"Did you do it?"

"Duh! What do you think I am, some incompetent idiot?" Cody snapped defensively at his friend.

"Maybe. You almossst told them about your-"

"Shut up!" Cody interrupted, "Well, we can start now."

"No, we're waiting for the othersss to leave, remember?" March reminded him. "Wait, what about the paralysssisss?"

"Dang! Didn't think of that, did I?..."

"Idiot. I was jussst pulling your leg, kid. He can walk until the final day. By the way, did I have to bite him? You know how awful I feel after losssing control, and then you make me do it on purpossse?!"

"None of them would've cooperated. I saw him punch you before you bit his knuckle."

"Don't remind me, kid! Knuckles aren't sssatisfying in the leassst, you know."

"How would anyone other than you know? You're unique."

"Unique? Yeah, right, I look like sssome sssorta joke."

"True that."

"Sssome friend you are. You aren't sssupposssed to agree."


"I believe I've read that somewhere before in my scrolls," Sensei told his students. Most of them were sitting around the table explaining to Wu what had happened in the forest. Nya was bandaging Jay's hand, which was where March had bitten him. According to Jay, he had tried to punch March in the face, but his hand ended up too close to its mouth. Even if the others weren't sure whether he was telling the truth or not, there was no denying there were marks right on his knuckles.

"So you believe us?" Cole asked Wu.

"Why wouldn't I?"

Cole shrugged.

"Do you know where the land of ice is?" Kai said.

"Surely you remember it? You've been there before."

Wu sighed as his students gave him blank looks. "The Frozen Wastelands."

"You mean where we found the Shurikens of Ice?"

"Yes."

"And we used Zane as a sled?" Jay added as he and Nya came back in and took their seats at the table.

"That was not very fun," Zane said.

Jay opened his mouth to say something, but not a sound came out. He tried again. Then he remembered what the snakes kept saying about losing his voice. Stupid snake and his stupid bite, he thought, looking at his bandaged hand. Hey, if that was true, then... I'm so hooped! I'll end up some mute invalid who-

"-can't even go to the bathroom by himself."

"What did you just say?" The others were looking at him.

"Nothing."

Jay got up. "What're you doing?" He only shrugged, because, truthfully, he had no clue where he was going.


"Come on! Not this again!" Kai shouted. A few hours ago Jay had left, and no one had seen hide nor hair him since. "At least you can't blame me this time."

"Do you think the snakes got him?"

"Maybe," Lloyd replied, "Uncle, do you think we should trust them?"

"I've told you before, never trust a snake."

"You've also said the best way to defeat an enemy is to make them your friend, and the blue one seemed pretty friendly."

Sensei Wu was silent for a moment before finally saying, "Now you're twisting my words."

A boy climbed on deck, unnoticed, and listened to the old man and his nephew bicker over something so trivial, before finally tapping on one of the ninja's shoulder. "Where the heck have you been?!" Kai shouted. Everyone else's eyes were now on him, waiting for his explanation.

Jay tried to respond, but, again, no words came out. Not that I had anything to explain, he thought, I can't remember anyway...

Only a few minutes ago he had found himself in Bear Forest, unable to recall why or how he'd got there. He was beginning to hate this place. First he fights some rainbow snake and gets bitten, then this. Fortunately for Jay, the ninja had got so caught up in telling their own version of the story and correcting every detail anyone else added they had never bothered to move the ship, and he was easily able to climb aboard.

"Well?"

'I can't talk', he mouthed at Zane, thinking if any of them could lip-read the nindroid could.

"He says he cannot speak."

"That's just great," Kai said sarcastically.

"Didn't the snakes say something about him losing his voice?" Lloyd recalled.

"We said it twice actually."

"Cody? That's your name, isn't it?"

"One thing I like about freedom: nobody's called me Hypacondrai or any other stupid combination of Hypnobrai and Anacondrai all week. Heck, a ninja even remembered my real name!"

"What are you doing here?"

"March said he'd bite me if I didn't warn you about the rats, and he sounded pretty serious this time. And if he'd come, we weren't sure whether you'd attack him or not so I figured invisibility would come in handy. If you can't see me, you probably can't kill me."

"Stop it! I'm trying to decide if you're a villain or not!" Lloyd suddenly yelled.

"Stop what?" Cody asked innocently.

"Being so... unnaturally nice! At first you acted scared of us-"

"You don't know the rumors I've heard about what you ninja did to the warriors."

"Then you acted so innocent, and finally you were mean."

"I don't wanna be here anymore than you want me here, trust me on that. I'm just gonna say what I came to say and leave, OK? When the warriors disappeared a few months ago, Rattles took over, but that's not too important. What's important is that Rattles let the scientists do things Scales never allowed them to do. Namely, genetics. Maybe the guy was stupid, maybe it was an accident, but somehow some rats ended up with Fangpyre in them. And they bit everyone. But we were already snakes, so they had no effect. Since rats reproduce pretty fast, they soon had a million of the little things and Rattles ordered they get rid of them when they started to escape. A couple of snakes took a few big boxes of them as far as they could go to get away from us and let them go in a place where it was snowing. We figured if the riddle mentioned rats in the 'land of ice' it's probably them. The warning is not to let them bite you or you could turn into a snake. Or a giant rat. I'd laugh my head off at either."

"Are you done?" Cole asked.

"Yeah."

"Then leave." The ninja, Nya, and Sensei heard footsteps and Nya would swear she saw the snake's shadow.

"Wait," Zane called to the snake, "there is something I do not understand. If they've only been experimenting a few months, why do you look about 10 years old?" The sound of footsteps silenced.

"Serpentine age differently than humans, duh."

The footsteps continued, and the door opened and closed.

"Dang!"

"What is it, Lloyd?"

"I'm so confused about that guy!"

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