Chapter 8 – Suicide and the Fangpyre
The night sky had fallen when the ninja, Wu, and the girls were all gathered at a dining room table at the monastery, but Zane was not at the table at the moment.
"One of our best ideas ever to rig the race back home so Zane would lose and have to cook dinner tonight," Jay said with a smile, but not so loud that Zane would hear them all the way in the kitchen, apparently cooking dinner.
"Yeah, yeah, you're just lucky that I like Zane's cooking too, I'm still offended though," Cole grumbled.
"Don't be such a Negative Nancy, Cole," said Kate.
"Dinner has been prepared," Zane's soft voice came from the kitchen as he brought in a giant bowl of spaghetti and a platter of chicken.
When Zane sat the food down on the table, everyone got a full vision of Zane's pink apron over his white ninja suit. Everyone, except Kate and Wu, began to snicker, and no sooner did they burst out laughing. Wu and Zane stared at everyone with confusion, but Kate was angry at them.
"Guys, it's not wrong to where an apron, that just means Zane likes to stay clean while cooking!" Kate exclaimed.
"True," Cole began as he tried to calm down ad wiped a tear of joy from his eye, "but of course it's wrong when you're a grown man," Cole tried to say between laughs.
Soon with a BONK sound, Wu had just knocked Cole upside the head with his staff.
"Ouch!" Cole cried in pain and rubbed his head.
"You may find it easy to laugh at others' pain, but it's not as easy to laugh when it's your own pain, is it?" Wu said calmly. Cole rolled his eyes.
"Well, I hope you all enjoy the meal, I am going to dispose the garbage," Zane said sadly as he turned towards the full garbage can in the room, took out the bag and left.
Everyone at the table practically ignored Zane as they began to gorge themselves with Zane's food. But Kate wasn't eating; she was looking in the direction where Zane left.
Zane had just walked out onto the empty training course, but the course was not up and running. Zane trumped his way towards the gates to the monastery where a large garbage can sat. When Zane put the garbage in the can, he sighed a depressing sigh. Zane then looked down at his pink apron, and then he glared at it. No sooner did Zane try to rip off his apron, but to no avail, so Zane sighed and untied the knots behind his back. When his apron was off he got angry again and tossed the apron into the garbage can. Zane calmed himself as he stared down at the ground sadly.
"I cannot even cry when I am sad," Zane said to himself, and then he looked up at the starry night sky, "what am I?" Zane asked himself.
"Zane, are you ok?" Kate's voice came from behind. Zane was snapped out of his sadness, and he turned to see Kate walking up to him.
"Yes, I am fine—you didn't need to check on me, you can go back and eat dinner," Zane replied softly.
"Well, I'm sure you put some good effort into making that wonderful dinner—but I'm not hungry—and though I can't see it, I feel that you are depressed, so what's eating you?" asked Kate.
Zane looked into Kate's purple irises and sighed. "I feel that I am—different, I am not like the others," Zane sighed.
"So? I'm different too," Kate protested.
"Yes, but at least you have a sense of humor, and you can cry when you are sad—and I feel like I can't do any of those things," said Zane. Zane then turned looked away from Kate walked over to the edge of the mountain, but he wasn't going down the stairs.
"Zane, I feel as if you are too close to the edge, what are you doing?" Kate asked with worry.
Zane didn't answer a first, instead he stuck his arms straight out.
"I am sorry I have to leave," Zane replied, but loud enough for Kate to hear.
Just then Kate gasped and her eyes lit up and sparkled again.
"No," Kate said softly, too soft for Zane to hear, and she shook her head. Soon, Kate's eyes stopped glowing and she stared wide eyed at Zane, who was actually about to drop from the side of the mountain.
Kate quickly sprinted over to Zane, and lucky for Zane, against his wishes, Kate grabbed the back of his ninja suit and pulled him back. Kate stepped in front of Zane and pushed him away from the edge.
"Kate, what were you thinking?" Zane asked, surprisingly a bit angrily.
"Me? What were you thinking?" asked Kate. Zane sighed and turned.
"Zane—it is not your time," Kate said softly.
Suddenly a few bird screeches and chirps were heard. Kate and Zane both looked up to find the black feathered hawk perched atop the gate to the monastery.
"A hawk?" asked Zane.
