A/N: Hello there! Time for us to question the logic of either our favorite ninjas or the mysterious Spiritia. Your choice. Seriously though…WHAT'S GOING THROUGH THEIR MINDS?! Vandalism, really guys?
Warning: This story contains a high level of hilariousness and must be read with reader's discernment.
Disclaimer: I own Nothing! Except my OCs! The vandalism was something that had to happen after I told Stormyskies8 where the third pendant was hidden…she pointed out that they would have to, uh, read and find out please!
Chapter Seven: Have you ever played Break the Ice? Yeah, you don't actually break the ice, guys!
Cole glided across the ice rink, his mind more on puzzling over the most recent riddle than what Mr. Powell was telling them about ice skating. Jay zipped past Cole, skating backwards as he swiftly denied the ice a chance to trip him up. Zane was next to Nya has she slowly skated along, uncertain about her footing. Kai was still by the wall, clinging to it as he tried to get his feet back under him.
"Kai! Try moving away from the wall! This is simple gliding. Figure skating is next week with Ms. Powers!" Mr. Powell called out has he skated over to the unbalanced teen.
Kai gulped loudly and visibly, before moving away from the wall. Immediately, he face planted into the ice. Mr. Powell sighed, but before he could get any closer, Jay zipped up to Kai, followed closely by Cole and the others.
"You ok Kai?" Cole helped his friend back to his feet.
Kai stared at the ice, his eyes round with shock. "Ice."
Jay knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "Umm, yes? This is an Ice Skating Rink."
Kai fervently shook his head at his friends. "No. Ice." He jabbed his finger down at the ice as if that clarified everything up.
Zane frowned, worry creasing his brow. "Do you need ice Kai? You did hit your head pretty hard."
Kai scoffed, pointing to the ice again. "No. Ice."
Nya placed a hand on her brother's shoulder, concern flooding her eyes. "Kai? Speak to me. Do you need to visit Neuro?"
Kai shook his head again. "No." Reaching up, he grabbed Zane by the head and forced him down to the ice. "Ice. The riddle's answer is ice!"
"Oh…" "Uh, why didn't I think of that with my intelligence?" "Seriously?! We could have found the next treasure trove in one of our classrooms!? Come on!" "Kai, you idiot! I thought you had severely hurt your head!"
Cole paused, suddenly highly concerned about a little fact that none of the others were aware of… "Umm, how are we supposed to, you know? Get the chest out?"
Everyone paused, before looking down at the ice, where the word ice was neatly engraved into it. They knew it had to be the riddle's answer because it was the same handwriting as the word electricity. Zane shifted his weight, worry dancing in his eyes. "We'll discuss this later. With Lloyd. He's been helping us from the beginning. It seems wrong to leave him in the dark."
Mr. Powell suddenly cleared his throat loudly. "I still have a class to teach here. Up and at them. Come now, you can't stare at the ice forever you know. That picture's been there forever. It's not going anywhere."
"Picture!?" Cole and his friends quickly double-checked what they were looking at. Just like with their English class assignments where they had to distinguish between 'chicken scratch' and actual English, the lines of the letters wiggled and squirmed till it formed a strange looking picture. Zane sucked in a sharp breath, before whispering to the rest of the friends. "Hieroglyphics. A written language that uses pictures instead of letters. Not sure why we can read them though. It is even older than our ancestors' chicken scratch. Curious really."
They slowly stood up and skated away. Though they each kept returning to that spot, staring at the Hieroglyphic as if it were the most fascinating thing they've ever seen. Which it was since they knew that chances of another treasure chest hiding underneath the ice were extremely high…
…
Lloyd was just about bouncing. "This is amazing! We know where the next treasure trove is!"
Nya frowned as she folded her arms across her chest. "Yeah, but we can't exactly break the ice open to get it though."
Lloyd deflated at hearing that, realizing that the only girl in their group had a point. Jay tapped his chin, a thoughtful look on his face. "What we need is an excuse. Like the serpentine with the rocks. Still can't believe Sensei Wu got mad at us for that. We were only trying to defend the school while everyone was gone!"
Kai clapped a hand over his mouth, effectively shutting him up. "What we need to do is go over there, and see if we can't brainstorm an idea on what to do."
