Chapter Nine: Chained

Kai immediately stood up and reached for his sword, but was stopped by two skeletons grabbing his arms and pinning him against a tree. As Kai struggled to get free, he said, "You've got quick reflexes for Skulkin."

The leader of the group laughed. "You hear that, boys? He still thinks we're skeletons!"

The rest of the group burst into laughter before removing their Skulkin guise. Kai knew then that he was in trouble; seven dim-witted skeletons, easy, seven probably trained men, not so much.

"What are you doing here?" Kai demanded.

"Like I'm going to tell you," the leader said. "Simon! Get the chains."

Simon, a boy who couldn't have been any older than Kai, promptly ran over to a large bag and pulled out a string of chains.

"You think chains are going to stop me?" Kai remarked bitterly.

"Oh I think these ones will," the leader said, and as he brought them closer to Kai, the ninja saw they were made of vengestone.

The fire ninja again tried to break free from the grasp of the two that had him pinned to a tree, but was unsuccessful and only laughed at. Two others from the group proceeded to wrap the chains around Kai as tightly as they could so there was no chance of wriggling free. The leader locked the chains and mockingly threw the key only a little over a yard away from Kai.

"C'mon, fellas, let's get outta here," he said.

Six of the group went off laughing after putting their skeleton masks back on and the seventh, Simon, struggled to pick up all the bags and gave Kai one last glance. Unlike the others, this glance was not really a glare or to mock the ninja; it was more of a look of pity. The two held eye contact for a few seconds before Simon mouthed "sorry" and went off trotting behind the others, his hair spikes similar to Kai's bouncing a bit as he ran.

"Fantastic," Kai said to himself as he stood there, chained to a tree in the middle of the forest.

He tried to stretch out his leg to reach the key but it was just out of range. Still, the ninja persisted to no avail and refused to give up.

"Ugh, this is pointless!" Kai said as he still could not reach the key.

Not too much later, a fat little bird flew down and looked at the ninja with its head cocked to one side.

"What are you looking at?" Kai asked the bird.

The bird simply jumped over to Kai, pecked the ninja's leg, took the key in its beak, and flew off.

"Hey!" Kai shouted, "I need that, bring it back right now!"

Seeing that there was no hope of the bird coming back, he hung his head and sighed. Kai really wished then that he had left his friends some sort of note saying what he really was doing. He just hoped somebody would come by soon.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Did that seem rushed? I kind of thought so. Alright, so I think this every other week update will be more usual. Sorry! Also sorry if you were disappointed that they were not actual skeletons, a lot of you were happy about them being added. I hope you liked my little gang with Simon though. :) I kind of liked them, but let me know what you think!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, AwesomeDisneyWolfChild, JayaForever421, Kairocksrainbow, Ninjagymnastgirl, AntauriFangirl13, Luck, and Skylark Starflower for reviewing! XD I LOVE to hear what you all have to say.

AntauriFangirl13: Thanks for telling me! :) I always thought Skulkin was the name of one of the skeletons. Oops.

Kairocksrainbow: Oh my goodness, thank you for the story! I can't wait to see what happens. :D

God bless!