"Yeah, this hawk follows me sometimes, and for good reasons—he has things to show me, but now I think he has something to show you," Kate said softly with a smile. As if to prove Kate's point, the hawk nodded once while staring at Zane. The hawk fluttered it wings and began lift off, and flew into the horizon, but not before hovering and turning to look back at Zane and Kate.
"Well, I'm following him with or with out you, but I don't think he's leaving without you, so I don't think you have a choice," said Kate. Zane sighed but smiled and ran off with Kate to follow the hawk, and descended the stairs of the mountain.
Zane and Kate followed the hawk and arrived in a desolate and dark forest, with some dark and dead trees. When the hawk landed and led the two to where it wanted them, he landed on an old and dead twisted tree in the middle of an old abandoned grave yard.
Kate and Zane walked into the grave yard and looked around, but when they walked up to the old tree in the middle, they didn't notice the round concrete door that was barely visible since it was covered faintly in grass and dirt.
"Why would it lead us here?" Zane asked as he looked around.
"How would I know, I still can't see where 'here' is," Kate replied with a little anger.
"Oh right—he seemed to have lead us to an old graveyard in a desolate forest, but I don't see the point in-," Zane replied, but he was interrupted by Kate.
"Shh!" Kate cut in, and as if on cue, there was the sound of leaves crunching under foots steps approaching, "hide!" Kate snapped in a whisper.
As fast as they could, Kate and Zane ran behind the old tree to hide from whom ever was coming. Little did they know it was just Lloyd.
Lloyd was walking up to the tree with a grin on his face as he held a lit flash light in one hand, and the map of the Serpentine tombs in the other. But Lloyd didn't know that Zane and Kate were their, they were hiding on the other side of the tree Lloyd was walking up to.
"A little bit dark and spooky," Lloyd said to himself as his smile disappeared, but then he shook his head and grinned again, "b-but I like dark and scary—that's what the son of the dark lord should take interest in, right?" Lloyd asked himself. Lloyd looked at his map and at a picture of the symbol with the red snake tongue between the two white snake teeth that was next to an old cripple tree, the same tree before Lloyd.
"If I read this map right, which I should have, because I have an elite sense of direction," Lloyd bluffed with a chuckle, "there should be another serpentine tomb right here," Lloyd continued. Lloyd waved his flashlight at the tree with a look of confusion. Lloyd then began to walk around the tree to look, but that would mean Kate and Zane's cover would be blown.
"Oh no, they're coming," Zane whispered. Kate acted as fast as she could. Lucky for them, Kate still didn't leave with out her bow and quiver of arrows, so Kate immediately took her bow and took an arrow head and loaded her bow. Kate looked around the other end of the tree, and aimed. Kate shot the arrow at a nearby grave stone. When the arrow hit the stone, it caused a snapping sound, catching Lloyd's attention just before he reached Kate and Zane.
"Hmm?" Lloyd asked as he waved his flashlight toward the direction of the arrow, but then Lloyd noticed something he didn't before. He gasped when his flashlight hit the ground and landed on the faded concrete door engraved in the earth. Lloyd scoffed.
"Stupid geographers—the tomb entrance is in the ground, not in the tree, what a bunch of idiots," Lloyd said as he got down on his knees near the concrete. Lloyd soon found a big and strong tree limb, and tried to stuff it between the concrete and the dirt. Lloyd had to jump a few times onto the other end of the limb to lift up the door through the dirt and grass. Lloyd smiled to have lifted the door all the way up, and under the door was a big black hole, and it was so dark in the whole, nothing was visible. Lloyd looked down into the hole, and was soon answered by hisses. Suddenly, a clawed hand, much like the Hypnobrai, except the hand was covered in black scales and the arm was covered in red scales, shot from the hole and the claws dug into the earth. The sudden movement caused Lloyd to shriek and scoot back a bit. The arm was connected to another different kind of snake humanoid.
This one, had a very long snake tail, like Slithraa once had, but this snake was a little bit taller than the Hypnobrai general. His head was shaped differently too, he had a head that took a pit viper appearance, and what was very surprising was that this snake didn't have one head, but two, two viper snake heads. The snake general was covered in red, black and white scales, and he had black and white scale designs down his torso and back and tail. The two snake heads had glowing pure white eyes with black snake slit eyes, and he had very long and nicely curved fangs, even longer than the Hypnobrai's fangs, but also thinner. The snake had a staff clutched in his claws, a staff that looked just like the Hypnobrai's general staff, but instead of a blue crest, it was a red crest.