Murmurs of agreement promptly rippled through the group.
~A few Hours after Lights Out~
"Well, that just about wraps it up…so we'll be headed to bed now." Cole could feel his cheeks burning up as Kai finished explaining why the school's ice rink was completely destroyed. Honestly though, it was the truth. Minus the whole treasure hunting part of course. Garmadon looked confused about the lightning shooting jet though… eh. The blundering skeletons should be enough to confirm that they were telling the truth. One of the said skeletons walked past, kicking its head, which it was also chasing. Multiple skeletons were frozen in place. Some were trying to put out different fires. Others were half drowned in water. Some were standing around spazzing out from electricity coursing their bodies. Some were even caught between boulders. All in all, it was a disaster zone.
Sensei rubbed his forehead, his eyebrows knitted together in puzzlement. "Detention, all five of you. Lloyd, Zane, your parents will decide on your groundings." Zane whimpered at that, he typically didn't break rules. "As for the rest of you, I will have to contact your parents about this behavior."
The friends groaned, but didn't complain since they technically had been caught breaking a school rule, while destroying school property.
~Let's check on the Spiritia, shall we? ~
Earth slowly blinked, before turning to face the others. "Did we miss something? Or did what I think just happen; happened?"
Lightning timidly raised his hand. "All in favor of winding back to where this all started, say Aye."
Fire immediately whacked his fellow spiritia. "We're not a democracy. If you want to do something, you do it without voting." Fire reached out and quickly rewinded the orb. All of them were puzzled about what just happened.
Water shook her head. "Guys? If memory serves correctly, Earth and Lightning had something to do with what happened just now."
~Flashback! (The friends) ~
"Nya? Are you sure this is a good idea? It's past lights out!" Zane whispered worriedly for the umpteenth time.
Nya flicked her flashlight back so that it was shining on him. "Positive. Several of the older kids are constantly in there practicing their skating at the more convenient times. So, we have to take the inconvenient approach."
Kai arched his eyebrow at that. "Right. Nothing like sneaking out of our rooms, past lights out. You do know we're gonna get in a whole lot of trouble if we get caught? Right?"
Nya stubbornly turned her flashlight forward. "Then we won't get caught."
Cole groaned as he buried his head into his hands. "Nya…don't ever say that! You'll jinx us!"
Zane, who was carrying a sleepy Lloyd, suddenly snapped his head up, his eyes full of anxiety. "We're here. Let's try not to damage the door, or leave signs that we were here."
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the friends as they froze staring at the cold, thick door that lead to the ice rink… the thick supposed to be closed door that is. Alarmed, the friends did the only logical thing to do in this kind of situation, they charged head first into unidentified danger. Surprisingly, the ice rink was devoid of life. After shrugging their shoulders, they rushed over to the area with the hieroglyphic for ice. Once there, they started a staring contest with it.
Kai shifted slightly, worry creasing his brow. "Umm? Now what do we do?" No later than the question left his mouth, than Cole's pendant, which was in view for everyone to see, suddenly started glowing.
Cole jumped, before reaching up and catching a gold colored scythe that fell from…out of the pendant? "Ok…I guess we can use this to break the ice up to get the chest." With that said; Cole swung the scythe experimentally, flinching when it hit the ice hard, thudding loudly, while visible cracks shot across the ice.
Lloyd lifted his hands up to cover his ears briefly. "Cole…we need something quieter than that!"
Jay's pendant then started glowing. Only instead of another weapon popping out, a… jet jumped out? Everyone stopped to stare at it, it was blue with lightning sparking all around it, then turned to stare at Jay. Nya placed her hands on her hips. "Jay…that is not quieter than a scythe. That is noisier."
Jay promptly protested, waving his hands around wildly. "It wasn't me! It was the pendant!"
Zane scratched the back of his head. "Should we be concerned that we are potentially looking for more magical pendants that we don't even know how to use?"
They all looked to each other before quickly shrugging. "Nah."
…
Zane say the chest down next to the hole in the ice. A small frown crossed his face as he vaguely wondered what they were going to do about the giant hole in the ice.
"Thanks for doing the work for us!" A bony hand snagged the chest suddenly. Startled, they looked up to see skeletons posed and ready to fight.
