Chapter 17 – Ninjago Idol

The sun was setting over the, oh so, large and busy Ninjago City. The ninja, Wu, Lloyd and the girls were strolling up to a large sky scraper builder with search lights swaying and casting bright light beams up into the sky. Above the doorway to the building the group was approaching had a large colorful and flashing sign that said 'Ninjago Idol.'

"Ugh, I can't believe you convinced me to sing with you," Lloyd groaned as he glared at Kate.

"Think logically here Lloyd, if we compete and win in this competition, than we will get the fang blade in the blade cup," Kate protested.

"Yeah, and nothing has a better chance of winning a T.V. broadcast and huge audience competition than a cute young couple singing a love song together," Nya explained, "you two look so cute," Nya cooed, making Lloyd and Kate look down at their outfits.

Kate was wearing a long sparkly silver dress and grey flats shoes, while Lloyd wore a black tuxedo with a yellow bow-tie and black flats shoes, and also, Kate had her brown hair curled a bit and she was wearing a sparkly flower hair burette in her hair as well. Lloyd saw the chance to look at Kate's beauty, but the moment didn't last long and Kate caught Lloyd staring.

"Lloyd your nose is bleeding," Kate simply said as she and the others just continued down the halls of the building.

"Huh?!" Lloyd exclaimed and covered his nose with his hands, but there wasn't any blood. Kate chuckled.

"Got'cha," Kate said with a smirk. Lloyd took his hands away from his face as everyone laughed and soon they went through a door that lead backstage.

Meanwhile, there were three judges observing the stage up front. Two nicely dressed grown men, and Pythor, who was wearing a black wig, sunglasses, and a beard. The two human judges gawked at Pythor.

"What?" asked Pythor, trying to keep up the act.

"Um, you don't look anything like the profile photo you e-mailed us," one of the men said.

"Oh, sorry, you know that the camera adds a few pounds; plus I had a hair cut," Pythor said with a smile and swished his wig. The man that questioned Pythor quirked an eyebrow.

"Seems legit," the man simply said.

"Idiotsss," Pythor hissed under his breath.

Suddenly a man dressed in white and had a blonde come over hair do with a microphone set on his head walked out onto the stage as the spotlights followed him.

"Welcome back everyone!" the man said in a loud and clear voice, and the crowd cheered and the camera crew was recording, "now that we're back from commercial break let's bring out our second last performance of the night—so everyone give an applause to the Treble Makers!" the man announced.

The crowd cheered as the blonde left the stage and four Serpentine, wearing wigs and sunglasses, two Hypnobrai and Fangpyre, came out and the crowd cheered. The Serpentine came out from the opposite side of the stage the ninja and the others were on as they watched the stage.

Zane was looking out and was first to notice Skales who was watching from the other side of the stage. Zane gasped and looked at the others with wide eyes.

"The Serpentine are already here—and those contestants looked most unappealing," said Zane.

"That Serpentine must have been smart enough to think of a plan to compete and win to get the blade too," said Kai.

"Then we'll knock 'em dead, right Kate?" Lloyd asked as he smirked at Kate.

"Right—because we look cute together," Kate said with a smile.

"Yeah, I know, but if people want us together then, you know…" Lloyd said seductively as he slid his arm over Kate's shoulders, much to Kate's dismay.

"Take it off, or I'll break it off," Kate said flatly. Lloyd immediately took his arm off of Kate.

"Zwitter" by Rammstein began to play loudly. The four Serpentine on stage each had a wireless microphone in their claws, and when the lyrics were to be played, the four snakes sang to lyrics. The crowd cheered, and the ninja behind the stage stared agape at the Serpentine's good singing. The human judges looked at each other and wrote down the scores, while Pythor was bobbing his head to the music and also writing down a perfect ten score.

Moments passed as the cheering got louder, and when the ending of the song approached the four snakes on stage grinned at each other and then looked at the judges. Pythor held up a perfect ten, while the other judges held up a score of seven. Once the score was revealed, everyone cheered again, and the four snakes walked off the stage as they chuckled darkly. Once again, the blonde man came out onto the stage.

