Chapter Two: Welcome

Is it all blue skies, fun and games, until you fall,

Then you're left without anyone at all…

"What brings you here, brother?" Garmadon asked as he led the five people behind him into his monastery. "Not that it really matters, of course; you can stay as long as you like. But everyone else, on the other hand… oh, who am I kidding anyway?"

He laughed with them while he led the group into a suitable room to talk and trade their stories. Garmadon didn't know where his students or Misako were, but he decided they could talk later. He shut the door without a second thought, and then asked the question again.

"I wasn't aware that you were coming. Did something happen?" he asked. His brother looked pensive, as always, but there was a slightest sense of uneasiness in his eyes that Garmadon wouldn't have been able to detect if he didn't know Wu. His brother, however, did not answer.

"We found something really strange, and we asked Sensei about it," Cole said, handing him a very small folded paper. "He said he thought you would understand it better."

He unfolded the paper carefully. On one side was a drawing that he identified as… Zane. On the other…

Garmadon hadn't seen that name in a long, long time.

His brother finally said something. "When they came to ask me, I told them that you might know more about this than I do, Garmadon."

It was hard for Garmadon to keep from looking hurt.

Wu never called him that anymore. He never called his brother Wu, for that matter. The other four in the room might not have understood the significance of it, but Wu followed the ancient rules even more closely than Garmadon himself did.

And that – to refer to a friend like they're a stranger – was either a blatant insult, or a cue to tell him that Wu knew something was very wrong, and he didn't want his students to know.

"I don't quite know," he told them. "Give me a few hours to figure this out. In the meantime, make yourselves at home!"

The smile on his face was somewhat false as he nodded slightly at Wu, but as he dismissed his house-guests, he began a trip down a memory lane paved with broken glass.

"Five days," Chen mused, absentmindedly touching his purple headdress. "Five days, one way, by sea."

The lower ranks below him were standing silently, watching him from where he was sitting on his elaborate throne.

"This poses a problem, gentlemen," he continued, addressing his little army directly. "Clouse."

"Yes, Master?" a man said, stepping forward. He was dressed in a well-decorated red suit, with his black hair in the usual clean bun behind his head. Clouse was Chen's favorite servant – he'd been a dutiful worker for many years.

"Tell me something," Chen purred, leaning back into a corner of his throne such that he could stick his feet up on the armrest. "How many of our forces are stationed on the mainland at the moment?"

"Most of them, sir," Clouse said, scowling.

"And… how many boats in our naval reserves?"

"Fifty are unscheduled," Clouse answered. His natural devious grin reappeared. "Nine are continuing to raid the mainland, but things have been slowing down. One has obviously already left to pick up your participants, and I will be flying to intercept it soon."

Chen sighed, covering his eyes with one slender hand. "We need more boats," he groaned.

"I can change the missions of the nine?" Clouse suggested.

"Fine, fine," Chen said, waving one hand dismissively. "I need all of our soldiers here as fast as possible. Dismissed."

The many low-ranked soldiers turned on their heels and marched out. Clouse turned to lead them – likely toward the boat docks, since they were already a day behind, but Chen didn't care.

"Get back here, Clouse, I'm not done with you yet."

Clouse tsked and slowly walked back to Chen's throne. "What do you require of me, Master?"

"I don't require anything of you. I need to tell you something," Chen said, lowering one leg at a time from the armrest to the floor. He stood. "Arcturus came to me in a dream. He is returning."

Clouse's face remained unreadable. Chen continued.

"I've told you before what that means," he whispered. "Arcturus will return in all of his glory and destroy those who stole from us. We have not missed a single Ritual for nearly ten thousand years – our Reward is coming soon."

"I know where you're going with this," Clouse hissed through his teeth. "I refuse, and I will continue to refuse until he has used an actual human test subject."

Chen growled. "I hate that slug Turner even more than you do. But he's supposedly tested it at least ten times on animals, and it's worked nine out of those ten."

"Yes, but what happened to that one-in-ten?" Clouse said, baring his teeth. "I'd rather not expire on his operating table."

"Which is why we're having trouble finding your test subject," Chen seethed. "But no matter – I suppose it's your afterlife, not mine."

"Let's change the subject," Clouse grunted. "How long?"

"The final Ritual will fall on the final day of the Tournament," Chen said. "That is the day that Arcturus will rise."

Garmadon knew that it wouldn't take Wu very long to find him. He'd left a window open on the second floor – a calling card. Garmadon remembered when they were children, and they would sit on the roof late at night after their father had gone to sleep. They'd play little games for hours and wake up the next morning in their beds like it was nothing more than a dream.

He missed those days. He missed when everything had been fine.

His brother eventually sat down next to him on the painted clay roofing tiles. The two of them sat there for a little while, taking in the stars from where they were in the deep canyon. Neither of them wanted to speak, and Garmadon didn't mind that. If anything, he wanted the silence to stay.

"I'm sorry," Wu whispered. "I should have tried something else."

"It worked, did it not?" Garmadon answered.

"Yes, but it wasn't the right thing to do."

Garmadon sighed, but said nothing. The silence continued before Wu broke it again.

"You are my brother," he said, "You are also my friend. I do not intend to let that change again. The past is the past –"

"But the future is based on it. This is not the last time one of our own will change," Garmadon said darkly.

"The Tournament?"

"You were the one blessed with Father's visions, not me."

The silence returned slowly. Garmadon had traced the entire sky of constellations before Wu spoke again.

"I know that you trained under Chen," he whispered. "I don't know where, and I don't know for how long, and I don't know why. I – no, they need to know."

Garmadon laughed weakly and shook his head. "I'm ashamed, brother. I'm ashamed of everything."

