Chapter 3 – New weapon, new wound

Things remained dark, but faint sounds of bugs chirping and wind blowing through the trees could be heard.

As the ninja, their sensei, and Kate woke up, they sat up groaning as they clutched their heads in pain.

"Ugh, what happened?" Jay groaned as he got up, and helped Cole up. Zane walked over to Sensei Wu, who was awake, but he was staring into space as he stayed seated on the ground.

"I'm not much of a Sherlock Holmes guy, but I definitely know for certain we were jumped," Kai replied as he stood too.

"But, by who, and why?" Kate asked as she stood up too.

"Sensei—is something wrong—you seem disturbed," Zane said as Sensei Wu finally gave Zane his hand and Zane helped the old man stand up. Wu stared at nothing for another minute, and then at the others with worry as they stared back at him.

"The Skullkin—they took the map to the Golden Weapons," Wu replied.

Everyone either had wide eyes or gasped at this. Cole turned around and spotted something unusual in the ground.

"Guys, look," said Cole, getting everyone's attention.

Engraved in the dirt were giant monster truck tire tracks and even a few foot prints. The tire tracks looked as if they sped off into the far distance.

"Seems like the bonehead army left us some tracks to follow," said Kai.

"Aw, how nice," Jay said with a smile.

"Uh, one little flaw—our horses ditched us," Cole pointed out.

"Well then, I guess we'll have to foot it the rest of the way," Kate sighed.

"Besides, I like traveling the old fashion way—and we are lucky, since I was the one to hide the weapons myself, I know the map by heart," Wu added. The ninja groaned.

"Oh, come on guys—I didn't have a flash, but I can tell we'll find more means of transportation, soon," Kate reasoned.

"Ugh, you better be right—both of you," Cole groaned.

"Yeah, and he gets cramps from walking too much—and when he gets cramps, he gets cranky," Jay whispered to Kate, and she scoffed.

"Well, he won't want to complain to someone who's armed," Kate said with a grin as she looked at her bow that was placed across her shoulder, and she had her quiver full of arrows strapped on her back.

"Well, my students, the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step—so let's move on," Wu said as he walked with his staff in hand, and the others followed in suit, following the tire tracks that traveled far over the horizon.

Little did they know, that up in one of the trees, the black feathered falcon from earlier in the woods with Kate, was perched among a branch and glared down at the traveling group. The yellow eyes didn't stay yellow for long, because when the bird blinked, its eyes went from piercing yellow to a glowing blue color.

Back in the Under World chambers where the giant shadow known as Garmadon dwelled, Nya was placed in a corner near a small glowing lava pit, but she was held down by chains and shackles that were clamped down on her ankles and wrists. Her eyes remained closed as she sat in silence.

Then the sounds of clattering bones and footsteps approaching were heard. This caused Nya to gasp and look up, only to find a Skullkin warrior and Garmadon's shadow staring down at her. The skeleton looked up at Garmadon, and he looked down at the skeleton and gave him a single nod, the nod was signal, telling the Skullkin to head over to the nearby lava pit.

Inside the lave pit was a long metal bar, and one end of it was placed in the molten rock of the pit. The warrior pulled the thin bar out and it resulted with the end glowing a bright orange color and a little bit of hot rock dripping from it.

The warrior grinned at Nya, and walked over to her with the scorching end of the bar pointed at Nya. Nya shook her head and panted a bit from seeing the heated metal getting closer and closer to her immobile arm.

"You see, my dear, we have a way of doing things here—if most who come here are lucky and are on my good side, I let them go—but on rare occasions, like when I get bratty and stubborn people like you, I don't go so easy on them," Garmadon explained in his intimidating voice.

Suddenly the skeleton warrior jerked Nya's arm in his clawed hands, and moved the hot metal closer to her skin.

"And when I say that, I mean I don't let you mortals forget who I am—so I immortalize a mark on my prey's flesh that will remind them of the regret they had on the day they crossed paths with me," Garmadon explained evilly.

Nya's screams in pain were heard next. Nya's cries soon became Kate's shrieks of terror.

