AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Happy May! I am pleased to report that my part of the USA is now seeing sunshine and blue sky, after five straight days of dreary cloudiness!
I appreciate the latest comments from AveXCninja11, StoryMaker7, lovesgod12, taylorjensen517, and Kai Lover911!
Just wanted to mention that one of the incidents to which Kai refers below, the one involving Victor and his gang, will be chronicled in a future chapter of A Degree in Danger, written by measuremesky. The second incident he mentions - about Sebastian - was narrated in my story The Fire Within: The Valentine Incident.
Jay's favorite choice of toilet paper comes from Chapter 4 of measuremesky's The Fire Within.
Read on to find out what happens in the action as we time-skip ahead several hours...
Chapter 12 - Fiora 6, Ninja 0
The memory of their failed escape attempt replayed itself in Sam's mind after she had regained consciousness and found herself lying on her back on the floor of their jail cell, her wrists shackled to the wall...
A while later after Fiora had left them, a few tumbleweed soldiers had arrived with food. The minions initially planned to simply slide the food trays under the jail bars without opening the jail cell door, but Jay begged them to open it, so that they could take Sam - who sat on the ground holding her abdomen and pretending to be in agony - to get some medical attention. The blue ninja continued the pregnancy charade, convincing the minions that her unborn baby seemed to be in distress. Certainly Fiora would not want anything bad to happen to a future ninja who would be useful to her, he pointed out.
As soon as a tumbleweed had opened the door, all the soldiers present were knocked over by the Spinjitzu tornadoes of the ninja brothers. The soldiers' branchy bodies were quickly retrieved, tossed into the cell now vacated by the prisoners, and locked in.
The escapees had made their way through the open metal door from which the soldiers had entered the cave area. However, they were immediately presented with a dilemma, for they were faced with a choice of three tunnels to traverse.
Zane had said that Pixal, his companion inside his head, recommended the tunnel on the right, for she could detect wind currents several dozen yards inside which might indicate that the route eventually would lead to the earth's surface.
However, about a mile into the tunnel, they had unexpectedly encountered Fiora and some minions coming back from a visit to the outside world. The ninja tried to use their powers, but unfortunately the neutralization of their elemental abilities remained in effect in the tunnel.
There was nowhere to hide, so the escapees had begun to run back the other way, but Fiora was able to quickly conjure up a thick orange cloud of knockout gas, and violent coughing was the last thing Sam remembered doing before falling to the ground and blacking out.
When Sam had awakened, she found herself lying on her back and her arms extended beyond the top of her head, her wrists bearing shackles which were attached to the nearby jail cell wall. Turning her head, she could see Kai lying unconscious next to her with shackles on his wrists, too. Lifting her head to see beyond him, Sam spotted the others lying in a row on the ground, also knocked out and similarly cuffed.
Zane was lying the farthest away from her. She vaguely remembered him still standing after the rest of them fell, probably because he didn't need to breathe as often as the average human. Fiora must have found a different way to overcome him, she thought.
Sam was now resting her head on the hard stone ground and staring at the ceiling. Other than asking Zane, there was no way for them to know what time it was. She had no idea if they had 12 hours or 12 minutes until Fiora would return to cast her brainwashing spell on them.
If it were indeed already the next day - Thursday - the bride-to-be remembered that she and Misako were supposed to be going shopping today for gifts to give her bridesmaids, to thank them for serving as her bridal attendants. Happy stuff. Never in a million years would Sam have guessed she'd be trapped in a musty jail cell instead, not knowing for certain if she would survive the day.
Tears pooled in Sam's eyes. One tear escaped.
A soft "Hey!" interrupted her thoughts. She turned her head to see Kai, now awake and looking back at her. "Are you OK?" he asked.
She didn't want to discuss what she had just been thinking. "Yeah, just a little chilly from lying on this stone ground," she replied, blinking back the remaining tears that threatened to escape her eyes. She had removed her fire jacket prior to their failed escape attempt, and now it lay in a heap in the corner while her T-shirt and hiking shorts provided inadequate warmth against the cool rocks. "How are YOU doing? How are your arms?" she asked her fiance.
"I'm fine." He scooted his horizontal body over toward her as far as his shackle chains would let him. "I'm a little cold, too. Maybe if…"
"Yeah, I'll move over, too," she said, inching her way toward him.
Sam wasn't surprised he felt chilled. Though in the first few months of their relationship it had seemed counterintuitive to her that the fire ninja was less tolerant of cooler temperatures than the average person, it made sense when she realized he was more tolerant of warmer temps than the average person.
Though the short chains of the shackles caused their arms to remain extended beyond the top of their heads, the couple was able to get close enough to each other to keep each other warm. She rested her head on her left upper arm to face him. He rested his head on his right upper arm to face her.
"Hey, we'll get out of here," Kai quietly said as he leaned forward to give her a kiss of assurance, having guessed the real reason for her distress. "We've gotten out of scrapes before. Remember Victor and his gang on Ninjago U's campus last fall? And how you got Sebastian's ring off his finger last February?"
Sam nodded. Kai was right - those situations had seemed hopeless, yet the enemies had eventually been defeated.
"Well, an orange cloud set us back a little, but we'll find another way," he smiled, with earnestness in his soft brown eyes.
His unfailing optimism was one of his wonderful traits that had made Sam fall in love with him those many months ago.
"I love you, Kai," she whispered, leaning slightly forward to reach his lips. She kissed him, then gave him a smile as she pulled back to once again rest her head on her arm.
Kai leaned forward to return the kiss. "I love you, too, Sam," he mumbled against her lips.
"Hey, you two, get a room!" called a familiar voice from across the cell. Cole had now awakened from the effects of the orange gas.
Kai grinned. "He's just jealous because he'd like to be kissing Brooke right now," he whispered to Sam before rolling over to face the obnoxious earth ninja.
"Excuse me, but if you'll recall, I was here first!" the fire ninja called back.
"Touché!" Jay smirked. Lloyd chuckled. Zane smiled. Everyone else had now regained consciousness.
"You win that one, Sparky," Cole admitted. "So, how is everyone feeling after that little encounter with Fiora's orange cloud?"
"Surprisingly OK, in spite of that nasty stuff. How long were we knocked out, Zane?" Lloyd asked the ice ninja.
Zane accessed his inner CPU. "The current time is 4:28 in the morning, so -"
"What? You mean we're actually all awake before sunrise exercise time?" Jay joked.
Much eye-rolling occurred at Jay's attempt at humor.
Zane continued. "So you became unconscious thirteen hours and eleven minutes ago. I was incapacitated one minute after you were. I did not succumb to the orange gas as you all did, but Fiora conjured up another substance which put Pixal and me in sleep mode."
"Fiora conjured up a lot of stuff yesterday," Lloyd commented, rattling his shackles. "Guess she's serious about wanting us to stay put."
Cole's stomach growled. "Well, I wouldn't mind some breakfast magically appearing in front of me right now. Do you realize the last time we ate was yesterday, shortly after we got here, when we had those snacks from Jay's backpack?"
"I'd like to see her conjure up a bathroom. I kinda need to use one, and right now I don't care whether or not it's stocked with Navy toilet paper," Jay whined, referring to his favorite brand of bathroom tissue.
Murmurs of agreement echoed around the cell.