***So I misspoke. No official villain introduction in this chapter, but it is longer! I promise we get to the good stuff in the next update; hang in there! Also, this chapter introduces a deaf character who uses ASL to communicate. I am not fluent in ASL, so please give me grace if I made any mistakes, I apologize in advance. I am so grateful to you for reading; please review it if you enjoyed!***
Chapter 2
"P.I.X.A.L! I need back-up, it's Sky's Restaurant. Get Zane and Nya here fast!" Lloyd yelled into his pager. The night Nya and Jay have a date and Kai is gone. We can't lose this restaurant! Skylor is going to be crushed if anything happens when she isn't here to stop it! They're coming home tonight too! Kai will be able to sense the fire, and Skylor…
"Lloyd, did I hear you right?! It's Sky's?!" Jay's voice came over his pager, and he confirmed the shouted question, too out of breath to reply any longer. Finally, he reached the primary division into the rougher part of the city and gasped as he could see the glow from the fire that was licking the sky over ten blocks away. Something in him was suffocated as he realized that they probably weren't going to be able to save the building. This was a wicked fire.
- - - - -
Far across Ninjago on the way back from an outer city, Kai and Skylor drove through the desert as the stars came out to play and the moon peeked out from behind a mountain. Skylor sighed and snuggled deeper into Kai's side. Bench seats were always a good idea in team vehicles. In bad situations, four people could squeeze in, and in vacation situations, she could lean against her boyfriend as he drove only slightly above the speed limit. There wasn't any traffic, and Skylor knew if they came up on any, he would slow down. She trusted him.
Kai cocked an eyebrow at her as she settled in and shifted his hands on the wheel.
"So, madam, did you have an enjoyable trip away from "Welcome to Chen's" every hour of your day?" Skylor gave him a look.
"You know I did. Although I wouldn't change much about my life, I do enjoy time away occasionally. It gets to be too much. I still can't believe Master Wu let you go for three whole days."
Kai chuckled and gave her a conspiratorial glance./span/p
"Oh no. I know that look. What did you do?" In mock seriousness, Kai answered, "Nothing you wouldn't." Another look. "Kai..."
"Alright, so technically, Master Wu called and wanted us back by sundown, but I bargained for midnight." A quick glance at the clock confirmed what Skylor
"We still might not make it, Kai." Skylor poked him in the stomach. He flinched and swatted her hand away playfully.
"Excuse me! You forget who you're riding with! I am trying to be safe on the road here and get you back to your restaurant safely and timely, so I don't have to do Sunrise exercises with Wu until my 24th birthday. Do you think we'll make it with you poking me?" She dissolved into laughter and drolly corrected him
"You haven't been safe on the road since you had your first mech as a sixteen-year-old with the Sword of Fire." He hummed in agreement and then fixed her with a wicked look.
"Then there's no reason to start now." Skylor rolled her eyes and checked the road. Yup. Still no traffic. Time to hang on for dear life and pray to the First Spinjitzu Master.
The atmosphere for another ninja couple was decidedly different that night. Jay and Nya were enjoying a picnic on the deck of the floating Destiny's Bounty when their pagers beeped in synchronized furry. Jay sighed as the moment broke and reached for his pager in the basket at their feet from where the pair had been lying looking at the stars. Well. They had been sort of looking at the stars.
His reluctance dissipated as he pressed the open communication button, and Lloyd's voice blared out at him as he yelled for backup. Nya gasped as she heard the message, and they jumped up quickly, Jay throwing things in their basket, tossing Nya's communicator to her before clipping his own on, and turning to jump over the rail of the Bounty to the roof of the monastery as Nya ran toward the bridge of the ship.
"Go wake up Cole and Zane in the Temple! I'll get the Bounty ready to go; she'll be ready in three minutes!" Jay landed in the courtyard from the roof with a jump that Wu would have whacked him for the form of as he yelled an answer to Lloyd of their response. Racing into the main room of the Temple, he slammed into the pool table in the darkness.
"Dang it, that hurts! Ouchy, ouchy, ouch!" Hopping down the hallway to the room that Zane, Cole, Lloyd, Kai, and he shared on one leg, he grabbed at his shin, reached the door, and pounded it open. Zane, true to form, was already dressed and was wrapping his joints, as he gave Jay a pointed look. The noise in the room increased as Jay's pager added its screaming to the concert Zane and Cole's were holding.
