Chapter Twenty-Four: Crimson in the Snow

Yet another gust of frigid wind sent a hard chill down Jay's spine. The puppeteer felt all of his extremities quiver uncontrollably as he wrapped his arms around himself, trying to keep himself warm somehow. "How d-do the Hypnob-brai stand being in the sn-snow?" He pushed his foot down into the thin blanket of snow beneath him and lifted it up to see a perfect imprint of his shoe and smiled. He had never ventured up this far before on his travels, and the new environment was daunting to say the least.

"The Hypnobrai have resided in the northern area of the country for quite a long while. Despite their cold-blooded biology, the Hypnobrai have evolved to have their subcutaneous nerve endings adapt well to the lower temperatures here," Zane explained, double checking their surroundings and making sure that the Jaymobile was well off the beaten path. He had already used a branch he had found to try and wipe away traces of the vehicle's tracks. There was no need for some curious, wandering Serpentine to stumble upon their presence too soon.

"Now though, we must think of a way to infiltrate the castle of the Hypnobrai and procure the staff. These are the most cunning of all the Serpentine though," the android warned as he turned back to see his companions huddled close to each other in the snow, with the exception of Kai who seemed to be fine. "You must keep your wits about you every single second."

"Aw c'mon, Zane, give us some credit here!" Jay protested, shivering against Cole who, in turn, shivered against Lloyd's small body. "We beat three tribes. We're pretty amazing, I've gotta say. I don't think some Hypnobrai could stop us. What will they do? Look at us with their over-sized eyeballs?"

"Precisely," Zane answered.
"Jay, do you not know what the Hypnobrai are known for?" Cole growled, deeply annoyed at having to be pressed so close to the blabbermouth, but heat was heat. Even if it did come at a pretty high price.

"Of course I do!" Jay shouted, a sulking look on his face. "The Hypnobrai...Hypnobrai...they're obviously known for their ability to...give people really good...braids?"

Lloyd and Kai chuckled while Cole rolled his eyes. "Their 'over-sized eyeballs' can hypnotize anybody. Look at them for too long and you won't be yourself anymore. You'll be theirs, doing whatever they want you to do. So, yes, we should all stay sharp. I don't want to have to beat any of you little guys up."

"Little guys?" Kai scowled.

"Hypnotize?" Jay whimpered. "Okay, that's just...wrong. I don't want one of those...things inside of my head."

"Well then don't stare them down," the merchant finished, not knowing how else to drive the point home for Jay. Maybe the only way for him to learn would be for the Hypnobrai to actually get him. Of course, deep down, Cole did not want to watch any of his friends succumb to their power. It would hinder everything greatly and he knew that Kai and Jay were being as patient as they could with the whole Nya situation. They did not need anything that could waste their time.

Zane gestured for the group to follow him as they slowly began their trek towards the sprawling village that housed the Hypnobrai castle. Despite the sun being high in the sky, yet obscured by lazily floating grey clouds, the presence of serpents was very low. The android took a moment to scan ahead, connecting with his falcon who continued to follow them staying out of sight as much as possible to avoid detection from Serpentine guards. There were scarce traces of any heat signatures in the village: human or reptile. "Odd..." Zane said to himself.

"Are we gonna have to fight with our eyes closed?" Jay asked, favoring trying to stick himself to the blacksmith now. Kai huffed and heard Lloyd chuckle at his predicament, but he kept himself in check and let Jay do whatever he wanted to. "I dunno if I can fight with my eyes closed. How am I supposed to know who I'm punching? What if I punched Lloyd or something and he blasted me with his crazy cool energy powers?"

Lloyd flinched a little, remembering his outburst with Cole. He couldn't let that happen again. His powers were too great, too uncontrollable. He had to keep them on lock down. The best idea for now would be not to use them at all. Shaking his head, the blonde boy turned to the problem at hand. According to Zane, something wasn't right. "What's wrong, Zane?"

"There seem to be almost no Serpentine roaming the streets. They must all be inside the castle...guarding their tribe leader," Zane frowned. This would make everything much more difficult. "They have prepared for us. Unlike the others, these Serpentine will be expecting our presence. That takes quite a bit away from our advantages. There also seem to be very few traces of people. It should not be peculiar in weather like this, but something is not setting right with me."

"Must be a gut feeling then," Cole suggested.

"I do not believe I have an guts. I am-"

"Yes, yes," Cole waved Zane away. "It's just a figure of speech."