"What kind of Serpentine are you?" Lloyd asked a bit shaky as he stood up while not taking his red eyes off the snake.
"Vee are-the Fangpyre tribe-und vee are thankful-you have ssset usss-free," the Fangpyre general replied in an accent much like a vampire, but since he had two heads, each head would take a turn at speaking.
"Well, you're welcome, ahem, I'm Lloyd, and I set you free to see if we could team up, but in a master and slave relationship, what do you say?" said Lloyd, as he bent down and picked up the map and his flashlight, and rolled up the paper and put it in his back pocket. The snake's two heads looked at each other before looking back at Lloyd.
"Vell, firssst of all-my name isss Fangtom-and vee vould verk vith you-asss our massster- but vee are a bit short-on tribe membersss," the snake, or Fangtom, replied.
"Well, what do you want me to if you're tribe is small?" asked Lloyd.
"Oh, vee don't need-any help from you-vee can make our own army-but vee need to find-some people and/or machinery," Fangtom replied.
"Hmm," Lloyd though for a moment, before his face lit up and he smile, "hey, I think I know a place I just passed by on my way here, and it's a junk yard full of the things you need—well except for maybe people," Lloyd explained.
"That vill verk-take usss to the junk yard-und vee vill be-unsssstoppable," Fangtom replied with a grin.
"Ok, ok, but first, when you say 'us', how may are we talking about?" asked Lloyd.
And just to answer his question, the rest of the entire Fangpyre tribe members jumped out from the hole, but the tribe was still at least less than half the amount of the Hypnobrai tribe.
"Oh," Lloyd replied, a little bit scared as the snakes all glared at him.
The snakes all had red, black and white scales designs, like Fangtom, and they had viper like heads as well, but they only had one head. But there was one Fangpyre that walked on two bipedal legs, but looked exactly like Fangtom, and even had two heads like Fangtom, so he was most likely Fangtom's second in command.
"It's not as large as the last tribe, but it's a start," Lloyd said with a sheepish chuckle and smile, "alright, so the main plan is to get to the junk yard, and all of you do what you need to do there to bring up the numbers of the tribe, once all that's done, we will get revenge on the last Serpentine tribe that betrayed me—and then we set up an attack for my uncle's ninja team!" Lloyd announced.
The whole time, Kate and Zane still managed to stay hidden behind the tree, and they were listening in on what was said the whole time. When the two heard the last part that Lloyd said, they gasped and looked at each other with worry.
"We have got to get back to the monastery to warn the others," Zane whispered. But little did they know that a random Fangpyre hear they're whispering, and he turned his attention towards the tree.
"Ok, I get it—when they leave we'll make a run for it," Kate whispered back as the Fangpyre walked up to the tree and towards Zane and Kate unnoticed.
Suddenly, the Fangpyre looked behind the tree and discovered Kate and Zane. Kate and Zane saw the Fangpyre staring wide eyed at them. The two were staring wide eyed and agape back at the red snake. Without even looking away from the snake's gaze, Kate immediately got out another arrow and loaded her bow, and in the blink of an eye, she pulled back on the arrow while it was aimed at the Fangpyre. Before anyone could say anything, Kate shot the arrow, and the arrow head just flat out impaled the spot between the snake's eyes. As soon as the snake fell dead, Kate grabbed Zane's wrist and dragged him away while they could still get out of there.
When Lloyd and the Fangpyre tribe heard the thud caused by the snake that just got shot by Kate drop dead to the ground, they just stared flatly at the body.
"Vone lessss-mouth to feed—now let'ssss move out-fellow Fangpyre!" Fangtom announced, and he began to slither away with his long tail trailing behind him. Lloyd ran up beside Fangtom and looked up at the two headed general with confusion.
"So, when some of the other tribe members died while you were all still trapped, what did you do with the bodies?" asked Lloyd, and one snake head looked at Lloyd while the other didn't so he could look where he was going.
"Oh, vee ate-the meat on them-until there vaz-nothing but bones und scales left," Fangtom replied, even if one head still wasn't looking at Lloyd. Fangtom's answer surprised Lloyd, and he stopped in his tracks as his eyes wide and one eye twitched.
"Ha, ha-vee vere only-yanking your chain-Lloyd," Fangtom laughed. Lloyd let out a sigh of relief and continued to walk. But then one head of Fangtom's turned itself to look creepily back at Lloyd.