"Would you wake Cole?! We have no time to waste if Lloyd is correct in his analysis of the restaurant's pace of burning!" Zane impatiently said as he grabbed his boots and began lacing them.
"And what in Ninjago did you run into in the main room?" he continued as Jay reached Cole's bed and snatched his pillow from under his head before throwing it back into the bunk, then racing to his own bunk and shoving his flannel shirt off his arms as he scrambled to pull a gi top from the cabinet above it.
"Wake up, Dirtclod! The world is burning as you dream of Shintaro!" Cole sputtered awake and opened his mouth to shoot back a response to Jay before his brain registered the obnoxious beeping of their pagers, Jay wrapping his knees, and Nya's yelling over the loudspeaker in their room. The black-sheeted bed was vacant quickly.
"Sixty Seconds, Boys! SIX-TY! If your butts aren't on the Bounty, you get to fly to the city yourselves!"
"What's going on?!" Cole exclaimed as Lloyd's voice came over all three pagers at once.
"Where are you guys?! We need water! And someone call Kai!"
Cole moved faster as he filled in the blanks, and all three ninjas raced out of the bunk room in a tornado of color, leaving clothes scattered across the floor. Zane and Cole each grabbed one of Jay's boots, and Cole shoved his boots on his feet as they reached the courtyard, his wrappings tucked into one pocket. The Bounty's engines were already hot, and the healthy fire burned from them as they grabbed rope ladders to climb on board. P.I.X.A.L stood in the courtyard with Master Wu and Misako and called up to the team as they climbed the ladders. She had obviously postponed her project when the alarms went off.
"The Samurai X mech is no use to a building fire. Therefore, I will remain here and help guard the Monastery!" Her voice was full of an unidentifiable emotion, and Zane pivoted on one foot to salute and nod, then scrambled up the remainder of the ladder, still landing on the deck before Cole and, Jay, who was trying to climb with one hand as he held the blue boot Zane had tossed to him in the courtyard. No sooner had the Master of Lightning fallen over the railing than Cole caught him before he could tumble into the mast, and the Earth Ninja screamed, "GO!"
Nya punched the ignition, gave her ship a kick, and Destiny's Bounty fired away from the Temple.
On the scene of the fire, Lloyd stood near the Police Commissioner and watched the Fire Captain shout orders to multiple companies. Police officers had the crowd contained, and EMTs cared for frightened but unharmed restaurant customers. Smoke poured out of the windows, and the far back of the bottom floor was heavily ablaze. The Commissioner had ordered that no one enter the building until the Master of Water and Ice arrived, if even then. Lloyd was scanning the scene for Skylor's restaurant manager, a nice guy named Mav, who he had seen upon arrival but not since. Mav had been desperately trying to find more information about who was in the building before the blaze started. The fire trucks steadily poured water on the base of the fire and doused the buildings next to the restaurant, in hopes that they would not catch on fire as well.
The major problem now was that the fire trucks had been working and using a lot of water. They needed the reserves on the Bounty as well as Zane and Nya desperately. However, the ninja didn't have anything if they didn't have great timing. Just as Lloyd was reaching for his ear to ask for another ETA over the pagers, the Bounty roared overhead and powered to a stop as close as it was safe.
Ladders dropped, and Lloyd breathed a sigh of relief as Nya and Zane ran past him, gis vibrant, hoods drawn, and arms already powering up. Zane gave him a two-finger salute as he raced past and yelled for the firefighters to back up from the blaze, shooting a blast of ice onto the base of the structure to stabilize it momentarily. Nya ran to a hose where others were aiming water at the building./span/p
"Mind if I pitch in, guys?" she asked as she took a stance beside the hose, and the supply of water increased three-fold on the fire. Hissing, the beast fought for its life. Zane ran around the corner of the building and disappeared from Llyod's view. He felt someone arrive on his right side of him and turned around to greet them.
"What's the plan, Green Machine?" Cole asked as Lloyd turned.
