(A/N) Hello again! Book 2 is finally drawing to a close! I must admit, this is perhaps the best ending to any fic I have ever written. Not because it's necessarily happy, because it isn't, but because it makes you really think. This is a record-setting fanfic for me, because it has surpassed every other fic I have written in all aspects except for number of views. I don't know if We Are Ninjago will be able to live up to 21st Century Ninja's legacy! There were times I almost left this fic to rust but I kept going for all you wonderful, dedicated readers! Now for the final lap of this fic! Read on!
Conclusion
The heavy door opened, and light flooded into the small, dark cell where a scrawny seventeen-year-old boy sat chained to the wall. Why he was chained to the wall, he didn't know, since he was incapable of moving anyway. Reed blinked in the sudden lack of darkness. A brawny guard stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light.
"What?" Reed asked grumpily.
"The emperor requires your presence."
"Oh, so he's emperor already, is he?"
"Quit it with the smartness and get up."
"He didn't tell you? I'm paralyzed from the waist down. I can't walk, much less stand."
The guard turned to yell over his shoulder. "Hey! We need a wheelchair in cell 013!" After a minute or two, another guard showed up with the wheelchair. Once Reed was seated properly, they wheeled him out of the cell.
As they made the trip upstairs, Reed realized where he was. This place was Borg's Tower, but now they had turned it into a real palace. Dark drapings and banners hung from the walls and windows, and the were now grand chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. Priceless jewels and artifacts sat in glass display cases, and everywhere he looked, Reed saw nothing but grandeur.
They eventually arrived at the one hundredth floor. Once in the large office, Reed's escort left him and went back down the elevator. Reed wheeled himself into the middle of the room and examined his surroundings. The office had been converted into a real throne room. The technology was gone. Banners and curtains lined the walls. Torches lit the room with an eerie glow. A look outside the floor-to-ceiling windows told him it was late at night. The tall ceiling sported a skeletal black chandelier, and a red carpet led to the desk, which seemed to be the only thing that they left untouched when they renovated the room. At first Reed thought he was alone. Then a familiar voice spoke. It seemed to come from everywhere in the room, so Reed couldn't identify the location of the source.
"Reed. I have been waiting anxiously for an opportunity to talk. At last I have it."
"Cut the chit chat," Reed snapped. "What do you want?"
Ivan let out a dark chuckle. Then the chair at the desk turned around and the new ruler appeared sitting in it. "Like I said before," he told him, "I need your talents."
Reed narrowed his eyes. "What talents are you talking about?" he asked.
"You're the best hacker in Ninjago. You are a gifted inventor. I could use someone like you."
"I'm not helping you with anything!"
Ivan sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that. I guess I'll have to give you some encouragement."
"You can't force me to do anything!"
The emperor leaned over the desk. "Listen, Reed. Has it yet occurred to you that I know where you live? And that now that I have an entire army of agents at my command, I can invade the island and hunt down and kill every man, woman, and child who lives there? And you would be back in that prison cell, unable to move."
Reed's eyes widened in disbelief. "Y-you wouldn't," he stammered.
"Oh yes I would. One simple command is all it takes."
Reed thought of all the innocent people on that island. His friends, the people he'd grown up with. His sister, the only person left in his family. He didn't think he could bear to lose them. "Please… you can't," he begged.
Ivan smirked. "Your other option is to join me. This comes with more benefits than you realize. If you accept my offer, you will be living a far more comfortable life here, and I can grant you full access to the technology to build whatever you want. A better wheelchair, perhaps? That one looks a little boring, wouldn't you agree?"
Reed did agree, but he wasn't about to admit that.
"Another benefit," Ivan continued, "is that I will leave the island untouched. No harm will come to anyone on it. All you have to do is work for me. So, do we have a deal?" The new ruler stuck out his hand.
Reed's heart raced. There was a lot to be gained from Ivan's offer. But was it the right thing to do? At first, Reed's conscience said no. But then he thought of all the people on the island, all those lives he'd be throwing away. If he refused, there would be a lot of blood on his hands. On the other hand, he could accept, saving all those innocent people. Not only that, but he would also have the tools to make his paralysis more bearable. Two parts of the Ninja code were suddenly conflicting each other.
Rule number one: A ninja never quits.
Rule number two: A ninja protects those who cannot protect themselves.