Kate and the others were still traveling, but Kate's eyes were wide. The ninja and Wu turned around and ran back to Kate to aid her. When Kate stopped screaming she began to faint, but Jay caught her in time. Kate was panting and her eyes were droopy.

"Kate, what's wrong?" Kai asked with worry, as he and the others looked down at her.

"It's—a girl," Kate replied meekly a Jay helped her stand straight.

"Girl? Girl who? What girl?" Cole asked rapidly.

"I don't know her name—but she has brown eyes, short black hair, wears red…" Kate explained. Kai gasped at this.

"Nya!" Kai shouted.

"This woman, Nya—do you have something to do with her?" asked Kate.

"Nya's my sister, the one who was kidnapped by the Skullkin," Kai was reluctant to say, "what's happened to her, tell me now!" Kai demanded.

"I had another one of my flashes," Kate sighed.

"Yeah, we get that, Captain Obvious, tell us what you saw," Cole cut in.

"She's in danger of being gravely injured," Kate replied.

"Will she live?" asked Zane with worry.

"I-I think so—but she won't come back alive without any wounds," Kate said sadly.

Kai got angry and huffed. "Come on, we gotta move," Kai said angrily. Kai turned and kept on walking, but he was stomping from his anger.

"Kai, wait, calm-," Kate began, but Kai turned and scowled at her.

"No, you said it yourself, you think she might live—I'm not taking any chances—she's the only family I have left," Kai snapped at first, but his voice began to soften. Everyone was silent for a moment, but Wu smiled.

"Hmm, Kai, you are very loyal to the ones you love, and I admire that—if we move now, and quickly, we might be able to make it to the caves by night fall. It will be dark and we can travel in the shadows; making it easier for us to find the scythe without having to go into battle with the Skullkin," said Wu.

"My senses tell me that is very likely," said Zane.

"Dude, you sound so, I don't know, technical—were your parents part computer or something?" asked Jay. Zane looked at Jay confused.

"Uh—or something?" Zane replied, unsure.

"Guys, now isn't the time," Cole said as he grabbed out his scythe, "if Kai wants his sister, and only family, back then we need to help with just that," Cole continued.

Kai smiled a bit. "Nice to know I have some people who I can trust to have Nya rescued be their top priority at the moment," said Kai. Everyone smiled and gave a single nod in solution with determined faces.

It is night time now, and the traveling band has now reached a desolate desert like terrain, they weren't in a forest anymore.

Everyone was climbing up a some what steep sand dune. Kate and Wu were up ahead, but the ninja were huffing in exhaustion as they were falling behind.

"Do not worry, the caves are just over this dune," said Wu as he stuck his staff in the sand to help him climb up.

"Yeah right, we've heard that one before," Kai grunted as Wu and Kate reached the top and were looking ahead of the dune.

"Ah, but this time it wasn't inspiration, it was the truth," said Wu.

Finally the ninja made it to the top and they gawked at what was on the other side of the dune.

Down below on more level ground were a group of caverns, and that's not all that was there. The Skullkin and their monster truck skull vehicles were outside the caverns.

"Aw man, we're too late," Jay complained.

"Shush," Wu snapped, "if we travel in the shadows, like I said, we should be just fine," Wu continued.

"Logically speaking, the army would have tried to go into the main entrance—probably stupid enough to think the weapon was hidden down the main door way," Kate said and eventually smirked, but then her smirk went away, "it's not, is it?" Kate quickly asked.

"Of course not, I'm not stupid like the skeleton army is," Wu said with a smile, resulting in everyone getting a light chuckle.

"Cole, inside those caverns is the weapon the earth ninja wields: the Scythe of Quakes. You need to go in there and retrieve it before the Skullkin do," Wu said sternly, causing Cole and the others to stop laughing and listen.

"Yes Sensei," Cole said, and began to carefully make his way down the dune and towards the caverns.

"Oh, and be cautious Cole, I placed a guard for each of the weapons, and if the guard feels you are a threat to the weapon, he won't let you come back out alive," Wu warned Cole.

"Don't worry about me, I ain't afraid of anything!" Cole called. Cole continued down the sand dune, and he finally decided to just slide down the dune to make things faster.