"Or vere vee?" the head asked with intimidation. When the head turned back around, Lloyd stopped in his tracks again.
Back at the monastery, the sky was still dark. The boys were in a dark game room, and were dressed in pajamas of their elemental colors, and each had a video game control as they played against each other in a video game, and Nya sat in a reading chair in the corner of the room with a small lit lamp while she read a book, but Wu was not to be seen in the room.
Suddenly the sound of the doors to the monastery shutting hard was heard throughout the building.
"Hey, Kate, Zane, is that you? you guys were out for so long! Where were you two?!" Jay exclaimed so Zane and Kate could hear. Zane and Kate came into the room, but Kate wasn't happy. Kate stomped in front of the big, block shaped T.V., blocking the boys' view of their game, so they paused it.
"Hey, what are you doing?! I was about to reach my high score!" Cole whined.
"No you weren't, I was!" Kai bickered.
"Oh shut up, spark plug!" Cole bickered back.
Kate rolled her eyes and then looked at Zane who was standing in the door way next to a light switch.
"Zane, would you do the honors?" Kate asked, and Zane nodded as he reached for the light switch. Zane flipped the switch, and an over head light in the room turned on, blinding the boys as they grunted in pain and shielded their eyes.
"Guys, this isn't the time for games—I hope you know the pain you caused Zane earlier was enough to make him want to commit suicide, so you're all lucky I was there to stop him—but you better apologize," Kate explained. Everyone, even Nya, was taken back by this, so they all pt their heads down in shame.
"Sorry, Zane," the boys said in unison.
"Yeah, sorry," Nya sighed.
"I accept your apology—but it was rather unwise of me to think I should have left this world—so I am sorry too," Zane sighed.
"It's ok, buddy, we still love you, and we all make stupid decisions that are dimwitted enough to practically get us on World's Dumbest," Jay said with a smile.
"But that's not the big picture here—the thing is, Zane and I followed a friend of mine out into an old forest—and we found Lloyd there," Kate explained.
"Lloyd?" Wu's voice asked, as he suddenly appeared behind Zane, and Zane moved so Wu could enter the room. "What did you see him do?" Wu asked with worry in his eyes as he looked straight into Kate's eyes.
"Well, we heard him say something about Serpentine tombs, and soon enough, Lloyd found a tomb there in the forest, and he opened it up to let out a tribe by the name of Fangpyre, I think," Zane explained for Kate.
"And now he's taking the tribe to a junk yard to get some more quote-unquote 'tribe members'," Kate continued.
Jay's eyes widened at this, but no one noticed.
"Oh no...the Fangpyre tribe is powerful, much like the Hypnobrai—but unlike the Hypnobrai, the Fangpyre don't rely on their piecing scale designs or unique eyes, they rely on their venom and hair-splitting fangs—the Fangpyre are able to turn anything into a serpent monster like them on whatever they can sink their teeth into, whether it being an inanimate object or a living thing," Wu explained.
"And a junk yard is full of old machinery they could use," Cole pointed out.
"Oh great, first we had to deal with the Skullkin's monster skull trucks, and now we might have to deal with serpent monster vehicles, well that's just great," Kai sighed sarcastically.
Jay began to get a very worried look and even began to pant.
"Uh, Jay, are you ok?" Nya asked as she was first to notice Jay's behavior.
"Uh, what, oh yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Jay answered a bit quickly as a few beads of sweat rolled down the side of his face.
"Dude, you're sweating, you're definitely not fine," Cole said flatly.
"Yeah, so tell us what's eating at you," said Kate.
"Nothing is, because humans are at the top of the food chain," Jay said while giving a sheepish smile.
Everyone stared flatly at him because of his bad joke. Jay's smile dropped to a frown.
"Well, I thought it was funny. Fine I'll tell you, you see, my parents live in a junk yard, and there's a slight chance that that's the junk yard Lloyd's taking the Fangpyre to, and I don't want my parents in danger," Jay admitted.
"Is that it? Man, you don't have to hide the fact that you love your parents and that you care about them, we would do the same if it was our parents," said Cole.
"Or at least for the ones in here that still have parents," Kai sighed sadly, making Zane, Kate, and Nya bow their heads in sorrow, knowing that none of them have parents.