"Maybe everyone is having a party?" Jay piped in. "I mean, we're probably pretty popular now. I wouldn't be surprised if they were holding a party in our honor. We need to find it! We're the guests of honor probably! We can't miss our own party!"

"Maybe there'll be cake too..." Cole wondered, his stomach grumbling loudly.

Kai smacked Cole on the back of his head, rolling his eyes. "Don't encourage him. There's no party. Now focus."

"No," Zane stated, his level voice carrying across the open air. "There will be no parties. Despite our many victories, the people of Ninjago would not just celebrate prematurely. The Hypnobrai would have tightened restrictions and rules regarding everything." No sooner had the words left the android's mouth when a sudden realization came over him. "Or the Hypnobrai could have gone to more extreme measures..."

The blacksmith tried to move away from Jay now without him noticing. "What do you mean by that, Zane?" he asked slowly, not liking the way his friend had said his last sentence. Despite it being devoid of outward emotion, Kai felt as if it had held an ominous undertone.

The group made their way through the snowy village and Kai let his eyes bounce from building to building. Icicles clung to the overhangs of roofs and it appeared as if most of the snow was pristine: free of any footprints or tracks of any kind. This place was practically a ghost town. The castle loomed up ahead and Kai swallowed hard, seeing something move out of the corner of his eye. It was a serpent, he was sure of it, but it did not look like it was trying to stop them. "This isn't good..."

"I have a really bad feeling about this. I think maybe we should just not get this staff. I mean, leaving one tribe free won't really matter now, will it?" Jay chuckled nervously.

"You know very well we can't do that," Kai hissed, still trying to escape the puppeteer's body. "If we don't get rid of them all, they'll surely find a way to conquer humans again. I don't like to admit it, but they are pretty smart."

"Indeed we are, young firessstarter," a voice echoed through the emptiness, causing everyone to stop moving instantly. Their eyes searched the area and finally settled on an open balcony above the castle. There, a large Serpentine stood, its large red eyes weighing heavily on their minds, and in the serpent's hand was the staff. "We've been expecting you. I mussst sssay you've gotten here later than we expected. Have a little trouble with our roadsss?"

"Actually, yeah!" Jay shouted back. "You guys might want to think about putting up some signs or something!"

"You can make any changesss you like to our city...if you are able to gain possssession of the ssstaff that isss," the Hypnobrai leader smiled.

"It'll be a piece of cake!" Cole shouted, his stomach grumbling again. "You've already shown us where you are. Think we can't defeat you, after what we've done to the others?"

"Maybe you can defeat me," the Serpentine nodded, "but my quessstion isss...can you defeat them?"

The doors of the castle swung open. A wave of hypnotized villagers swarmed out into the streets.

Kai immediately grabbed for the sword sheathed around his waist, his fingers wrapping around the hilt as the familiar sound of metal again toughened leather filled the air. There was a tug on his shoulder and the blacksmith glared at the person on his left. "Let. Go."

"We can't just run in there and cut them up," Jay pleaded. "You heard what Cole was saying early. They're not themselves. They wouldn't wanna hurt us if they knew what they were doing. We're their heroes, Kai."

Cole grabbed onto the shirt of the nearest person that lunged for him and tossed them on the ground behind him. "That's all well and good, Jay, but if we don't do something then they're going to hurt us."

"Yes, but..." Jay dodged the hand of a villager, refusing to attack. "There's gotta be something else. M-Maybe in that book Lloyd always carries around?"

Zane stepped away from the villagers, easily avoiding any attempt to harm him. "I do not think that this is the best time to pick up a book. This atmosphere is terrible for reading."

"I'll have to agree with Zane on that one," Cole nodded, pushing back a couple of villagers that were getting too close to Lloyd. "We can't just sit down and read while a whole village tried to murder us."

"We run, we find a safe place, we read. If there's nothing we can find in the book, we can do it your way," Jay whimpered, refusing to allow his friends to harm innocent people. This wasn't what he had in mind at all when he'd accepted the role as one of Ninjago's heroes. He wanted to help others, not hurt them.

