Ch 10

Alex gaped in shock at the Great Devourer who had just swallowed her teacher; the one who had helped in guiding her down her troublesome path and had alleviated her of the pain she faced in her world. He must have seen this in the spirit smoke. That's why he was so distant, Alex thought, as the others mirrored her shocked and sad expression towards the incident that had just occurred right before them.

"Sensei..." Kai was in a trance of horror, and he wasn't the only one. Everyone could not live with the fact that their wise and kind teacher, who had united them together in the first place, was gone.

Unfortunately, the moment was short lived, as the giant serpent turned its gaze onto the ninja. The group froze in terror at the sight of the scaly beast. "Uh... maybe if we stand perfectly still," Jay's idea was cut off as the Devourer lunged at the group. "Run!" Cole yelled as the team leaped away from the snake's jaws and ran for the Bounty.

As they quickly jumped inside the ship, Nya immediately powered up the engines, and managed to barely escape the Devourer's bite as the ship lunged into motion.

"Ha ha! Take that you stupid snake," Kai yelled in triumph.

A sudden lurch in the ground below as a scaly head erupted begged to differ. "Please try to keep the insults for later," Alex retorted as the snake lunged. Nya had to use all of her willpower to steer the Bounty away from the serpent. "Can't this thing go any faster?" Kai yelled to his sister. "We're going as fast as we can!" she shouted back.

Panic erupted as the snake came up and barely missed the starboard side of the ship. "We're losing speed," Lloyd reported, "At this rate we'll hit the ground soon." "Then start throwing things overboard," Nya shouted back, distracted by the argument caused.

"Hard to port, it's coming back up!" Alex yelled as the Devourer lunged, this time managing to take down a turbine with it. The ninja took this as the right time to throw everything off the ship, as it began to lose speed. As Alex ran into a room to throw away its contents, she spotted Sensei's tea pot on the floor and after some hesitation, took it with her.

As she headed back on deck, she looked with the others toward the giant serpent as the Bounty gained speed. Look at that thing eat, she thought as the Devourer gobbled the items they had just thrown over.

"Uh, is it just me or is that thing getting bigger?" Jay asked. Alex looked carefully to the beast and realized Jay was right. With everything it consumed, the Devourer increased in size.

"Don't throw anything over!" she yelled at Kai, but he had already tossed in the teapot she had brought from Wu's room right into the snake's mouth.

"Hold on!" Nya cried as the ship entered Scatter Canyon, with the Great Devourer hot in pursuit. After some close calls it seemed they had lost the serpent, until it came up from atop a ridge and slammed the ship with its tail.

"Abandon ship!" Nya called as she hustled to retrieve her exosuit, Lloyd quickly in pursuit. Alex hurried onto the deck, preparing to jump, but Cole grabbed her arm. "No need," he said, "You're coming with me."

Soon Alex found herself in Cole's Tread Assault, alongside the others in their vehicles and Lloyd with Nya on the samurai suit, looking back at the Bounty, which had just collided with the ground in a heap. It was almost too much to bear; first losing Sensei, then their home, to the mistakes of the Serpentine.

It was a short lived moment again as the Devourer interrupted the heart breaking scene by consuming the ship, as the ninja and samurai fled to safety under a nearby rock. They could only watch in horror as the snake snapped their home into splinters before their eyes before retreating underground.

As the Devourer moved away, the others began to ponder on what to do. "We have to warn people before that thing gets bigger," Alex stated. "Bigger? BIGGER!? That thing in one bite just crushed our entire ship!" Jay was on a rant. "We have no chance at stopping something that big!"

"Stop it! Is this what Sensei would want? Hiding? Fighting? Giving up? Kai was ticked off at his teammates at this point.

"Well... he's not here anymore." Lloyd voiced the thought on everyone's mind as they all looked down in silence.

After the small moment, Kai continued his point, "But his teachings live on. We can't just back down and give up after all we've been through. Ninja never quit, they always pick themselves up when they're down, which is what Sensei Wu would want us to do right now."

"But how are we going to stop that thing? We have no dragons, no Sacred Flute, and weapons that are COMPLETELY useless in stopping that thing!" Jay's point just made Alex even more pissed, "As annoying and childish as you're acting right now, you do have a point. How do we stop something that big?"

Kai thought for a moment before coming to a realization, "We use an idea that's even bigger! Jay you're a genius!" He began to run off, "I'll explain later, but now, we have a snake to destroy."