"Wow, talk about rocking out—now, for the last song, we have two young contestants singing together, so please welcome to them!" the man announced and soon left the stage.

Kate took a deep breath before she and Lloyd walked gracefully out onto the stage, and the crowd cheered.

Suddenly "It Girl" by Megan Nicole and Jason Chen began to play, and Lloyd and Kate sang the lyrics together. Lloyd and Kate brought the wireless microphones to their mouths. The crowd cheered, and the two human judges smiled as they wrote down the scores, while Pythor was scowling and wrote down a score of zero. The judge noticed the score Pythor wrote down, and examined it.

When Lloyd and Kate would sing their respective parts, they would sometimes look at the audience, and at other times at each other.

The Serpentine and Skales finally noticed the ninja who were enjoying Kate and Lloyd's performance.

"The ninja are here, sssso get rid of them," Skales demanded, and the four snakes removed their wigs and sunglasses and ran behind the curtain and towards the other side of the stage where the ninja, Wu and Nya were. The four Serpentine were about halfway there when they skidded to a halt when they noticed two security guards with their backs turned toward them. So when the Serpentine saw the guards, they immediately turned around and rushed back toward Skales.

"What are you doing? I told you to attack the ninja," Skales said with anger.

"There were sssssecurity guardssssss in the way." One of the Hypnobrai answered.

"If we don't leave with the blade cup ssssoon, we'll be bussssted," a Fangpyre added.

"Jusssst shut up and don't get your tailsssss in a knot, we'll be fine," Skales said darkly as he looked out at Pythor.

Soon Kate and Lloyd's song ended, and everyone was on the edge of their seat as they waited for the judges to give the scores. The two human judges held up a score of ten, and Pythor was reluctant to hold up his score, which he didn't know was a score of ten too. Everyone cheered, and the blonde rushed up to Lloyd and Kate.

"This young couple did it folks, they're the first to get three perfect tens!" the man announced, and the crowd's cheering got louder. Pythor got confused and then he looked at the perfect ten score he didn't write down.

"What, no, I-I didn't write that!" Pythor tried to explain, but the crowd was too loud.

"Sorry, but I 'accidently' wrote on your paper," the judge sitting next to Pythor said sarcastically with a grin. Pythor growled.

The blade cup, with a golden cup with silver fang blade that had a white glow emitting from it was perched in the trophy, and it sat on the other end of the table, opposite of Pythor. The judge sitting right next to the blade cup stood up from his seat and took the blade cup with him so he could hand the trophy to the blonde man on stage.

"Congratulations!" the man said as he handed Kate the trophy, "so, who are you, young man?" the man asked Lloyd. Lloyd cleared his throat and held his microphone to his mouth.

"My name's Lloyd, sir," Lloyd said into the microphone.

"Alright Lloyd, and who's your sweetheart here, and how long have you two been dating?" the man asked as he smirked at Kate.

"O-oh, I-I'm Kate, b-but we aren't-," Kate began to say into her microphone, until Lloyd cut her off.

"We've started dating a few weeks ago, actually," Lloyd cut in, making the crowd 'aw' at Lloyd and Kate.

"Well, there you have it folks, let's hope these two will be happy together, so give 'em a round of applause, and goodnight!" the man announced, and he, Lloyd and Kate left the stage.

Lloyd and Kate were greeted by laughs and smiles by the ninja and Nya and Wu.

"You two were awesome," Jay said enthusiastically.

"Oh, and you two were so cute," Nya said while trying to hold back excitement.

"Yeah, I guess so, but Lloyd, why did you lie to them? We aren't dating and we never will be," Kate pointed out.

"Maybe, but I'm going to throw some cruel irony at you. Think logically Kate, if some day we do grow up together, maybe get married or even have kids, we could be more famous because people will remember us as the kids who won the Ninjago Idol," Lloyd explained.

"Yeah, not gonna happen," Kate said flatly, "but hey, if I ever have a flash of you with a love life, I'll keep you updated," Kate said with a smile. Lloyd scoffed.

"Gee, thanks," Lloyd said sarcastically.