When Cole made it down, he made a clean halt and rolled and stood up straight. Cole ran behind a truck to stay hidden. He peeked around the corner to find two random Skullkin warriors talking to each other. Cole listened to them, and they sounded like the famous Cheech and Chong.

"Didn't know it was possible to have more bone headed version of them," Cole said to himself. Cole stopped listening to the conversation and continued towards the caverns. He stayed behind the truck, and ran when there was no more cover for him. Luckily, Cole wasn't spotted, and he approached the entrance of a far off cavern.

"Dark, it's always gotta be dark," Cole groaned. Cole looked back out towards where the Skullkin were and noticed a near by lonely Skullkin just standing by himself. But this Skullkin had a lit torch clutched in his claws. Cole smirked and snuck up behind the skeleton. The skeleton felt suspicious and looked behind him.

"Huh?" the Skullkin grunted when he found Cole right behind him, and Cole had his scythe out and behind his back.

"Let's play Guess Who," Cole said grimly, and with that he took his scythe and struck the skeleton in his midsection since he wasn't wearing any chest armor. The skeleton broke in half, and Cole managed to quickly grab the torch from the Skullkin before it was smothered by the sand.

"Thanks, let's play again some other time," said Cole, and he left the skeleton lying there, and made his way into the dark cave with light from the lit torch.

As Cole made his way down the cavern's halls, giant spiky rocks were on the side of the cave walls, but only on one side for some reason. As Cole got deeper, the spikes got larger, but the halls also grew bigger and more roomy. Cole looked ahead and noticed a slight golden glow coming from the distance ahead.

"That must be it," Cole said and began to jog. But as Cole left, he didn't notice the spiky walls begin to move, and they moved in his direction. After the spikes kept on moving, the walls on which they sat on just pulled itself right out of the ground, and deep growling was heard afterward. Cole stopped when he felt shaking within the caves and heard the deep growling echo.

"Oh right, the guard—hit me with your best shot," Cole said sarcastically as he rolled his eyes and turned as he grabbed out his scythe with his free hand. Only when Cole turned around, he was met with to green eyes with no irises, and the eyes belonged to a towering creature. And the worst part was the creature was a dragon.

This dragon was covered in dark brown scales, and it had no wings, it was an earth bound dragon, and on the dragon's back were huge spike all the way fro its neck and down to its long spiky tail, and the spikes looked like the ones that were on the cave walls that were once there, the dragon also had and pointed snout that ended like a large beak that was made out of giant sharp rocks, and this dragon walked on four legs, four, very large and powerful legs.

Cole was now face to face with his worst fear: a dragon. Cole stood agape at the beast, and slowly leaned down with the scythe and torch, but the torch was set down on a rock that wasn't covered in sand so the torch remained lit. After Cole put his things down, he slowly raised his hands in defense and shivered and whimpered in fear. The dragon took a few steps forward and the ground shook with each step and it let out a loud shriek as it bared is teeth, and Cole stepped back.

The noise from the cavern Cole was in caught the attention of the few Skullkin waiting outside.

"Get Samukai," a Skullkin demanded another random Skullkin, and he nodded and ran off.

Meanwhile, back with Cole and the giant, spiked, earth dragon, Cole accidently tripped and fell on his back. But by the time Cole tripped, the Scythe of Quakes was visible.

The scythe was covered in a beautiful coat of solid gold. The scythe had dragon like designs on it, making it look intimidating. The scythe was so long, it looked to be a tad taller than Cole. As the scythe just floated a few inches above the ground vertically, a glow illuminated from the scythe, and the glow got brighter once Cole got closer.

The dragon noticed the glow and looked at the glowing scythe, and then back down at Cole. The dragon stopped growling and it stopped showing its razor sharp teeth at Cole. But this moment of relief was not to last long.

"This way, the Scythe is down here!" Samukai's scratchy voice was heard from down the cavern.

The dragon looked down the direction of the cavern that lead out, and shadows were seen approaching. The dragon quickly looked back at Cole.

"I hope you and I aren't thinking of the same crazy idea," Cole whimpered. But the dragon grunted in reply, and almost looked as if it nodded.

Meanwhile, back outside with Wu and the others, they still waited atop the dune. They stared worriedly at the caverns as they heard muffled roars from inside the caves.

