Hey everyone, I am back from Florida! Ooh what a great vacation! I got sun, not burnt on day one like last time I was out, that was a mistake of not having a shirt on at the beach. But I also been to both park of Universal and been to Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley with my cousin and even got a wand from Ollivanders; Sirius Black's even and she got Luna Lovegood's. Both are amazing. But the cool thing was that I got to meet my online sister, KaitouKiwi and hung out. It was amazing. But I'm blabbering now, sorry. Anyway, this is my friday update since I was gone so enjoy. :)

Chapter 18: Truth Revealed

Silence ran throughout the quiet museum of natural history. Course the alarm was blaring to alert the authorities or Ninja, but it was cut off as soon as it was activated. Too early for it to happen, especially for the culprit responsible for triggering the trap. But who was it though? The ancient galleries were quiet and empty with the lights out but the skyview windows illuminated the room in a soft glow. The sound of dry and rough texture scraping on the polished stone floors soon filled the abandoned gallery to reveal four different cultural and various colored snakes in red, green, black, and blue. Fangs adorned on their scaly faces with forked tongues flickering out and each held a golden staff of a hooded cobra with a gemstone.

The Serpentine Generals.

The leader in the middle of the group stopped in his tracks and raised his staff to notify his comrades to halt. His red eyes scanned the areas as he searched for something, but allowed his forked tongue to sense around for scents in the air. The blue cobra felt cautious as the air felt odd. Like they weren't alone. "Do you sssuppose we are not alone?" Skales wondered to his comrades. "I can sense it."

Silence came from the trio beside him to become alert. But they weren't sure. It felt odd though. Almost familiar. "I'm not sure." the short black snake, Skalidor, said. "But what is it that we're looking for anyway?"

The red and white snake Fangprye, Fangtom, gazed around the exhibit with his twin heads to shrug. "How are we suppose to know." the first head said with his deep, thick Romanian accent. "Skales wasn't clear on instructions. Just come in and steal I suppose."

"As usual." the second head added in doubt.

The Hypnobrai sighed while rolling his red eyes toward the vipers to snort. "And I sssuppose two heads are better than one." he scowled. That made the Fangprye general quiet to have them turn to each other on the possible insult. "Point proven." he smirked and turned to slither around the gallery. "Anyway," he continued. "In this pathetic place that steals from us from our reckoning days in the past holds sssomething that must belong to us. And I intend to find it. I know it is here."

"What is it then that we are searching for?" Acidicus asked while slithering next to him. "Almost anything of our culture or past is either a replica; a fake." He demostrated by swinging his staff at a podium to cause a golden egg to sway and crash on the stone floor to shatter ceramic pieces everywhere. "See. With what we are searching for would be pointless."

Pointless? That made the cobra turn to the spitting cobra to avert his red eyes to a hard stare to make the Venomari slither back a little. "All except for Pythor's staff." he hissed. The remaining generals stopped to look at each other and wondered how the fallen Anacondrai's staff had to do with anything. The Hypnobrai could see their puzzled looks to know they needed foreshadowing. "Days before the Solstice Battle," he began. "When we were Garmadon's slaves, he required us to find Pythor's staff to use the anti-venom along with the Devourer's venom to create that poison which he used on that pesky water ninja." He sneered on the last statement. "That grey ninja and I have had quite a history together now."

"So what does this have to do with us finding Pythor's staff?" the Constrictai general asked.

"It's simple, really." Skales chasisted lightly. "Once we find the staff, we'll be able to create more of the poison with the Devourer's venom. The Ninja won't know what'll hit them. Surprisingly that pesky water ninja cheated death and survived from that fallen mast on him into a coma. He's almost a walking machinery."

"Nah, that's mostly Zane and not me." a familiar voice chirped to make Skales jump in surprise and become aleart. Suddenly five figures dropped from the ceiling to soon surround the generals while a figure in orange climbed off the teen in red's back and all drew their weapons out with Lucas in front of the Hypnobrai general. "Nice to see you too, Skales." he said with a sneer. "Glad you're here and not sneaking away for Lloyd."