Sadness flooded into him as the answer came to him. In a contest between saving either his conscience or hundreds of lives, there really wasn't a contest at all. Slowly Reed wheeled himself forward toward the desk, knowing that what he was about to do would immediately expel him from the ninja academy. When he reached the desk, he stared at Ivan's outstretched hand, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes tightly, bracing himself, and shook it.
After Reed had drawn his hand back, he sat back in his wheelchair. He was slightly dizzy from what he'd just done. He silently watched Ivan press a button on his desk.
"Yes?" a voice crackled through a little speaker.
"Our guest has kindly agreed to my offer. Could you please prepare for his, ah, orientation?"
"Of course."
Ivan then turned back toward Reed, smiling pleasantly. Reed narrowed his eyes.
"Is there a catch you didn't mention?" he asked accusingly.
"Well, Reed," Ivan began, "I like my helpers to be powerful. Very powerful."
"And I don't fit the bill?"
"After today you will. You see, I have already gathered three other powerful people, one of which you know."
"Xavier," Reed said with distaste.
"Exactly. Each of these helpers has gone through a procedure that enhances their power."
"What procedure?"
"A mutation. It usually targets the cells that are already imbued with your elemental ability. For example, the last person we recruited was a girl we call Cortexis. She's a master of the mind, so we targeted her neurons in her brain to increase her powers."
If Reed wasn't paralyzed, he would have stood up in anger. "You're experimenting on people! You're treating them like lab rats!"
Ivan frowned. "Now, now, Reed. I wouldn't put it that harshly."
"I would," Reed snarled. "So what are you going to do to me?"
"Oh I don't know, really. That depends on what my scientists find out about you. First they have to figure out the source of your power. That doesn't take long. The hard part is figuring out how to enhance the power without killing you."
Reed was fuming. He had never hated Ivan more than he did now. He was so angry, he didn't think words could describe it. He stretched out his hands in front of him, summoning his powers. All he could think about was hurting this monster before him. But nothing came out of his hands. The lightning wouldn't come. Ivan smiled.
"That wheelchair is made of vengestone. You can try as hard as you can to fry me to a crisp. It won't work."
Suddenly the doors opened. Reed turned his wheelchair around. Two figures in lab coats were standing in the doorway. "We're ready for him, your highness."
"Well, Reed, I shall see you later, once the procedure is over," Ivan said. The two scientists wheeled Reed out of the office to a fate the lightning master could not foresee.
The only thing Reed could feel was pain like he had never experienced it before. The scientists had injected him with electrolytes, then sent volts of electricity coursing through his veins. The result had been pain everywhere in his body.
"Reed? Can you hear me?" said a voice outside the chamber where Reed lay unmoving. Reed couldn't find the strength to talk, so he just gave a small, slow nod.
"Good. Listen. My name is Dr. Steckers. You are going to be okay. We've stabilized your condition. You will need some days to recover, but in the end you'll be alright. Do you understand?"
Reed nodded again.
"Good. Now listen. We have supercharged your body cells. We tried to put a safe amount of voltage in you, but the procedure went wrong. You are now so full of electricity that your bare skin will shock people with high voltage. The only reason you have not been electrocuted to death is that because of your elemental power, your body already conducts enormous amounts of electricity without serious damage. We have managed to contain most of the electricity to your arms and hands. Unfortunately this means you must wear long gloves to prevent accidentally releasing electricity on everything you touch. Do you understand?"
Reed nodded once more.
"Good. Now in a few days your body will get used to the electricity in it. Once you're feeling well enough to get up, you can start work here. The emperor will give you your instructions. For now though, you need to rest. We'll be checking on you every once in a while. Do you understand?"
Reed nodded, but his mind was now racing. Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, they had. He had never felt more awful in his life. First he was paralyzed. Next he was forced to agree to helping Ivan. Now he was dangerous to the touch. He really wished his sister was there. She'd know how to make him feel better. Now he may never see her again...
Reed got out of the medical wing faster than the doctors expected. After thorough testing the doctors attributed his quick recovery to the fact that his body functions, including healing, were now much faster due to his enhanced lightning powers. He could think faster and move quicker, too. To Reed's surprise, they also found that the electricity running through him had somehow slightly reawakened some of the dead nerves in his spinal cord. It wasn't enough to get Reed out of a wheelchair, but it did give him some sensation below his leg. His injury level had therefore gone from "complete" to "incomplete". Secretly, Reed found the utter irony of this development slightly amusing.