"Do you suppose Cole is fairing well in there?" asked Zane.

As if on cue, the Skullkin and Samukai came running and screaming in fear out of the cave entrance, and cracks began to form on the rocks walls of the cave Cole went down.

"I think he's doing just fine," Wu replied.

But in the blink of an eye, the cracks soon became gaps and broke, and they broke because the earth dragon burst from the depths of the caves and roared loudly as it reared up with its giant front paws slashing at the air.

The Skullkin were retreating to their vehicles, and most made it, and Samukai definitely got away as he and the others got into their trucks and drove off. But unlucky for one little Skullkin warrior who couldn't get away was left behind.

"Wait, you forgot me!" he called after the truck that sped off into the desert with sand flaring up behind it. The dragon stood on all fours again, but when its paws came crashing down one of its mighty paws landed right on the Skullkin, resulting in the skeleton's bones crushing.

The others looked and were very surprised to see Cole, who originally, was afraid of dragons was now riding on the dragon.

Cole stood with pride atop the beast as he held onto one of the large rock spikes on the dragon's back with one hand, and in the other he held the Golden Scythe of Quakes.

The rest of the ninja, Kate and Wu slid down the dune and met up with Cole and his dragon.

"I know what you're thinking and I only have one thing to say: dragons are so much better than horses!" Cole exclaimed with a big smile, but then his smile went away and he glared down at Wu, "by the way, why didn't you tell me the guards of the weapons are dragons?" Cole asked angrily.

"Would you have gone after your main objective after realizing what protects it is your worst fear?" Wu asked with a quirked eye brow.

"Fair enough—now everyone climb on, we still have to find the other three weapons," said Cole.

"Wait, you want us to ride that?" Kai asked angrily.

"Yes, Rocky would be happy to give us all a ride—and do you want your sister back or not?" asked Cole, as Rocky, his new earth dragon buddy, laid down low enough to make it easy for everyone to climb onto him.

"Fine," Kai groaned, "but 'Rocky'?" Kai continued as he began to climb up Rocky with the others.

"Hey, if he's on our side, might as well give him a name," Cole replied.

"How did you manage get him on our side?" asked Zane.

"I guess he saw that I wasn't a threat to the scythe—plus I would think it gets lonely in a deep cavern," Cole replied.

After everyone was aboard, which wasn't easy for everyone considering Rocky's back was covered with spikes, Rocky stood back up.

"Wait, this thing doesn't have wings," Jay pointed out.

Cole scoffed. "Who needs wings? I reckon Rocky's got plenty of speed and horse power to make up for being flightless," Cole said with a smirk.

"Yes, so I suggest we all hold tight," Wu said as he and the others gripped onto whatever spike they were holding onto.

"Yah!" Cole exclaimed, and Rocky roared in reply. Rocky began to run, and then he began to sprint across the desert terrain, heading in the direction the Skullkin retreated.

"I told you we'd find more transportation!" Kate yelled over the wind blowing in their faces.

The ninja, Wu and Kate, along with Rocky, entered a frozen, tundra terrain as the sun began to inch over the horizon. Rocky was now walking and not running as it followed the Skullkins' vehicles' tracks in the snow. They huddled against Rocky's back for warmth as the arctic winds blew, but Zane didn't seem cold at all.

"I do not see what is so bad about this cold," said Zane.

"Y-yeah, c-c-coming from F-frosty, here," Kai said while shivering.

Rocky began to use his claws more as he walked onto ice covered grounds.

"Careful Rocky, don't slip up on us, no pun intended," Cole reassured Rocky, and Rocky only snorted. As Rocky took more careful steps, tiny cracks began to form beneath his feet. No one noticed the cracks, not until they felt the icy ground they were on suddenly shift down a few inches.

Rocky stopped and balanced himself.

"Its ok, let's just keep going—the Shurikans of Ice should be located just up ahead," said Wu.