The blue snake gazed around the group as his comrades look started, but he was unfazed to them. This was like the usual when the Ninja ambush them. It was starting to get old. The general gazed around to huff and crossed his arms. "Funny." he remarked. "I thought you would've been that new fellow that is doing a much better job than you are."

"Spiderman, Skales." Jay stated while gripping both of his nunchuck handles tightly in one hand. "And sorry but we beat him before he could make it. Plus you would miss us if he came in."

"Plus we're more better than him at this job." Cole rebutted. He slowly got out of his stance as neither of the generals showed retaliation to their presense. The others followed suit, but had their weapons still held tightly in their grasps. Just in case they got any funny ideas. "Not to mention he doesn't know much of fighting your kind unlike we do. So yeah, like Jay siad, you would miss us. We got our work cut out for us."

The snake snorted to grow a small smirk. But he wasn't showing to all of them, but more toward Jay. He chuckled more as he made him confused to why he was facing him alone. "Oh contrary my dear ninjas," he laughed a little with his tongue empathising his S's. "I believe you may have failed your jobs before. Even this one." He pointed toward Jay with a clawed finger.

Jay was now stunned to speak at first to have both his team and the generals staring at him quizzically. What was Skales going for with the lightning ninja? There was no way he knew anything of him. Even if they would know he was Spiderman, they or more likely Skales would expose him by now, but hasn't. So why was he pointing at him and saying he failed in his job. "What are you going at with me, Skales?" he demanded. "There is no way I failed a job. Other than delivering pizzas. But that was different. So what is it then?"

The chuckle grew in the Hypnobrai's throat to make the blue ninja and his friends confused. What was funny? "Wasn't it obvious, boy?" he laughed. And to Jay's response, he had to shake his head. "Weeks ago, one night and it was thundering, I was taking an evening stroll to clear my head and suddenly heard a gun fired." At that moment, Jay's eyes slowly widen to quietly gasp. Skales smirked more to it. "And when I came to the source, I stayed hidden to not be the next victim and saw two people out there. But there was also a third, lying on the streets." Jay's hazel eyes widen more and soon narrowed darkly to clutch his nunchucks tightly to growl lowly. "One had a gun and the other was odd and blue and both ran. Then you came. All scared and stricken with grief. What was that name you yelled to him? Uncle Ben?"

That made the clock stop ticking inside the Ninja of Lightning's head to where the cogs snapped to make his brows stitched together with anger. He felt his heart racing to feel a familiar thunderstorm bursting in his chest to have his breath rugged to grip his weapon tightly to hear his knuckles crack. He was keeping himself at bay, but the restrictive bands have been severed now. A cry of anger escaped from him and charged toward Skales and jumped while swinging his leg to connect with his chest. With his enhanced strength for being Spiderman, he caused the cobra to be launched all the way across the gallery and slumped after he collided against the wall to groan. Heavy breathing formed from the teen's mouth to growl and started his way to the general; ignoring his friend's calls.

He felt his spider sense tingle as something was about to strike him from behind. And he knew who it was even. In a instant reaction, he swayed his head aside to dodge as a thick black scaly tail was heading for his neck, but its owner missed his target. Jay quickly grabbed onto the tail and threw his right elbow to Skalidor's face behind him to hear cartilage break from his snout and his cry of pain. Still gripping onto his tail, he grabbed it with both hands tightly and began to spin on his heels with the Constrictai general being hurled around like he was a hammer throw in a track and field event. Once Jay felt he had his momentum, he released his grip to let the black snake fly past the Ninja to collide into a gong to slump to floor after a loud bang to be dazed.

The Ninja kept turning their heads back and forth to what Jay's strength could do more like Cole's and tensed up to the lightning flashing in his hazel eyes to hear him snort and turned back for Skales. What gotten into him recently to what Skales said? Witnessing his uncle's death, they got. But maybe it was because he crossed a line on the auburn teen. This would explain the murderous look he had. They wanted to stop him now for it, but all were afraid of his rampage. They just hope now he'll stop.