"But the point now is for all of us to head out and try to stop my nephew and the Fangpyre he has now let loose," Wu pointed out.
"Oh yeah, I forgot, you're Garmadon's brother, which would make you Lloyd's uncle—heh, man, it must suck for you to have a bratty nephew like Lloyd," Jay chuckled at his pointless statement.
"Gee, thanks," Wu said sarcastically.
"Zane and I know what direction Lloyd and the Serpentine were going in, so we could take the dragons and follow them," Kate pointed out. Cole, Jay, and Kai stood up from the couch they were sitting on.
"Ninja-Go!" the three yelled in unison as they did Spinjitzu and were engulfed in their mini tornado of their respective element. When they stopped spinning, they were dressed in their ninja suits.
"Best magic trick ever—but I'm still working on the sawing-someone-in-half trick," Jay said with a smile, but then he put a finger to his chin to think. Everyone stared wide eyed at Jay.
"Ok, no one give Jay any sharp objects of any kind," Kai said slowly.
"Hey Presto and his rabbits, let's go!" Kate exclaimed, and the three boys realized that Zane, Nya and Wu have already left the room for the trip in pursuit of the Fangpyre and Lloyd. Kate and the three remaining ninja ran out of the room, caught up with the others, ran out of the monastery, and finally ran down the staircase to the dragon stables.
But when they got at the entrance of each stable, none of the dragons were there and at the ready. Instead, Flame was in the farthest corner in the back of the large stable and was lying down and curled around something, but whatever Flame was curled up around wasn't visible because he had his wings open over his side, and for some reason, the other three dragons were standing around Flame, like as if they were guarding Flame.
"Uh, what's up with the dragons?" asked Kai.
"Yeah, and what's Flame doing just lying there?" Kai added. Jay and Zane were first and only to walk into the stable and up to their dragons, but as they approached their dragons, all of the dragons began to growl and bare their teeth. Jay and Zane were surprised at the dragons' behavior and stopped in their tracks.
"Shard, what are you doing, what's wrong with you?" Zane asked his ice dragon. Shard only replied by taking a step toward Zane and snapping his jaws at Zane. Zane stepped back, but Jay only watched, and then looked worriedly at his dragon, Wisp.
"Wisp, don't tell me you'll treat me the same way, I mean, you still love me, right?" asked Jay. Wisp only shot a small lightning rod from his mouth and it hit Jay, and it was enough to singe his brown hair and make him covered in soot and ashes. Jay coughed up a little cloud of smoke before speaking.
"I think I get your message-ACK...but a simple growl would've said it all," Jay said in a hoarse voice.
Without warning, Rocky stepped in between Shard, Wisp, Zane and Jay, but shot his green glare at Jay and Zane.
"Jay, I think it's time to go!" Zane exclaimed, and as if on cue Rocky began to chase them out of the stable. When Jay and Zane got out of the stables and out to the others, they realized Rocky stopped at the stables' entrance and growled at them all. Rocky let out one last deep growl before turning back to the other dragons, but he pounded his tail against the ground, making a loud BOOM sound and shaking the ground. Everyone remained in silence for a moment.
"Yeah, I don't think we'll be getting a ride from them anytime soon," Kate said, breaking the silence.
"Which means we'll have to walk the whole way," Wu pointed out.
"Ugh, I don't wanna walk," Cole groaned.
"We know," everyone, except Wu, said in unison to Cole.
"But I don't get it...why are the dragon's acting like this?" Jay asked as he brushed off the dust from his blue ninja suit and ruffled his hair to brush off the dust from Wisp's lighting attack.
"Well, from the looks of it, Flame is protecting something, and whatever it is must be very important if the other dragons are protecting Flame," Nya pointed out.
"We'll have to worry about that later, we're gonna lose to the Fangpyre if we're going to beat them to the junk yard," said Kai. With that, no one said a word and began to descend down the stairs that spiraled down the huge mountain. And Nya was surprised to see Wu was coming with them.
"You're coming too, Sensei?" asked Nya.
"Why yes, I am—because I have something that will even out the odds of us verses the Serpentine," Wu replied.
"And what's that?" Nya asked out of curiosity.
"Ah, you will see, Nya," Wu sighed.
"You're so formal, I mean, do all of your sentences begin with 'why' or 'ah'?" asked Nya. Wu chuckled for a moment and then his face went flat.
"No."