"If we all just run off to read, these guys are gonna chase us all down," Kai argued, fighting the itch to just stab his sword into something. They had not come this far just to be stopped by the very people they were trying to free. The irony was inescapable. "Zane, what if you take Lloyd aside and you two quickly flip through the book for...just...anything that can help us." Hand clawed at the blacksmith's back and he shook them off as quickly as he could before charging forward to try and block more villagers from lunging at Lloyd. The Golden Master looked a bit paler than usual, but Kai did not inquire further. "Sound like a plan?"

Lloyd nodded at his friend, hands gripping the satchel around him tightly as he bolted between Jay and Cole, his eyes lingering on several of the mindless people before him. He shivered, remembering being a servant to a Hypnobrai and witnessing their power first hand. There was a way to stop it, but Zane needed to help him figure out what exactly that way was. "Zane, over here!" the Golden Master shouted clenching his teeth and ducking underneath a pair of outstretched arms attempting to grab him. The android saw this and quickly took hold of one of Lloyd's sleeves and pulled him to safety, the two deciding to obscure themselves behind an eroding rock formation.

"Please, hurry," Zane said, the urgency in his tone undeniable. "We must get back to help the others as quickly as possible."

Lloyd flipped through the pages as fast as he could. Fangpyre, Venomari, Constrictai, and...there! The hand-drawn images of the Hypnobrai covered the next couple of pages. Hands shaking, he pushed the book into Zane's hands, no hesitation in his movements this time. "There. It's gotta be there somewhere."

Zane nodded, his eyes scanning the text faster than anyone else would have been able to. Soon, the information he needed was at hand. "In order to bring the people back to their senses, we will need the anti-venom found within the staff. After that, I will take care of the villain myself. It says here that their weakness is their own reflection. They cannot bear to stare into their own eyes."

The Golden Master nodded enthusiastically, taking the book back from his friend. "And your ice could act as a mirror, but you probably already-...we should tell the others! You know, before Kai snaps and kills someone. He seemed pretty annoyed already."

Nodding once again, Zane emerged from his hiding spot. He pushed aside a couple of villagers, then dodged a couple more, with Lloyd following closely behind. They reached his friends once again, just in time for Lloyd to snatch Kai's sword from his grip, stopping him from slashing a villager in half out of pure irritation. At seeing Lloyd, Kai relaxed a little, taking his sword back. "So, what did you guys find out?"

"We need to get the anti-venom," Lloyd explained, speaking so fast that some of his wards tripped over one another. "From the staff. Zane, Zane said that we should get into the castle, close the doors to keep the villagers away, and then he'd go get the staff."

"Anti-venom, huh?" the blacksmith said, allowing his eyes to drift up to the balcony of the castle where the leader was standing. Correction, where the leader had stood. Kai huffed, feeling stupid for allowing the Hypnobrai to try and distract them solely with these villagers. The staff should have always been their main focus and they had become tripped up. "Alright then, let's get to the castle," he smirked, swiftly shoving his sword back into his sheath, much to Jay;s audible relief.

The puppeteer tried to side-step around a few villagers, but one grabbed the front of his shirt before pushing him down on the snow covered ground. Jay felt the breath leave his lungs as he stared up, disoriented. There were four people almost on top of him, their blank red eyes unnerving. He skittered backwards as fast as he could, bare hands stinging against the permafrost beneath him. Jay's right arm slipped suddenly and his shoulder blade hit the ground hard, making him clench his teeth as a wave of pain overwhelmed him.

There was the sound of Kai protesting and Jay fearfully glanced at his attackers to now see Cole, gripping the blacksmith's sword in his hand, shielding Jay from any harm. He held the weapon horizontally, one hand gripping the hilt and the other one on the side of the blade itself, forming a barrier to prevent the villagers from getting to Jay. With a grunt of effort, the merchant pushed back the enemies and they all staggered backwards. Releasing the blade of the weapon, Cole spun around and offered his free hand to Jay who took it without hesitation, pulling himself to his feet. "Thanks," the puppeteer breathed, his blue eyes wide.

"Don't mention it," Cole answered, giving his friend a light push forward. "Kai said we have to get to the castle, so let's go."

"Right, right," Jay nodded, looking away from Cole's features and focusing once more.

Their movement was slow and agonizing, but, eventually, the group of rebels reached the castle. In one swift movement, Cole closed the grand doors, creating a barrier that stopped the threat of the crazed villagers from reaching them. Everyone stopped for a couple of seconds, rewarding their lungs with much needed oxygen.

While the others recovered, Zane stepped away, heading deeper into the castle. The others had all paid their dues.

It was his turn now.