"First of all, please tell me you called Kai, or at least tried to communicate with him?" Lloyd knew Cole would have been running command of the Bounty on the way to the fire, and that would have been a high priority.
Jay, after parking the Bounty, had excused himself from the conversation between Lloyd and Cole to greet a blond figure in a red shirt and dark pants whom he recognized standing on the edge of the crowd with another woman.
Of course. Sky's roommate. She's watching her home burn right now too. Walking over to her, Jay took two fingers and brought them from the side of his forehead down to his chest in a fast gesture, and then chopped the same hand in his other hand in front of his chest, shooting off a quick "Hello, are you alright?" in sign language to the woman who he knew was both mute and deaf. He guessed that no one had figured out her connection to the building yet.
She nodded quickly, and then signed back, "As well as I can be. Tell your family to be careful." Jay prayed inwardly. FSM, please let this make sense to her. Next time I will listen to Zane when he wants to give me a lesson. Her name continued to escape him, so he signed quickly again, this time placing his right hand on his chest, then taking both his pointer and middle fingers of both hands and crossing them and bouncing them twice together in front of him, then signing, "J-A-Y". She nodded, and signed back, "C-L-A-R-A." He nodded and gave her a tentative smile.
The next thing he signed was longer, taking both hands and forming fists which he bounced in front of his chest, then pointing to her, then taking his pointer and middle finger and forming a "v" with which he pointed to his own mouth and slowly moved up and down. "Can you read lips?" This she grinned at and nodded. "Yes." Jay let out an internal sigh. His sign language was good, but not nearly as thorough as Zane's or Nya's. He opened his mouth and took care to actually speak slowly for once.
"Would you like to talk to a police officer? They might want a report from you." Clara shrugged, and Jay smiled. At least there is something I can do to help on the scene of a fire.
"I'll go find someone for you. I'll tell them to speak slowly. Can your friend translate?" He nodded to the woman that she was standing with, and the pixie-cut woman regarded him with a curious expression. Clara took her right fist and shook it up and down in a nodding gesture. "Yes."
"Okay. I'll send someone over then. Stay out of the way tonight, I don't want someone to get frustrated with you because you have to sign. Not that there's anything wrong with that!" He was floundering now, so he excused himself, and the blue-clad ninja turned away and walked toward the small group of police officers that wasn't helping with crowd control.
While Jay was helping Clara, Cole had been focused on helping their leader understand the situation with Kai and Skylor. "We tried to call him Lloyd. Multiple times. But Kai didn't answer the phone or his pager, and Skylor hasn't had her com since it was crushed a couple of weeks ago when she dropped it from the Bounty." Lloyd thought back to the incident when P.I.X.A.L had been checking each earpiece for something or other on the deck of the Bounty. Unfortunately, Kai and Cole had been practicing a new move, and said move led to a ninja crashing into the table the nindroid had been working on.
The communicators, newly airborne, went everywhere, and Skylor's ended up over the rail. Her boyfriend had apologized profusely, but Skylor had watched the whole scene unfold from the bridge with Nya, and the girls found it hilarious. P.I.X.A.L did not. She sometimes still would fail to see humor in situations such as those. Skylor's earpiece wasn't important to her anyway. She only wore it some days, not 24/7 like the rest of them, and always turned its volume very low on the days she did wear it.
Coming back to reality, Cole continued on.
"Kai told us he would turn his pager back on as soon as he came within the limits of the city tonight. They must be getting close. Kai will sense it, though, and I would really like to give him a heads up so he can tell Skylor before she sees it." He glanced beyond Lloyd's shoulder to look at the blazing building, where less flame and more smoke was visible every minute. Another firefighter rushed past the pair, and Cole watched Lloyd jump out of the way and then come to stand next to him. Green Energy and Earth were little help in a fire. He folded his arms, and beside him, Cole sighed.
Chapter 3
Time: 10:37 P. M.
Date: September 17th.
Reminder: Put Water in the Tray for Ice Cubes.
Jay squinted at the phone that lived on the Bounty. How was it so late? P.I.X.A.L'S all call came through at 8:15, and it took only a few minutes to get to the scene flying at full speed. And Nya and Zane are still down there fighting that beast. Jay always stepped back when the team was on fire calls. Lightning did a big fat nothing to help combat flames. He tossed the phone back onto the counter where it was charging in the kitchen and turned to go down the steps to the bathroom. Splashing his face with water, he grimaced, then talked aloud to his reflection.
