had anything since breakfast.

Kai felt like crying. Maybe he just should. In this particular situation, he doubted even his sister would tease him about it. The last few days had been just the worst.

Another pointless day of searching. Four days of pain and fear and worry, starting from that terrifying call from Koko that she couldn't find Lloyd.

Lloyd never left home without telling his mom. He had always made at least an excuse before rushing out. More than that, someone had silently broken into their home. The glass from their kitchen window had been painstakingly and completely silently cut out and placed on the counter. But nothing was missing - nothing but Lloyd.

Koko has explained that miserable first day that nothing out of the ordinary had happened the previous night. He'd just come home really tired. Actually gone to bed without taking a shower, crashed without even changing out of his day clothes.

Normally the police wouldn't really be interested in a teen only just discovered missing, especially in the particular area where Koko lived, and especially especially for anyone with the last name Garmadon. But now they knew Lloyd Garmadon was the Green Ninja, the core of their (not-so-) Secret Ninja Force, one of the heroes who regularly had risked their own lives to protect the city.

It made sense for a rebellious teenager to skip out on his single mom. It did not make sense for the Green Ninja who had recently reformed his evil warlord father to disappear on his mother, to leave his phone behind, to not contact any other Ninja or his master or said reformed (somewhat - at least he no longer invaded the city) warlord.

The only answer was that Lloyd Garmadon, the Green Ninja, had been kidnapped.

The police immediately began investigating. The news station was more than happy to release a statement requesting any information on the missing Green Ninja or who might have taken him (as well as to discuss Lloyd Garmadon and his personal life endlessly). The Ninja ditched school to go house to house asking for help. Lord Garmadon sent out his armies to search the city (which ended up being more trouble than anything, but hey, he was trying). Koko hadn't gone in to work, staying glued to her apartment and phone in case Lloyd managed to escape and tried to contact her or came home. Wu had been contacting old friends and associates to ask if anyone had been showing an uncomfortable interest in his nephew.

So here they were, once again gathered for dinner at Chen's Noodle House. It was pretty centrally located from all their homes, and fairly close to Lloyd's. Another unproductive day, with absolutely nothing to show. Rumors were beginning to start up, some quite nasty such as the nonsensical one that Lloyd had run away after being infected with his father's evil.

"Is- is he even alive?" stammered out a dismal Jay to the quiet table.

Nya raised her hand to slap him, but Cole grabbed it and shook his head.

"Don't hate the only person willing to say it," Cole said softly, barely above a whisper. "We're all beginning to wonder if Lloyd is..."

"I don't! Because he's not!" growled Nya fiercely, still glaring at a now trembling Jay, shrinking away from her. But the hot tears plus her violent reaction to Jay's question betrayed her anxiety at just such an outcome.

"It is very unlikely Lloyd's captors would murder him after so much effort to capture and hide him," comforted Zane, staring into his water glass. "The odds are against it. They took him for a reason. They haven't contacted the city or Koko or Garmadon or even us with any demands, so they wanted him, his person."

"Isn't that worse?" choked out Kai. And his tears broke free. At least he wasn't sobbing, so he just covered his eyes with a hand while he fought for control.

None of the Ninja had an immediate answer to that. One of the first lessons Wu had taught them was to not be afraid of death. But at the same time he had prepared them for capture, interrogation, torture. They were all very well aware of what could be going on.

Cole groaned, rubbing his temples as if trying to get his thoughts to work better. "None of this makes sense!" he grumbled. "Why Lloyd? And why couldn't he fight back? Why hasn't he escaped by now? How can no one have seen or heard anything?"

Jay nervously fidgeted, tapping his fingers against the table. The others had long since become used to Jay's anxiety and let him have his outlet. It didn't really irritate them anymore.

"Maybe we're looking at this wrong?" he murmured, frowning. "Instead or thinking so much about what happened that we missed after we split up that night, maybe we should think about before. What did Lloyd do that day? If he was drugged or something, it would explain why Koko said he was so tired. Why there was no sign of a struggle."

"We would have noticed!" immediately shot down Nya. "We were with him all day! School, Ninja training, a movie, then we came here for a late dinner. We would have noticed if someone messed with him or he started acting weird!"

"Not necessarily," inserted Zane, sounding thoughtful. "There are any number of drugs that could cause drowsiness hours after application. Several concoctions could even ensure complete unconsciousness for a specific amount of time, depending on dosage."

He blinked, then frowned, obviously going through the data in his head.

"Most of them have to be digested."

As if waiting for that cue, their waitress Skylor dropped off the bill at Kai's elbow. "Whenever you guys are ready," she said softly, already on her way to another table.

They'd eaten at Chen's that night.

Kai was the first to recover, shakily reaching for the bill. On the top in cute, cursive script was a large, "Call me!" with a heart and a phone number beneath. Oddly forward for Skylor, and extremely suspicious considering Zane's last comment.

He shook his head wearily. No, no. He was just being paranoid. Almost absently he flipped it over to see the receipt below, when he noticed there was small block writing on the back.

"Don't react. Being watched. Want to help. Top of Lloyd's apt bldg. 7:10pm."

Only Kai's ninja training kept him from freaking out.

"Finally got Skylor's number and I can't even enjoy it," he complained, casually passing the receipt (and note) over to Zane. As Zane emotionlessly looked it over, Kai pulled out his wallet and put some bills on the table to cover himself. Everyone else did the same, casually looking over the 'receipt' and putting enough cash to cover their share of the meal and tip onto the table.

"It's only five, guys. Want to check in with Koko?" asked Nya.

They all agreed, only freaking out once they were safely in Koko and Lloyd's apartment with the door shut.

~~ ! Go Ninja Go ! ~~

Skylor was terrified. Almost paralyzed with fear. Fear of betraying her father, of Clouse's experiments, of Lord Garmadon and Lady Irondragon and vengeful Ninja.

Zane had all but figured it out. They were probably right now analyzing her note and the revelation that Lloyd was probably drugged at dinner. Probably by his waitress. Her. Who had been subtly flirting with Kai and getting to know all of them for weeks.

Wu and Garmadon would probably make the connection immediately to her father, even if they didn't know Chen had a daughter. They certainly remembered him, and had been visibly uncomfortable the first time they had joined the Ninja for dinner there.

So. She'd written 7:10 to meet them all. She got off at 7, and allowed 10 minutes to change clothes, sneak off into a dark alley, slip on a black sweater, cap, and gloves, climb a fire escape, and finally make her way over to Lloyd's apartment building.

They were obviously going to ambush her. Corner her, grab her, probably tie her up and haul her into Irondragon's apartment for questioning. Maybe even the Ninja headquarters or Garmadon's volcano.

She actually shivered and almost turned back at the thought of Lord Garmadon, finally getting his hands on his son's captor. She'd heard his 'public announcements' that instead of encouraging people to come forward probably scared them off. (Not that anyone knew anything.) He'd probably boil her alive if no one stopped him.

She'd better give the Ninja a damn good reason to stop him.