"Seriously!?" Cole yelled as he sprung to his feet, the scythe still in his hand.
Jay scrambled into his jet, to see if it couldn't be used to help as well. "Cool. There's a button in here that's labeled lightning laser. Should I push it?"
Kai yelped as one of the skeletons tackled him to the ground. Without thinking about it, Kai clenched his fist, sending fire searing the armor the skeleton was wearing. Nya started in surprise, not expecting her older brother to shot shooting fire out of his fingers. It wasn't long until Zane figured out that he could freeze anything he touches, Jay could either use the jet to shoot lightning, or his fingers. Cole was burying them as quickly as they could, earth, dust and rocks, shooting everywhere. Nya herself was spraying water, flooding the ice rink which was breaking up as they fought. Lloyd somehow summoned a giant explosive green ball of light that destroyed several of the skeletons. A four armed skeleton grabbed the chest and left, laughing to himself. Zane watched him go with the tiniest of smirks on his face.
"Retreat! I have what we came for!" Samukai yelled as he charged off to who knows where.
Several of the skeletons were able to follow him out of there. Of course, most of them were still stuck, or trying to put out the fires. Zane's friends looked to each other, disappointment dancing in their eyes. They had lost the chest before they had ever opened it. With a flash of light, the scythe and jet both disappeared again.
Nya sighed, tears pricking at her eyes. "We better get back to bed."
"Bed sounds like a good idea, since that is where you're supposed to be." Misako suddenly appeared in the doorway, with Gramadon and Sensei Wu. All of them had their arms folded.
Lloyd took an instinctive step backwards, guilt flooding his eyes. "Duh duh duh. We're in trouble now. Hi Mom, Dad…Uncle…umm, it's not what it looks like?"
"Oh really? Then what does it look like to you?" Sensei Wu frowned, disappointment blazing in his eyes.
~What is Happening Now~
Cole flung himself on his bed, disappointment flashing in his eyes. "We failed. The pendants must be even more important than what we thought 'cause they were after this one."
Kai sucked in a deep breath, worry suddenly flaring into his eyes. "Man…the serpentine must have been after the pendants too. We really need to pick up our game. Who knows how many more are hidden around the place."
Zane sat down on the edge of his bed, a wry smile on his face. "Well then. It really should be a good thing that they just got an empty chest."
Nya, who was sitting on her brother's bed, promptly arched her eyebrow at him. "What are you talking about Zane?"
Zane reached up to his pajamas collar…and pulled out a white pendant with gold shruikens engraved into it. With a flick of his wrist, a scroll fell out of his sleeve. "Apparently that lesson on magic, particularly the sleight of hand, was very useful. We're still ahead of them."
Instant cheering. Lloyd began shaking Zane's arm, bouncing in place. "Read it! Read it!"
Zane cleared his throat as he unrolled the scroll. "I destroy everything I touch, but my destruction brings new life. I am considered a sign of hope, but if you get too close I will hurt you. What am I?"
Lloyd frowned, puzzlement creasing his brow. "I don't get it. And the fact I think the answer is not in the library, will make this really hard." Everyone turned to stare at him. "What? None of the answers were in the books or scrolls so far. Which can only mean that none of the riddles answers are in there. Right?"
Groans immediately escaped the friends. Nya rubbed her eyes as she leapt back up to her feet. "I have to go to bed. Night guys."
"Night Nya!" "Night sis!"
~Meanwhile with the Serpentine and Skeletons~
Samukai proudly sat the chest in front of the large altar, the five serpentine generals crowding around him. Pythor rolled his eyes. "You better not think that just cause you were able to get your hands on a Guardian Pendant, does not meant you are better than the rest of us."
Samukai rolled his eyes. "So I heard. Let's just crack this thing open."
Several minutes later, they rubbed their hands together greedily, as the lid slowly lifted open. Scales froze, his eyes widening in shock as he looked into the chest. "Empty!?"
A/N: Done! Yeah, Zane tricked everybody into thinking that the skeletons had the pendant and next riddle, but really he had it. So yeah… we now have three pendants down, and three to go. Also I very nearly rewrote this whole thing so that you wouldn't know what happened…but I decided that would just be mean…and you need the laughs about what is apparently quieter than a scythe…
Till next time!
SkyTalon