Rocky was about to take another step forward, when the ground gave out below him, and a gaping ice trench was made. Rocky was quick to act though, so he made a brave move and jumped from the collapsing ice he stood on and jumped to the other side. But when Rocky reached the other side, he didn't reach the ledge, instead he managed to drive his front claws onto the ninety degree angled smooth ice wall, and created giant scratch marks in the ice wall. Rocky began to slip, and the group held onto Rocky for dear life. But Rocky managed to get his back claws into the ice to, and slowly began to climb back up with success.

Cole held onto Rocky, but the Scythe of Quakes accidently slipped from its place on Cole's back, and was falling. But Cole was able to keep one hand clutched onto Rocky, and used his other hand to just barely catch the scythe and stop in from falling into the icy gorge. Cole grunted while trying to keep himself from letting go of his dragon. Rocky roared into the arctic winds, getting the attention of Samukai and his army as they waited outside an ice and snow covered mountain that had an entrance that looked like a temple entrance.

"Samukai, shouldn't we go and get the weapon before they get here?" a Skullkin asked.

"No!" Samukai immediately said, "let them come first—so that we won't have to deal with the beast guarding the weapon," Samukai explained softly.

"Yes sir," the Skullkin replied.

Meanwhile, back with Rocky and the ninja, Kate and Wu, Rocky was finally able to safely get to the top of the ledge and used his powerful legs to pull him and the people riding his back onto safer grounds. Rocky stood straight up but was panting a bit with his mouth agape.

"You did good Rocky, but take it a bit easy for now," Cole told Rocky. Rocky only softly shrieked in reply.

"There it is, inside that mountain are the Shurikans of Ice," Wu said as he pointed to a mountain in the distance.

"Zane, would you do the honors and go in there to retrieve the shurikans?" asked Wu.

"If it will help protect Ninjago, I would be more than happy," Zane replied. Zane hopped off Rocky as Rocky laid down to rest, and began his journey towards the mountain.

"Don't forget to look out for the Skullkin and the beast that guards the weapon!" Wu called to Zane.

Zane didn't reply, he only continued to the mountain, and to find no Skullkin or any of their vehicles around.

"It is suspicious that there is no trace of the Skullkin, but if this will be anything like what Cole had to go through, this still won't be easy," Zane said to himself as he continued to walk, and put his white ninja mask up and over his head, covering his face.

After Zane made it up to the entrance of the mountain and walked into it, it wasn't as dark as the caverns. Zane went deeper into the icy temple that lead to the shurikans. As Zane kept going, he noticed a golden glow, like Cole saw in the caverns, in the distance of the temple. Zane took off his mask and smiled as he moved a little faster towards the golden light. But Zane didn't notice the few Skullkin warriors and Samukai peeking our from behind an icy wall.

Zane walked up to the glow, and floating in midair at the other end of the room were two golden colored shurikans.

The shurikans were a tad bigger than a normal throwing star, and three large solid gold spikes reached out from the shurikans, and the spikes, being four inches long and nicely curved, made the golden throwing stars also look intimidating.

Zane slowly approached the Shurikans of Ice before him in awe, and as Zane got closer, they grew brighter. Zane finally reached them and grabbed them from midair.

"Such beauty," Zane sighed with a smile. But when Zane noticed the light hitting the walls in front of him, he saw something frozen in the ice.

Inside the giant ice wall was a giant winged dragon figure. But because of the glow, the creature was actually alive and snapped its glowing blue dragons eyes open and glared at Zane as the icy tomb the beast was in began to crack and the room began to shake.

But suddenly Samukai and his Skullkin ran in and Samukai glared at Zane, but the other Skullkin gaped at the cracking ice wall and the winged dragon creature inside the ice. The blue eyes of the dragon quickly flashed from Samukai and his Skullkin to Zane and the shurikans.

Meanwhile, back outside with the others and Rocky, Cole remained seated on Rocky's back while the others sat against Rocky's body to get his body heat, and Rocky had his head laid down and was resting with his eyes shut.

Suddenly Rocky's green eyes shot open and he jerked his head up, as well as his body, as when he stood up on all fours, everyone who was leaning against him almost fell back into the snow and ice.

Rocky began to growl and bare his teeth as he also got into fighting stance.

"Whoa! Rocky, calm down! What's wrong with you?" Cole asked as he had to keep himself from falling off Rocky's back. Rocky only roared very loudly in reply, loud enough for his roar to echo off the mountains in the distance where Zane was.

