Chapter Three: Come Little Children
Come little children, I'll take thee away into a land of enchantment
Come little children, the time's come to play, here in my garden of shadows…
The tiny radio in his pocket vibrated to signal the incoming transmission. "Looks like mine's working," Kai said.
"Same here," Lloyd confirmed.
"Mine too!" Jay piped up. "Nya really did a good job on these with such short notice!"
Cole sighed. "I still couldn't feel it, even after I switched with Jay."
"Eh, you'll get used to it," Jay said. "Plus, the three of us could, so we'll still be able to get the transmissions. Or if one of ours breaks, we could take yours."
"Let's see if we can talk to her," Kai continued, taking the tiny silver antenna out of his pocket and turning it on. The others followed suit, and Nya's voice instantly filled the room.
"-sting, one, two, three, testing…" the radios blared. "Can you guys hear me?"
"Yeah. They're all working," Lloyd said.
A sudden static screech made Kai flinch. "What was that?"
Nya's voice slowly came back through the noise. "-den feedback spike. Do you guys all have them turned on? You shouldn't – it'll make it harder to hear things on both ends."
Cole fumbled with the switch on his before turning it off, and Jay and Lloyd followed soon after. The volume in the room decreased significantly, leaving the group huddling around Kai's radio.
"That better?" Kai asked.
The static noise corrupting Nya's voice was significantly reduced. "Definitely. You're coming through much better this time," she said.
"Looks like we're ready to go," Cole said. "We've got our bags, the radios… I think we should be okay."
"Good luck!" Nya said excitedly through the radio before Kai could turn it off. "And you better get me a souvenir, Kai!"
"No promises, sis," Kai said, grinning.
He turned the radio off, and the four Ninja departed for Ninjago City's harbor.
To say the least, Clouse was not pleased with the state of the ship.
"You!" he shouted, pointing at a random soldier. "Move those ropes! I don't care where you put them. We're going to be there in two minutes, and we can't have this looking like a mess for Chen's guests! It would be more merciful for me to throw you overboard than for Chen to find out about it!"
The soldier jumped and hurried off to fulfill his superior officer's orders. Clouse grunted angrily and wrinkled his nose in disgust. "You'd think they would know how to hide things quite well…" he grumbled bitterly.
He continued his circuit around the ship's decks, taking the stairs down to the lower exterior deck. Clouse moved to the bow to try to spot the dock, and had marginally more success than he had previously: either the fog surrounding the port was thicker on the upper deck, or it had cleared up slightly. He was able to spot the large group with relative ease.
"Adjust course to have the ship come in alongside the dock!" he shouted to the rest of the ship. "Start slowing her down, too! We're coming in too hot!"
The ship creaked slightly as the soldiers began to work on slowing it to let it drift into place. He spotted a few soldiers who didn't appear to be doing anything useful and called them to his side.
"Here's the boarding plank, you dimwits, now put this down on the dock when we get there!" he sneered. "I am sick of this stupid crew."
The boat slowed down significantly and began to drift near the dock. Clouse pulled aside another soldier and told him to drop the anchor immediately.
"Be prepared to raise it as soon as soon as I tell you," he hissed. The soldier nodded respectfully and ran off without a word.
Clouse turned around to see that the soldiers in charge of the boarding plank had done a decent job of setting it correctly. He pushed aside two of them to greet the crowd.
It was a very small group that stood uncomfortably on the dock. He took a quick head count. Sixteen – only half of the number that Chen had invited. They would have to make up excuses to keep them on the island longer, and Clouse instantly decided that that was Chen's problem.
"Please, line up," he told the crowd. "One at a time, please. There's no rush."
After a few moments, they had ordered themselves, and he welcomed the first up the plank.
The first in the line was a – man? A woman? Someone? – whose appearance was somewhat unnerving: every part of their body was completely invisible. Clouse was only able to tell where their face was because of the white hat that they were wearing. He welcomed the person aboard the ship without a second thought.