"In any other case—we have a Fang Blade, and one fang blade is all we need to stop Pythor," Wu pointed out.

"Right, so we better keep this thing under lock and key," said Kai as Kate handed him the blade cup.

"So, you are the two lucky kids, huh?" a grown man's voice was heard.

Everyone turned to see a man with dark grey hair in a comb over and had a small black mustache, big bushy black eye brows and brown eyes; it was the judge that sat next to Pythor.

"Dad?" Cole said as he smiled at the man.

"Yes, Cole it's me," the man said as he approached his son, Cole. Cole and his dad shared a quick hug.

"Guys, this is my old man, Lou," Cole introduced Lou to the others.

"You were a judge?" asked Lloyd.

"Yes I was; when I was younger, I was a famous singer and dancer," said Lou.

"Oh yeah, I knew you looked familiar, I have some of your CDs. You were the Royal Blacksmiths, right?" Nya asked with a smile.

"Yup, and I was always the lead dancer and singer of my quartette," Lou replied, "and all of you are lucky I saw these two kids come in with you, Cole, or I never would've made it look like that—weird—looking judge gave you a perfect ten score," Lou explained with a smirk.

"Well, thank you, Lou," Kate said with a smile.

"You're welcome, and one more question—are you two actually dating?" asked Lou Kate and Lloyd.

"Yes!"

"No."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Lou sighed.

"Yes, assss did I," said a familiar charming voice.

Everyone turned and scowled to find Pythor backstage, no longer in his disguise, and was grinning at them and only standing a few yards away from them.

"And, you know Lloyd—I think I see wedding bells in your future," Pythor said sarcastically as he looked at Lloyd and Kate. Lloyd and Kate shudder.

"You will not be getting this fang blade," Wu said firmly.

"Oh, we'll ssssee about that," Pythor said darkly, and then looked up. Cole was first to follow Pythor's gaze and his eyes went wide when he saw a Fangpyre and a Hypnobrai cutting the ropes of heavy props and sandbags that were hanging above the backstage. Cole looked back down to realize the Serpentine were going to drop everything on everyone.

"Guys, it's a trap!" Cole exclaimed, but right then the ropes snapped.

Things slowed down and went silent as the heavy props and sandbags began to falls. Everyone finally looked up and saw the heavy load about to drop on them, so they all scurried away. When everything landed, things sped up again and the sound returned.

But Lou was last to get away, and suddenly a big sandbag came down and crushed Lou's foot with a loud THUD.

"Ahhh!" Lou exclaimed in pain as his legs gave out and he dropped to his knees. But at the same time, another rope that was holding up a piano was just cut, and it was falling right towards Lou.

"Dad, no!" Cole shouted and rushed to his dad's side.

Everyone watched wide eyed as Cole's stepped underneath the piano's path. Everyone closed their eyes just before the sound of the piano landing. But seconds later there was silence. Everyone opened their eyes again to see a miracle; Cole and Lou weren't crushed and the piano wasn't in pieces because Cole had caught the piano and he was grunting as he held the heavy instrument on his own. Lou looked at his son with wide eyes. Cole slowly turned until he was facing Pythor, who was also staring wide eyed at Cole.

"Oh dear," Pythor sighed as he began to slither backwards.

"You're dead," Cole grunted, and then used all his might to throw the piano in Pythor's direction with one big and loud grunt. Pythor suddenly turned invisible just before the piano could reach him, and soon the piano landed and broke apart as it slid into the wall.

"Aw crap, I forgot he could turn invisible, he could be anywhere," Lloyd said with concern. Everyone went quiet and looked around.

"Right-o," Pythor's voice was heard behind Kai, who was holding the blade cup. Pythor suddenly appeared behind Kai and snatched the trophy from Kai.

"Thank you," Pythor said darkly as he grinned at the trophy. Suddenly a group of security guards ran in and they weren't happy about the mess back stage.

"Hey, what happened back here?!" a guard asked in anger. Everyone looked back to where Pythor once was, only to find him and the trophy gone, and they even looked up where the other Serpentine were dropping props and they were gone too.