"So, Mr. Walker. Here we are. Useless as Sky's restaurant burns to the ground." His reflection offered no consolation, only lip-synced in perfect harmony.
"I hope you don't believe that." A female voice came from the doorway. Jay turned to see his smoke-shaded, fly-away haired and exhausted Yang. Nya moved from leaning against the door frame and walked into the room as Jay stepped back from the sink. She moved to it quickly and started to splash her face and neck. Jay moved behind her and rubbed her shoulders.
"Are you and Zane making any progress down there?" he asked as he moved to the back of her neck, then made circles at the base of her skull with his thumbs.
"Not exactly. I need to get back down ASAP, but I needed to go to the bathroom desperately. He said they could manage for a few minutes." Jay hugged her from behind and kissed the side of her face.
"Alright, my water ninja, I'll let you use the bathroom in peace. But you have to let me fix your ponytail when you come out." Nya gave a tired smile and hugged his arms to her chest, then shoved him out the door. Jay wandered to the end of the hallway and tested the sharpness of the blades hanging at the end of the hall. Nya appeared.
"One minute, Jay. I've left Zane for way too long already." Anxiety played across her features.
"No problem, dahr-ling, I work fast, and you have such gorg-eee-ous hair…" he mimicked a hairdresser as he walked behind her and took the elastic out of her hair. In only thirty seconds, Nya had a fresh and tight ponytail. The pair jogged out of the Bounty to return to the scene down below. Unfortunately, their feet hit the macadam just as the crowd of onlookers began to yell, and the fire crews around the building began to backpedal, then run.
Nya ran as fast as she could to reach Zane, and the two began to shoot water and ice without ceasing, even as they backed away. Jay ran to where Lloyd and Cole were standing behind a squad car talking to a man in a Chen's working uniform, and they all shared horrified looks before the other ninja joined them. Cole and Lloyd shielded their heads, and Nya and Jay crouched down with their heads together, one of his hands reaching out for her neck. Zane grabbed the shoulders of the police commissioner, who was staring frozen toward the collapsing building, and pulled him down behind another squad car. Everyone braced, then flinched as the cloud of smoke and ash billowed out from the final crash of Master Chen's Noodle House.
Kai and Skylor reached the north side of Ninjago City just as a suburban church bell chimed for twelve o'clock. Kai moved and shifted Skylor gently. She had dozed off around an hour and a half ago, when he had finally slowed down because of some light traffic. He reached to his ear to turn his pager back on, just as he had promised to do before leaving on their trip two days ago. His phone was abandoned in the bottom of their suitcase. No need for it really. He hated excess technology. A pager was as good as anything. It had been nice to get away, and he knew that Skylor enjoyed getting away from the hustle and bustle of her restaurant for a few days, even before she had voiced it. The restaurant was closed on Sundays and Mondays, and Skylor tried not to work long on Thursdays, but it still got to her. As he flipped his pager on, PIXAL's voice rang in his ears. Kai winced and turned down the volume.
"Successful phone and pager system combination completed. You have ten unread messages. One message from: Ronin.
"Hello Kai, I was wondering if you have any…'". Kai skipped the remainder of the message, realizing it was probably a waste of time. He also skipped the next two, which were a message from Dareth, and a wrong number. Kai waved as they drove by Ed and Edna's Junkyard, as the lights were still on, but with no sign of Jay's parents. PIXAL's voice continued as the mech continued from rural Ninjago further into the suburbs.
"You have three unread messages from: Dirt Clod. You have three unread messages from: Sis. You have one unread message from: Your Favorite Brother." Kai groaned and let out a sigh as he selected to hear Cole's messages. So, Jay HAD gotten ahold of his pager before they left.
"Hey Kai, we have a situation in the city, and we're wondering your ETA back? Let me know when you get this, it will be easier to explain." Kai frowned as he opened the next one. Situation?