The remaining general slithered back slowly as they were suddenly struck in horrid what the blue ninja was capable of doing to two of their fellow comrades. They both saw him as the scrawny one next to Lord Garmadon's son, but this was all new. As they slithered back nervously in his path, both felt trapped to move as they stared more to his darken eyes to stutter on making plans to try and fight him, but couldn't. They felt lost now, stuck, hooped. And since they were stuttering, both had screamed as the lightning ninja was running and spun into his electric miniture tornado of Spinjitzu to pull them into the vortex and soon tossed aside, unconscious after being beaten from his Arts of Spinjitzu. The lightning ninja gazed around to the fallen snakes to snort at them and turn to Skales as he heard him groan and saw him slowly recover.

The blue cobra planted both of his scaly claws on the shiny stone floor to prompt himself carefully to cough out a groan of pain for his chest and back. He had to admit that was rather painful than before when it comes to fighting the Ninja; especially the blue ninja. But as he slowly felt the pain washed away, his red eyes glanced up to gasp on what he saw. All three of his comrades laid unconscious before him and all that stood in the middle of them was Jay. He gazed into his burning hazel eyes as they burned through him to know he was his next target and quickly thought of a plan. The cowardly way to stand, turn, and slither off rather quickly.

A growl escaped from the lightning ninja's throat as he watched him slither off like a coward. He was getting away and he had information of his uncle he wanted. "Come back here you coward!" he shouted and started chasing after him; still ignoring his friend's calls.

Light footfalls echoed throughout the musuem as the auburn teen was in pursuit for the Hypnobrai to see how he had slither away faster with a thick tail of his. As he watched him used the fire exit as his route of escape to slam it behind him, he merely barged through it like it was normal door and glanced over his shoulders to see his friends racing after him. To buy himself time, he quickly wretched a metal pipe from the brick wall and wedged it into the handles and twisted it like a pretzel; creating an effective lock until Cole could break it. With his extra time in play, he quickly scanned for Skales and found blue scales slithering into an alley and took off after him until he turned the corner to chase him more.

Adrenaline rushed into his veins as he chased after the cobra to bring himself to a full sprint. He was close to capture him, but he felt his speed decreasing to where he was losing stamina. He couldn't lose him now. Not when he has information he wanted. Luckily for him, the general cornered himself to a dead end and stopped to quickly catch his breath and glared at him. "End of the line, Skales!" he growled at the general. "Now start talking of what you know of that night! Now!"

Trapped. That's how he felt against the blue ninja. He also knew he wanted him to spill the beans of that night, but he wasn't willingly going to talk. His red eyes scanned his surroundings until they spotted a metal sewer cover between him and Jay. He saw it as his chance now. "You think you can force me to talk?" he stated. "Over my dead, scaly body!" and launched himself to the cover.

And with a quick hand, Jay quickly held his right hand at Skales to quickly press his fingers into his palm to fire a ball of webs; different length than his strings of webs. The webshot sailed across the air and met its target on Skale's wrist to pin the cobra to the brick wall. And for a good measure, he fired another shot of webs to pin his other wrist to the wall. He had him now. "Gah! What martial artss is this!?" the Hypnobrai shouted in surprise of the webs on him to try and free himself. "This issn't even funny!"

A smirked played on the edge of Jay's lips as he watched his prey struggle. Like a fly caught in his web. "Not martial arts, but more like spider powers." he stated and fired another shot to pin his chest still. A chuckle escaped from the lightning ninja after he made that shot. "Although it is quite funny once you see it more. HAHAHA!" he laughed and fired more shots at the trunk and tip of his tail to where he was immobile. Oh this was fun no matter what to him with his powers.

"Gah! Please stop!" the general begged. "I'll do anything. Just enough of thisss!"