Alex and Cole followed Kai, along with the others, to a dump in the middle of nowhere. She turned to Cole, "So Kai finds inspiration in junk?" He thought for a minute, "Well... we can find something in this dump. You see, this is where Jay's family lives."

"Oh." Alex didn't know what to think, but she didn't judge, considering her own origins. "So are his parents nice or..." Cole looked to her as he opened the hatch of the Tread Assault, "Well think of it this way. This is where Jay developed his ability to constantly talk for days on end. So... I think you're smart enough to figure out the rest."

Alex shrugged. After dealing with an ancient serpent that grew as it consumed, she believed that talkative parents were the least of her worries.

Jay went to the door of a trailer that Alex assumed to be his parents' home, but there was no reply.

"Good," Kai said, "Better for us." He walked up to the hood of a broken car and laid down a blueprint of an awesome looking vehicle. "There should be enough spare parts to build this thing, and with Zane's recording of the flute this plan should be perfect, but we're going to need our biggest Tornado of Creation yet. It'll be dangerous, so thankfully there's no one around." As if on cue, a postman on a bicycle appeared at the entrance. "Great, what's this guy even doing here?" Alex asked as Kai and Jay went to talk to the guy.

She managed to overhear something about a "Take Back Ninjago Rally" but her train of thought was interrupted as she spotted something on the horizon. On closer look, she immediately stood up, "Guys? Might want to look at the problem at eleven o clock."

"It's now or never, guys," Kai yelled. The four stood together, shouting out their element as they started the creation of their tornadoes. Alex could merely stand back with Nya and Lloyd as the tornadoes escalated into a single, huge tornado that swept up the junk in its path. As the Spinjitzu tornado ceased, the three caught their first look at the new Ultra Sonic Raider. A massive and awesome vehicle, it was equipped with a device that amplified Zane's recording of the Sacred Flute, blasting its sound at the Devourer.

The waves barely missed the Devourer, and soon, the vehicle had to dodge as quickly as possible to avoid getting bitten in half by the huge serpent. After another failed attempt at hitting the snake with the flute's sound, grappling hooks emerged on the side of the Raider and latched onto the Devourer, grappling it to the ground.

"Now, Zane!" Kai shouted, and Zane fired the sound waves directly at the snake's face, causing it to reel in pain. As it lowered its head, Alex spotted a small spot on the serpent's head, small, but easy enough to hit. "It's weak spot," she thought aloud, and she quickly grabbed her dagger and ran towards the snake. "Alex don't...!" Zane's call was interrupted as the Devourer's tail pierced the Raider, right where Zane had been sitting.

Alex stopped dead in her tracks, goal forgotten as she rushed to the vehicle to help her comrades as the giant snake slithered away.

"Is everyone ok?" she asked the ninja, "Where's Zane?"

The ninja quickly exited the Raider, but no sooner had Alex spoken was there movement by the damaged part of the vehicle. "I'm here," Zane's voice came out as he emerged from the wreck, undamaged, except for a part of his face that showed of his robotic interior. "That was close."

"Great, well that was a total failure!" Jay was clearly upset.

"No it wasn't," Alex replied calmly, "Didn't you see? That thing has a weak spot on its forehead. If we could just hit that..."

Jay interrupted, "Oh sure I'll make a note of that: giant snake has itty bitty weak spot on its forehead that will be TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO HIT BECAUSE THAT THING IS TO RIDICULOUSLY HUGE TO DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT!"

Nya folded her arms, "Are you done?" Jay breathed deeply before replying, "Yes."

"Good, because things just got worse." Nya pointed to the slithering figure of the Devourer. "It's headed for Ninjago City," Zane remarked.

"But that's where everyone is right now," Alex observed, "And if that thing eats anything in a city that big..."

"There will be no stopping it," Kai finished as they all looked to the disappearing figure of the giant snake.

Well I'm going to end this here, mainly because this chapter is long enough as it is. The fight scene will occur next chapter, though, and hopefully, it'll be out by tomorrow.

Hope you all enjoy this story, your opinions and statements are always appreciated I know I enjoyed it, especially for the fact that I wrote all this while not only reviewing the episode, but listening to some awesome ATOT music!

On a side note, the poll is up, and I hope you all get a chance to vote on who you want Alex to be with. Until next time.