As if on cue, the icy mountain ahead burst into pieces as Samukai and his army once again fled to their trucks, and flying out of the top was the winged dragon that was frozen in the ice.

Unlike Cole's dragon, this dragon had wings, and he was covered entirely in white scales. The dragon only had two legs to walk on, and his muzzle was long and a little more bulky, and of course he had razor sharp teeth that shimmered like ice. And speaking of ice, since it was most likely this dragon was an ice dragon, icicles hung off the edges of the dragon's wings, tail and even legs, and each wing had a giant claw thumb on its wings that was made entirely out of solid ice. The dragon had a fairly long tail like Rocky, and had nicely curved claws among its feet, and a few spikes, obviously made of ice, grew from the dragon's head.

Gripping the ice horns on the dragon's head while also riding the ice beast was Zane. Zane stood atop the dragon with the golden shurikans of ice clutched in his free hand.

"Look, Frosty did it!" Kai exclaimed with a smile.

Jay chuckled. "Hey, I got to start using that name more often for him," Jay laughed.

Rocky roared at the sight of the new dragon Zane was riding, and Zane's dragon roared back, but in a higher pitch than Rocky. Zane's dragon's attention soon shifted over to the cowering Skullkin, and shot what seemed to be an ice missile from its mouth, and it flew through the air with great speed and a high pitched squealing sound.

The ice missile soon hit the ground, but it also hit the same spot where a small group of running Skullkin were, so the ice hit them. When the ice hit the Skullkin, it exploded, but it did more than just explode; it also became an ice imprisonment that caught the Skullkin by their legs, and they struggled to get free but to no avail.

But in the blink of an eye, unlucky for the trapped skeletons, several giant ice splinters shot up from the ice and sliced through the Skullkin, and obviously they didn't survive.

But, most of the Skullkin, including Samukai, got away. Zane's dragon then growled and descended to the others and Rocky. Rocky and the ice beast called to each other in a softer tone, as if they were talking to each other.

Once the dragon landed, Zane hopped off and walked up to his friends.

"Nice work, Zane," said Kate.

"Not only did you gain a new ally—but you also gained the golden weapon," Wu said referring to the golden shurikans Zane was holding.

Zane looked at his weapon and smiled at them. "I have Shard to thank for helping me," Zane said in his velvety voice.

"Shard huh, you gave it a name?" asked Jay. As if on cue, Zane's dragon, now known as Shard, brought its muzzle down to Zane's shoulder and nuzzled Zane.

"I suppose I have," Zane replied.

Back in the dark chambers of the Under World where Garmadon's shadow dwelled, Samukai and his other Skullkin have returned from being chased off by the ninja again but with worried looks of their skull faces, especially Samukai. Garmadon was towering over the scared Samukai in a corner.

"I hope you brought good news, or else you'll end up like that petty girl," Garmadon spat.

"Um, Lord Garmadon, w-we, uh—we couldn't get the first two weapons," Samukai said shakily.

"What?" Garmadon asked, but surprisingly without any shock or anger in his voice.

Samukai got the guts to look up at the lord before him.

"Well, we tried to go after the Scythe and the Shurikans, but they earned the guardians' of the weapons' trust, and they used the alliance to over power us—and they now have two of the four weapons. I am sorry my Lord," Samukai explained.

Garmadon remained quite for a moment. "Hmm, lucky for you Samukai, you know me enough to establish that I love the torture and pain of others as much as the next guy, but I am in a good mood right now—I'll let you off with a warning right now, but if you can't get me the weapons, one way or another—you'll be the one to pay dearly," Garmadon said darkly.

And just to make his point, Garmadon stepped aside from his corner, which was the same corner Nya was put in. Though Nya was still chained by her wrists and ankles, she wasn't wake, she was actually collapsed on the ground, but her chest was still moving up and down, meaning she was still alive and breathing.

As Samukai saw Nya, he gasped once he caught sight of Nya's arm. On Nya's bicep of her arm were two deep slashes that had dry and new blood leaking from it, and the two slashes crossed to the point where they made an intimidating x mark on Nya's flesh.