And at the moment, Jay had to stop laughing and stormed over to the trapped snake and ripped his mask off his face. He then wrapped a gloved hand around his throat and with his free hand turned into a fist held high over his snout. "Then talk." he demanded with venom in his throat. "What do you know about my uncle's death and this blue man? I heard this story before and I saw no blue man. So you're lying. Now tell me or else!"

Panic swam through the general's shaky body as he gazed deeply into the burning hazel eyes to gulp a little. He turned his red eyes away, even though he could use his hypnotic powers to control him, but he was stuttering to think straight. But he slowly stopped as he gazed at the webs around his wrist and tail, puzzled. "The webss." he spoke quietly. "I sseen them before, but only from one person." Realization flashed into him and turned to Jay as he still held a death glare to turn his lips to a sly grin. "Spiderman..."

Realization now washed over the blue ninja to have his eyes widen to what he done. He exposed himself as Spiderman without dressing up to a foe. And he was suppose to keep it all a secret. Sure his friends weren't here now, but still. A Serpentine general most likely exposing him to Ninjago. "Oops..." he squeaked and removed his grip on Skale's throat to step back and looked at his wrists and soon the snake. "Oh man..."

The sly grin still played on the Hypnobrai's face even though he was pinned to the wall still. He now knew the true identity of Spiderman and saw blackmail when needed. Or for even better things. "So you're the Notorious Spiderman," he laughed lightly. "Swinging in the sky, making himself someone important. And also have to wear tights, egh. But why would you ever become this person anyway? Surely there's a reason why a pathetic surface dweller ninja like you would do this."

Pathetic surface dweller ninja? That made Jay narrow his eyes more to the serpent. He was something more than that. He was the Ninja of Lightning and Spiderman. "For my uncle." he sneered at him. "He always told me that power has a responsibility and after he was murdered in cold blood, I took action into my own hands. I chased after his killer...long story short, he's dead as well. Not my fault he fell. Like you know anything else of it if you were the only witness."

A chuckle played in the blue serpent's throat to have Jay raise his scarred brow. What was so funny now? "Sso blind and stupid." Skales chuckled. "That's how I alwayss saw in you." To a quick reaction, Jay ran back to him and wrapped his hand around his beefy neck to gasp as he squeezed to make him stop laughing. But his smile still played on his lips. "But you don't know the whole ssstory. The man I saw you chase after and killed wasn't your uncle's killer. The real person was a man whose skin was blue and had a weird voice. And he even could conduct electricity from his hands. Just like you before."

Hazel eyes still burned at the Hypnobrai general, but they slowly loosen to the description of his uncle's murderer. Blue skin and can conduct electricity. Just like one person from last night that gave him a numb arm for a quick minute. And same description that he was given when he trapped the man in the warehouse. He couldn't believe it now. The wrong man was accused for murder. "Electro." he gasped.

Maxwell Dillions was the true killer.

The smirk still played on Skales' face to see the blue ninja's face as he saw the truth. This he had to find hysterical considering he was still trapped to a wall. "Now you see the truth, don't you." he remarked. "Innocent blood on your hands and the true man sstill at large that not even Spiderman can defeat. So what are you going to do then? Let him go or not?"

He was right. What was he going to do now? His uncle's true murderer was out there and needed to stop him. "Where can I even find him?" he demanded. "Tell me and maybe I'll let you go. There's only one way to escape. And I know you won't expose me."

Bargaining, something Skales never does much."He is hidden deep within the subway tunnels." he replied in hopes to be freed. "Follow the rails as he thrivesss on power to satisfy his thrist of electricity. Our troops are afraid to explore those areas for he could kill us if we cross his path. That's where you'll find him. Hiding away to recharge his life. Hopefully something planned for you."

Something planned for him, huh? Sounded like something he needed to do and also redeemed his uncle's death against the true killer. But now he had a location to find him. Thanks to his slithering foe. The auburn teen reached over to Skales' bounds to rip the threads off of his trapped limbs and fired a thread to pry the sewer lid off. "Now leave," he demanded without looking at him. "Before I change my mind."

