Chapter 16 – Ancient cities and training
The sun was high in the cloudless sky in the most desolate parts of the deserts in Ninjago. But it wasn't completely empty, the entire tribes of the Serpentine and Pythor were slithering over the blazing sand.
"Ah, I love to bassssk in thisss heat—I never did favor that icy chamber we Hypnobrai were imprisssssoned in," Skales said with a smile.
"Well, that's good because we will be living here while we search for the other three fang blades," Pythor said, and then stopped slithering.
"Live where, and why are we ssstopping?" asked Skales.
"Because in this desert, known as the one and only Sea of Sand, there is a place located in the most desolate parts of this desert. And this area is said to have high enough temperatures to create a haze that shrouds and guards the area from any human that can't survive the heat—but not snakes," Pythor explained with an evil grin.
"And what, we're here?" Skales asked flatly.
"Yes, we are," Pythor replied, "fellow Serpentine, get close to me if you want to sssssee the wonders that are hidden here!" Pythor demanded, and the other tribes and tribe generals gathered around Pythor.
Pythor bent his elongated neck so it faced straight down and he shut his eyes. Pythor began to chant a soft native language. The other Serpentine exchanged confused glances at each other as they watched Pythor mumble in a native tongue. But then Pythor's chanting got louder and began to echo. Just when Pythor's chanting got really loud, he jerked his head up and jerked his eyes open as he shouted the last verse. All was quiet and nothing seemed to happen. Skales scoffed.
"What a dud," Skales said under his breath.
"I heard that," Pythor said as he shot a glare at Skales, but then his gaze softened, "but you're wrong, you just aren't as smart as the Anacondrai," Pythor said with a grin.
Pythor leaned down and scooped up a ball of sand in his claws. Pythor looked ahead of himself and suddenly threw the sand. The sand didn't even travel a few yards before it hit some invisible wall. And when the ball hit the wall, a wobbling sound was made as huge ripples were made in the air. The Serpentine, except Pythor, were staring agape at the weird wall before them.
"Vhat-isss that?" Fangtom asked.
But Fangtom's questioned was answered when the wall slowly became no longer invisible. Old brown walls made out of large and dry mud bricks were becoming visible. Soon an ancient looking city made out of mud bricks; that was huge and circular began to form right in front of the Serpentine's eyes.
"This is the lost City of Ouroboros!" Pythor announced. The Serpentine entered the many columns in the huge city. When they arrived at the very center, it looked like an arena.
They all entered a circular ancient, mud brick city, with many columns and trapezoid shaped temples. And the city had a diameter of ten miles. The Serpentine walked over a giant mud brick plat form in the center, but what got most of the attention was a statue at one end of the arena. The statue was a shrine in the shape of a snake that was almost as tall as a skyscraper. The snake head of the statue had its mouth open and four huge stone hollow fangs bared.
"Brethren, from my research, the Great Devourer is buried here, and when we find all four fang blades, all we have to do is find the switch that will set free the Great Devourer," Pythor said as he flashed an evil grin at the statue.
The ninja, Wu, Nya and Lloyd all stood on the high deck, while Kate was looking up at them from the main deck.
"Now, if I'm correct, most people would blind fold the trainees to make things harder—but how are you going to do that when I'm already blind?" asked Kate.
"Easy. Here," Wu said as he took out a pair of ear plugs and tossed them down to Kate, in which she caught, "since you already can't rely on sight, then for this training, you must not rely on hearing—only touch. Feel the movement around you," Wu explained.
Kate pushed the ear plugs into her ears, and now all was silent or muffled. Wu looked at the ninja and nodded his head. The ninja nodded back and pulled there ninja masks up and over their faces before heading down to the main deck and they all squared up on Kate. The ninja didn't have their golden weapons, instead they only had normal weapons.
Kai was first to take a step toward Kate. Kate winced when Kai took a step and reached for an arrow in her quiver. Kai noticed reaching for an arrow, so he started to do Spinjitzu again, and spun quickly right toward Kate. Kate could only hear here muffled breathing and her rapid heart beat. Kate reacted fast and moved out of Kai's way, but Kai couldn't stop, so he kept spinning until he reached the rail of the ship and fell head over the rail and onto the sand and his spinning finally stopped. But Kate was struggling to stop moving because for some reason she was spinning and wouldn't stop. As Kai managed to climb back up, he and everyone else stared agape as light pink colored streams of light began to spin around her. And soon a light pink colored Spinjitzu tornado was engulfing Kate. Kate was doing Spinjitzu. But the Spinjitzu was not to last long when Lloyd to too worried and climbed down and lunged himself at Kate; stopping Kate from more spinning.
Lloyd planted his feet firmly on the floor and clutched Kate by the shoulders as she faced him with a confused look. Kate suddenly took out her ear plugs, and the sound came back again.
"Ok, what just happened?" asked Kate.
"Kate—you just did Spinjitzu," Lloyd replied with a smile.
"Say what?" Kate asked as Lloyd let go of her and everyone approached her.
"Kate," Wu began, "you have a special elemental power like the ninja, and though we don't know what it is yet—you will learn to control it, soon," Wu explained. Kate scoffed.
"Gee, at this rate maybe Lloyd will be the Green Ninja," Kate said sarcastically.
"The who?" asked Lloyd.
"Eh, some fifth ninja in a green ninja suit that can control all four of our powers," Kai explained flatly.
"Cool," Lloyd sighed.
"But aside from that, if I have powers, than that means a girl can be strong, like Nya here. She built that Samurai X robot, and all because you boys were sexist," Kate said as she shot Nya a smile and Nya blushed.
"Yeah, and why is it called 'X'?" Cole asked with a quirked eye brow. Nya turned and pointed at the x shaped scar on her arm.
"I didn't have any other cool name in mind," Nya said with a shrug.
"Speaking of x, the Serpentine could've executed you at the amusement park," Kai pointed out, "Nya, I really wish you wouldn't put yourself in so much danger, even if you tried to help by almost getting away with the blade," Kai said as he looked at his sister firmly.
"Blade, that's it!" Cole suddenly cut in with a smile.
"What's it?" Lloyd asked.
"The Blade Cup, it's the trophy handed out to the first place winner at Ninjago Idol, and the blade that's part of the trophy cup looked a lot like the first fang blade," Cole explained.
"Which would mean it's another fang blade," Zane pointed out.
"And Pythor should be after it now," Lloyd added. Suddenly Kate sighed and cracked her neck before getting serious.
"Guys, we're going to Ninjago City," Kate said firmly, "and Lloyd—can you sing?" asked Kate.