"Kai, we need you back here ASAP. Sky's restaurant is on fire and…" That was enough for him. He pushed down the gas, and the mech roared back to full power. Traffic was clear anyways. Skylor groaned awake and looked around perplexedly until she caught sight of her boyfriend's face. Kai answered her unspoken question quickly and tersely.
"Cole called. There's a big fire in the city, and we need to get there as soon as possible." Internally he grimaced. Later there would be heck to pay for lying to her, but at this point, Kai was too worried to care. He knew how much it took to shake Cole. He was the Master of Earth and Rock, for crying out loud. But the urgency in his brothers' voice message had shaken him. Cole never exaggerated things. If Cole said it was bad, it was a fire worthy of the front page of the Ninjago Newspaper.
"Kai, let me summon my dragon. "I can go faster on it if I summon some of Griffin's power. And if it is really that bad, I could absorb power from Nya or Zane to help." Skylor was switched into ninja mode and ready to go, Kai realized. He weighed the options in his head. Let her summon Aadya, she gets to the fire first and freaks before I'm there…. Keep her with me, but deal with her questions until we reach the city…
"Skylor, I think we are ok. We are only around fifteen minutes out from the temple, and it's only a ten-minute ride to where Cole said they would be." He tried to keep his voice steady, but she caught the waver.
"Nope. Nice try, Master of Fire. I'm flying, especially if it's Cole who says they need help." She calmed her mind, and Kai slowed down as he realized there was no changing her mind now. The Amber Energy Dragon burst into creation and took quickly to the sky. Skylor yelled down at him as her dragon's core began to pulse with white; the power of speed.
"Meet you at the Monastery!"
Kai sighed as she took off but detected a change of the element within him now that his element wasn't morphed or as close to Skylor's Amber signature. There was a large power source in the direction of the city. Cole wasn't kidding. The fire is a strong one.
Nya watched in disbelief as the remains of Master Chen settled on the plot. Beside her, Jay shook with adrenaline. He felt useless in fires, and she knew that. Reaching for his hand, she clenched it in hers. He looked down at her gratefully, then stood up fully.
"Alright, Lloyd. What do you want us to do?" Nya glanced over at her brother in green, who was now leaning beside Cole on the hood of the car and watching the firemen and Zane, who had raced back to work on cooling the still-flaming rubble of the restaurant. Their leader sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
"We need to call Kai. I'm nervous about Skylor's reaction. " Nya watched her Yang walk over to Lloyd and reach for his shoulder and then grip it tightly.
"Dude. No one's hurt. No burns, no broken bones, and no deaths. We can't be unhappy about that. We'll deal with Skylor and tell both her and Kai when they re-enter the city." Lloyd looked at the Master of Lightning and agreed with him as he pulled away from his hand. Nya watched as he reached for his pager to direct-contact her brother, then interrupted him.
"Lloyd, do you care if I call Kai?" Lloyd nodded, and Nya reached into her pocket. Pulling out the latest Borg Phone, compliments of Cyrus, she pressed the preset button to call Kai, then put the phone on speaker. It crackled, and then Kai's voice came over the line./span/p
"Hey, Sis. I'm glad you called. Hit Cole, will you? I've been trying to call him for a while. I'm on my pager by the way." Cole grimaced and shrugged at the rest of the circle.
"Kai, is Skylor riding with you?" Nya asked this tentatively, trying to gauge how much she could say, without dropping the literal bombshell.
"No, she is riding her dragon. I told her that you guys called and that something was burning in the city. We are headed to the Monastery now to check in with Wu and see what he thinks the two of us would be most helpful with. We are around twenty minutes out. What happened with the fire?" He asked this confidently as if it was some unfortunate gym or grocery store that had been on fire, and not the building he knew it was.
"We lost it, Bro. Zane and I tried everything, and just couldn't keep it up. Thankfully, Clara was out of the apartment, and Mav was able to evacuate everyone from the building before we were even on the scene." Kai exhaled heavily, rubbing a hand across his face.
"Complete collapse?"
"Yes. The roof caved completely in a bit ago. Zane is still helping cool the rubble. The rest of us, minus P.I.X all here, by the way. You are on the speaker." The rest of the ninjas greeted him, then Nya took the phone back into her hand.
"What are you going to tell Sky?" she asked.
"I have no clue." her brother sighed and ended the call.