The serpent smirked to his acknowledgement as he could see his hunger for revenge burning inside him. Not only he was setting him free, but also betraying his team to think he was capturing him. How lucky could a snake get? "I knew you would make the right decision, Ninja." he smirked as he slithered around to reach the ladder. But before he could descend into the darkness, he had to gaze at him with a victorious grin and narrowed eyes. "Good luck then. You're going to need it anyway." He grabbed the lid to replace over him as he carefully climbed down without the use of his legs for being the general.

Jay was now alone, but was glad he was. The numbing thunderstorm in his chest had subsided when he had Skales, but now he knew the truth. The thunderstorm now grew and brewed harshly to make Jay squeeze his knuckles tightly to hear them crack and drew in deep breaths to clear his head. But couldn't. Below his feet hid the muderer of his uncle, but wasn't prepared to face him now, but later. And the more he thought of Electro, the more he wanted to avenge for his uncle and repay for what he done to the wrong man. Accusing him and leading him to his own death. Unhonorable of him.

"Jay!?" a voice called to him.

The lightning ninja lifted his head to watch his friends rush over to him to slip his mask over his face. He wanted to hide his anger on his face, but it wouldn't stop them from noticing the fire in his eyes. When the Ninja met up with him, they gazed past him, but they noticed that Skales was missing but noticed the hatred gaze burn from the blue ninja. "What happened to Skales, Jay?" Cole asked concerned while removing his mask.

"Also," Kai added while removing his mask. "What was that all about back there!? Giving Skalidor a concussion. Breaking a couple of ribs on Acidicus and Fangtom! Seriously, what the heck has gotten into you!?"

Anger bubbled in the auburn's body as his teammates were shouting at him for his actiuons. What he done was done. Their fault for being in his way as he needed Skales for his information "He got away before I could catch him." he lied with a growl. He stormed past his team to shove Kai and Cole's shoulders rather harshly to keep on walking away. He even could sense the fire and earth ninja were glaring at him. "As for the musuem back there," he scowled. "I don't care. What's done was done."

Footsteps pounded on the wooden floors of the deck as Jay reached the Destiny's Bounty still angered. But he slowly loosened himself as he stared at the marvelous work Lloyd and Nya had done to make their home into a ghost ship. Skeletons hung on the sails and danced around as the wind softly blew across them. Cobwebs, he thought they were missing but must've been found, were spread across and dangled on the railings with plastic spiders embedded into the webs to give it effect. Plastic lit up pumpkins were scattered around on the decks and steps, each with flickering light bulbs to make them seem spooky, but Jay hardly found them. But other than that, he had to admit that everything was well developed to make their home pop out. But the sneering face had to return and stormed into the lower decks.

After making his way throughout the many halls, he finally reached the door to the basement and lightly knocked on the door four times in a rythmic pattern. A minute later, he heard soft footsteps to be greeted with his robotic clone. Jay 2 scanned his look a like to see how angered he looked to blink. "Everything all right? he asked, concerned.

Everything wasn't all right. Out there was the true killer and he intended to find and hunt him down. "I need you to take my place tonight when everyone is asleep." he stated and turned to leave the nindroid confused.

"Why?" Jay 2 asked, puzzled as he watched him leave.

The light ninja stopped in his tracks to draw in a deep breath to control his temper and not lash out. "Because something came up." he sighed, annoyed. "Something personal and will put an end to this once and for all." He then continued to leave Jay 2 still puzzled and alone.

Ooh tension building up now in Jay. Let's hope he doesn't go berserk. Thanks a lot, Skales... You caused a storm now in Jay. But anyway, this was my Friday update I never got to do so now that I'm back, I can go back to my regular weekly updates. So thank you for reading the update, leave a review if you wish to and I'll see you all on Friday. It's great to be back. :D