Next came a young woman dressed head-to-toe in bright orange. He vaguely recognized her from the descriptions that Chen had given him earlier, and merely gestured for her to come across.
He went through the rest of the line quite quickly. Clouse only hesitated welcoming one person, mostly because he couldn't remember them from the descriptions and they sounded strange.
"I don't recall you appearing on the list of competitors, ah, 'Pippin Ferner'," he asked, suspicious.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," 'Pippin' replied. "Speed isn't a real element, I hear that all the time, can I come on board or not?"
In the end, he welcomed the entire group without much complaint and told the idle soldiers to direct them to their rooms for the voyage.
"Lift the anchor!" he called. "Set course for Chen's Island!"
Turner and Chen simply did not get along, and so Turner had made a point of avoiding Chen as much as possible over the past several decades. Fortunately, his chosen home was on the far side of the island from Chen's usual base, and due to the fact that only one curving, twisting underground tunnel connected the two lairs, Turner usually had a fair amount of time to himself. Sheer probability ensured that he hardly ever saw Chen unless if it was absolutely necessary.
Sheer probability had also dictated that today was the day for Chen to drop in unexpectedly. Considering that he was in the middle the very research that Chen had ordered him to do, Turner wasn't exactly pleased.
"Redouble your efforts," Chen said somewhere behind him. "I want it ready as soon as possible."
Turner turned away from the small glass tank he had been examining to face Chen. Chen had retired his usual formal wear for a loose-fitting purple cloak, which Turner found very odd. "I'm going as fast as humanly possible," he said, leaning back against the table the tank was sitting on. "It's your fault that I can't go any faster."
"Silence!" Chen shouted. "I need him ready two days before! Two days!"
"He will never agree with that," Turner said. "You know that."
"Whether Clouse likes it or not, he will undergo your little procedure, do you understand me?" Chen hissed. "Find a suitable test subject, or I will have Arcturus annihilate you with the rest of humanity!"
"Arcturus came to me with the date first, and you'll never live it down," Turner growled. "Arcturus knows the future better than you. If He wants me to do anything, He will make a test subject fall right out of the sky."
"Fine," Chen said. "If you want to play that game, then so be it. If Arcturus wants you to be the sacrifice, then He will destroy this place."
"Fair enough," Turner replied. "What's the other reason you came here? You wouldn't have come for just that."
"I came to inspect your research," Chen said, rubbing his fingers together in the air dismissively. "You know the drill by now. I need to see if you're still worth keeping around."
"You'll be pleased. I'm very close," he said. He stepped aside and pointed to the tank on the table. "Look in here."
Chen walked up to the small table and leaned over to examine the tank while Turner explained the contents.
"They're flies," he said. "The ones in the left partition are the control; I didn't do anything to them. The ones on the right, on the other hand… well, you should be able to see what color they are."
"Purple flies are certainly unusual," Chen said, grinning. "But can you prove it to me?"
"Watch this," Turner said. He picked up the tank, and with a grunt, threw it as hard as he could at the concrete floor.
The tank shattered almost instantly, upsetting the contents. Hundreds of flies flew away, but several purplish grasshoppers and spiders ran from the wreckage, too.
"Are you satisfied?" Turner asked.
Chen looked at him with a strange expression: clearly pleased, yet also very bitter. "Very satisfied, yes."
"Then," he continued, "Am I off the list?"
Chen grinned. "No," he said. "You specified that you wouldn't unless if you were successful with a human test subject. You have no human test subjects."
He started to walk out, and Turner made no move to follow him. "Unless if Arcturus lets you win your bet, I do believe I'll be seeing you on that little altar in two weeks. Farewell, slug."
The moon hung over the water, highly contrasted to the darkness in the cloudless sky. The stars were bright, but could not compare to the moon's reflection on the choppy water.
The ship gliding silently through the water was mostly asleep except for a few of its crew that were absolutely necessary to keep it moving. However, as long as the four figures on the deck stayed near the bow, they had decided that they were safe from anyone overhearing them.