"What you did was not wrong," Wu said quietly. "You had no choice."

"Did I? Did I, Wu? Did I have no choice?"

His brother didn't answer. He sighed.

"Of course I had a choice," Garmadon said. "And I chose to go get your sword. And then I chose to steal what was not mine. And then I chose to ruin you for what you had not done. If you can call that folly, brother, then you are the one fooling yourself."

"I'm sorry," Wu whispered. Garmadon was barely even able to hear him. "I should have done it and I know that now but I didn't and it's my fault…"

"Stop," Garmadon said. "Both of us regret it. It's not worth talking about."

He sighed and turned his gaze toward the tree-filled valley. "I went to Chen to hone my darkness," he said. "I trained, but I was never 'ready' for him. I called him a liar and told him everything he had taught me was worthless. When we could no longer tolerate each other, I left, and vowed never to return," he continued. "And then… we fought. You were defending, but I fought to kill."

Wu didn't answer immediately, and Garmadon didn't turn to look at him. He continued to stare at the trees until he couldn't stand the silence any longer. "Does that answer your question, brother?"

"Yes," he said, composure regained. "Chen… knows dark magic?"

Garmadon turned back to his brother and nodded. "He refined my technique for controlling Shadows, as well as taught me a few other dirty tricks."

"Where did he learn that?" Wu asked. "Simple magic training is hard to find. Dark magic is seldom taught and seldom learned."

"The island he lives on – his ancestors have lived there for many generations," Garmadon answered. "He claimed they were forced to flee their homeland millennia ago. The techniques were apparently passed down from there."

"…Something isn't right," his brother said.

"Nothing is," he replied. "Everything on his island is false – from the people to the land. The place bleeds magic. I didn't spend enough time there to figure out what he's hiding, but it must be something big."

Wu closed his eyes. Garmadon watched him carefully for several moments.

"Brother…" Wu said, opening his eyes again and staring right at Garmadon. "Would it be wise for them to take the risk?"

Garmadon was silent for several seconds while he weighed the question.

"…Chen is not an enemy to be taken lightly," he finally said. "He's deceptive and chaotic, and always planning something. He's just as likely to lie as he is to tell the truth. They should decide what they want to do."

"There is no guarantee that he has Zane, then?"

"I have no doubt that he has Zane," Garmadon said firmly. "I'm only worried about the minefield Chen has planted between us."

execute: (protocol-standardWake) +fullSystem +noEcho

error 0: access denied. override?

retryOperation

error 0: access denied. override?

retryOperation

error 0: access denied. override?

override +autoadmin +5ezaSEPY9ppjSpMqHrGmPA59

error 0: access denied. override?

abortOperation

operation aborted.

execute: (sleep 3600000, execute: (protocol-standardWake) +fullSystem +noEcho +noEcho)

Kai stood next to his brothers, completely slack-jawed.

"What."

"You have to talk to the paper," Garmadon repeated.

"…Why."

"Just do it," Garmadon said. "You've done stranger things before. If it doesn't work, no one's judging, anyway."

Kai snorted before taking his place in front of the paper next to the others. "We accept the invitation," the four of them said in unison.

Just as Garmadon had predicted, the paper immediately started hissing. The old man dropped it and they all watched the paper burst with blue flames.

"Well, there goes our paper," Jay commented.

"Just wait," Garmadon said slowly. "The fire will die soon, unless if it's a very long message."

The flames finished tracing a pattern and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Kai picked up the paper and read it aloud.

Excellent.

A ship will arrive at Ninjago City's harbor five days after you initially receive this. It will leave at midnight and will not wait.

Arrive alone. Pack lightly, and bring no weapons. Everything will be provided for you when you arrive.

Violators of any of these rules will face the consequences.

- Master Chen

"As expected," Garmadon muttered. "He doesn't want anyone interfering."

"Interfering?" Cole asked. "What do you mean, interfering?"

"Chen only allows selected people to come to his island," he explained. "He doesn't want anyone there that he doesn't trust. His island is full of secrets; nothing is what it appears to be. Chen will make sure that your freedom is limited while you participate; he almost certainly has something planned."

"So what do we do?" Lloyd asked. "What if something goes wrong? We need to be able to contact you somehow."

"I think I know how to fix that," another voice said from the doorway. They all turned to look.

"Nya?" Kai said. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been trying to rebuild the Bounty," Nya said, leaning with one hand on the doorframe. "Garmadon let me take over one of the sheds behind the Monastery, and I've been able to make decent progress."

"So, um," Jay said, hesitating, "How can you fix this?"

"While trying to reconstruct the communication system, I realized that it would be pretty easy to scale the old system down," she explained. "I figured it would be useful for saving space in the cockpit, but if I removed some of the non-essential components, I think I'd be able to make pocket-sized radios for the four of you. The signal would still be pretty strong, too."

The four of them shared a look, and Cole grinned. "Looks like we have our plan."

(A/N): Chapter two is finally finished! Huzzah!

Let's give you guys an idea of the scale of this project, though:

This fic takes place over the course of exactly twenty-three days. This chapter takes place mostly on Days 1 and 2.

There are somewhere along the lines of ten subplots involved in this fic. Currently, we are involved in either three or four of them, depending on how you count it.

All of these subplots (except one) are resolved on Day 23. Six or seven, depending on how you count it, start on Day 18 or later.

Yes I'm going to die before that happens. Considering how many crazy battle scenes there are going to be... ugh...

This chapter was Welcome by Christina Aguilera, and the next chapter will be Young Volcanoes by Fall Out Boy!

See you all two weeks from now, probably, or maybe earlier!