Unfortunately, this bit of sunshine didn't keep Reed very happy for long. Almost as soon as he got out of the medical wing, he was put to work as the Chief Inventor for the Emperor. This entailed blueprinting, modeling, and building machines and technology that would benefit the empire. These inventions would then be mass produced if necessary by workers in factories. Cyrus Borg would have had the job, but Ivan had ordered agents to hunt down and imprison the allies of the Ninja. Some had still not been found, but Borg and many of the elemental masters that the ninja had met in Master Chen's tournament were now in high security cells in Kryptarium Prison.
Unfortunately, Reed thought bitterly one night while working on a project of his own, doing what I like to do for a person I despise defeats the pleasure I get out of the job.
It was late at night, and he should probably be getting to bed, but Reed was almost finished with his current project. This invention was something he'd been working on ever since he'd gotten out of the medical wing. It wasn't on the orders of Ivan, although the idea came from their meeting when the ruler first asked Reed to join him. Finally, the last screw was in, and Reed wheeled backward to admire the final product of his three-month-long project.
After many failures, he had finally constructed a new wheelchair for himself. It had a sleek, futuristic look to it. It was blue, with a plastic seat with a low back to it. It had four wheels, but each of them were thin disks instead of traditional wheels, minimizing resistance. Unnecessary frame parts were left out to make it lightweight. These properties made it an exceptionally fast wheelchair. But the best part about it was that it was entirely powered by his own inner electricity. Sensors on the arms would pick up electric signals to tell the wheelchair what to do, letting him essentially control it with his mind.
Reed concentrated very hard on his legs. He'd been practicing this for a while. Sending as much electrical energy as he could down to his lower body, he zapped his nerves that controlled his leg movement and quickly moved out of his old wheelchair into his new one. He got himself into the seat just in time. The signal wore off quickly, and he had to settle himself down comfortably into the seat using his gloved arms and hands. Reed sighed, exhausted from the effort. If he could keep enough energy in his legs to move them every day all the time, he would. But just short trips like this sapped all the energy out of him for hours. That was why he had to be in a wheelchair almost all the time.
Reed sighed again. It was only because he had joined Ivan that he was even able to build this wheelchair. And he couldn't lie to himself: life had been comfortable for him here. He was given his own room that tailored to his needs as a handicapped person. Everything in there was accessible to him, and he hardly ever needed help. Everything in the room was calibrated to his own electric signal, making things highly convenient. There were two downsides, though. One was quite obvious: he was in the house of the enemy. The other one was that his name had been changed by Ivan at their second meeting. It had been a week after Reed had gotten out of the medical wing. Ivan had told him that his name from now on would be "Tech". Reed had frozen when he heard this.
"I know," Ivan had said. "A new name can be intimidating. However, I think you will eventually accept it."
But that was not why Reed had suddenly been overcome with shock.
It was because back when they were agents for the Black Dragons, back when he still could find a reason to laugh, back when he did wrong things not because he had to but because he thought they were right, back only a year that felt like eons, Drew would sometimes call him that very same name.
(A/N) So, did that punch you in the gut? I decided to bring back an old detail of Neverender that was easily overlooked. We've been studying irony in literary interpretation class, so I really wanted to try it.
Phew! Done! This is officially my sixth finished fanfiction! Before I came on FFN I never dreamed I would be able to finish a good story. But when I put myself in the proper mindset and realized I could do this, I went so far!
Thank you so much to my awesome reviewers. Last chapter we had Kairocksrainbow, ebony umbreon, SnowflakeShard, and the Mayor of Ninjago City. Thank you all! And thanks to all the other wonderful people who also reviewed throughout the course of this fic!
An extra special thank you goes to my most dedicated reviewers: ebony umbreon, Kairocksrainbow, and The Mayor of Ninjago City. You three have been with me this whole time!
Another thank you goes to JayFan67, who watered my imagination when it was dry as a desert!
Lastly, thanks to all the people who have already liked my Facebook page!
I don't want to keep you all here forever, so I want to conclude with three things.
1. See my Facebook page for updates. It will be the place for you to follow me while I'm away writing the next book. I post pretty regularly, so visit often!
2. I have a poll up! PLEASE vote for your favorite Nightprowler! I MIGHT just give them their true potential first!
3. As always, review please!