And, aside from the fact that the moon's dancing reflection was very distracting, Cole was able to keep careful watch for any guards that might interrupt them.
"We'll be landing in the morning," Kai said. The radio hissed static for a few moments before Nya's reply came from the other end.
"Good! Have you guys seen the island yet?"
"Lloyd thought he saw it around sunset," Jay said. "I was with him, but I couldn't see it. Maybe it was just level with the horizon or something."
"Or maybe you're just blind," Cole mumbled, grinning.
"Says Mister I-Can't-Feel-This-Thing-Vibrating-In-My-Own-Hand," Lloyd said.
Jay laughed. "Oh, you got burned, Cole."
"Shh," Kai said, trying to keep them quiet. Cole thought he saw him sniggering behind his fist. "Are there any last-minute things that we need to know about, Nya? Anything Garmadon or Wu told you to tell us?"
"Not really," the radio said. "Garmadon wanted me to tell you that Chen is a bit… eccentric? And that you should really be ready for anything when you get there. Wu said that you guys should make sure to only use the radios if absolutely necessary, and he has a point. The batteries will probably last about a day – just make sure not to leave them turned on all night or something."
"So we only use them if we absolutely have to," Cole said. "Sounds reasonable."
"Yeah," Nya replied. "Radio back if you find Zane or if something really bad happens. As soon as you're ready, we'll leave to pick you guys up – if I can get the rocket boosters fixed in time, it'll probably only take a day to get there."
"Try talking to Cyrus about fixing the rocket boosters," Jay suggested. "He'd be able to fix them easily, I think."
"I know, I'm going to," Nya said. "I barely have the hull finished at this point – I don't have time to worry about them yet."
"Any last-minute advice?" Lloyd asked.
"Um, don't get caught, and have fun?"
"Sounds good to me," Kai said. "Night, sis."
"Goodnight!" she said. The static noise coming from the radio was instantly reduced.
"Looks like all that's left is to find Zane, then," Cole said.
Kai nodded. "I think so."
"Well, goodnight!" Jay said. "See you all in the morning."
They shut off the radio and went to bed.
(A/N): If you look closely, you can see the exact moment I gave up.
Namely, Pippin Ferner, because god damn it. I'm sorry, I had to put that in for... lots of reasons.
A lot of stuff has happened in these past two weeks, though! So much, that I just have to hope that I'm not forgetting half of it.
First thing: As you can probably tell, this chapter's title is not "Young Volcanoes". Instead, it is Come Little Children from Hocus Pocus. I changed it at the last minute - mostly because I decided that it was a really bad transition to go from trippy circus music to pop/rock. "Young Volcanoes" will be used later, however - sometime in the third act.
So now, instead of a pop/rock mix, we now get more trippy circus music, and the next chapter starts the transition out of it with The Entertainer by Billy Joel. One of my favorite songs, to be honest. First verse fits the Tournament perfectly.
Next item on the list: There is now a Youtube playlist for the music featured in this fic! Find it on YouTube here (remove the spaces): youtube playlist ? list = PL9bXoy-yjlxwPh3CPxRLQbDo95mxw49j8
Finally: You have no idea how much I hate this chapter. And the next chapter, for that matter. Thankfully, those two chapters are really all that's left of this awkward canon-rehashing business before we start moving in completely original (and pitch dark) directions. Chapter Five will start this transition; Chapter Seven will finish it when there's basically no remaining trace of canon (especially at the end... dear god...).
Chapter Eight will mark the start of Act Two, and a definite turning point for many characters. It is at this point where the Tournament stops being fun and games and starts being a challenge of life or death. It is at this point where all decisions have consequences and all consequences breed consequences. It is at this point where the fic starts setting itself up for the absolute hell that is Day 23, aka: the entire third act.
No, I'm not kidding it literally is the entire third act.
I will see you all in two weeks! Enjoy Episode 37, which should be leaking online tomorrow! :D