Hi everyone. Sorry for the wait, life happens. Anyway, let's continue.
Ch. 11 A Dark Reunion
The sun had just risen upon the campsite in the woods where our heroes we're sleeping. Kai and Skylar we're up against a tree, with Skylar leaning on Kai's shoulder; Jay was lying on the ground and Nya resting on top of him; Cole was using a rock for a pillow (surprisingly) and sucking his thumb; Zane and Lloyd we're each resting with their heads against separate logs; Eugene was resting his head on the sleeping Maximus.
Zane's Falcon soon landed onto his shoulder and gave a light chirp in his ear, waking him up a slight bit. Just before they all hit the hay last night, Nya and Skylar patched up the damaged artificial skin on his face, now he was good as new. Zane gave a light yawn.
"I believe it is time to wake up." The White Ninja announced, getting up.
He was greeted with a few groans and yawns as the heroes all slowly woke up.
"Okay, once we're all fully awake we'll head back to Corona." Kai told the team.
"Aye, aye captain." Jay muttered.
"You never are much of a morning person." Nya lightly teased her boyfriend.
When Eugene and Max finally got up, Eugene was the first to notice someone missing from their group.
"Hey, anyone see Rapunzel?"
The ninjas all looked around a bit, Lloyd looked to Eugene and gave a small smile. "She went to get some food."
"Oh, are you psychic? Do your 'green powers' grant you that ability?" Eugene honestly asked.
"No. She wrote it on your forehead." The Green Ninja responded simply.
The other ninjas snickered a bit as Eugene tried to look up at his forehead with black writing that read, 'went to get some breakfast, Pascal and I will be back soon. Rapunzel'.
"Well, she's certainly an early person, unlike a certain blue-ninja." Skylar joked, earning a laugh from Kai and a pout from Jay.
"Okay, okay we'd better go see if she needs help." Cole told everyone.
In a separate location, Pythor had woken up and uncurled himself in the snake-coil he was while sleeping. He looked to the transparent image of the Overlord who stood over the cliff looking out to the forest below.
"So, what's on our schedule today, oh mighty evil one?" Pythor asked with a bow.
The Overlord's red eyes shifted to the other side of his transparent body, now looking at Pythor. "We must continue to follow the Ninja. Until we find the moment where the Flower Child is without her company we shall…"
The Overlord noticed something that put his dark mood in an even darker place.
"Where is Gothel?"
Alongside a riverbank, Rapunzel was trying to search for some berries for all her friends.
"Hmm, you'd think we'd find something by now." Rapunzel said to Pascal who looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, your right. I'm not much of a food scavenger huh? He, he." She joked a bit, shrugging her shoulders.
Despite not finding any food yet, Rapunzel was quite happy today. She was glad that she opened up her secret and powers to her new friends the ninja. She had also heard plenty of their adventures; while she did find a few of their enemies quite scary; the adventures they went on where feelings we're confessed, families we're reunited, they we're all pretty amazing.
She was so caught up in her thoughts, she failed to notice a certain someone staring behind her.
"Well." A voice spoke up, startling her. But it was the voice itself that sent a chill down her spine; the one voice she'd never thought she'd ever hear again.
"Off on your own? Wouldn't be the first time."
Rapunzel slowly turned around and her eyes we're so wide they we're almost completely circular, her face filled with horror. Pascal quickly camouflaged into the rock he was on top of.
"G-g-g… Gothel?!" Rapunzel stuttered out.
"Hello dear." Gothel casually greeted back.
"But… b.. but h… h… how are you…?"
"Alive? Oh, you're not the only one who's made new friends recently."
"Wh… what do you want?" The still-terrified Rapunzel questioned.
"What do I want?" Gothel pondered. "That should be obvious don't you think. I want you and I to be together again." Gothel gently took Rapunzel's wrist. "No come on dear, we can catch up later, it's time to go."
Rapunzel defiantly pulled out of Gothel's grip. "No! I am not going with you! I already told you, I'll never ever let you use my power again."
Gothel gained a look of impatience. "Rapunzel, don't make this difficult for the both of us."
"You are not my mother." Rapunzel told her with a glare. "I don't care how you're back, I finally have a home and a family, a place I can be; and I am not going to let you ruin it for me!"
Pascal got up on Rapunzel's shoulder and nodded in agreement while glaring at Gothel as well.
"Rapunzel, I was not asking for your permission." She grabbed Rapunzel's wrist more fiercely this time. "You are coming with me, whether you want to or not. Even if I have to tie you up and throw you in a sack to do it!"
Gothel tried to pull, only for a green energy ball to explode in front of her, knocking her down.
"You heard the lady." A certain green ninja said as he stood protectively in front of Rapunzel.
"Lloyd!" Rapunzel cried in relief
Gothel tried to get up. "Boy, stay out of this."
As soon as she said that, a golden sword was pointed toward her face.
"You really should listen to the man." Kai glared down at Rapunzel as the other ninja arrived and surrounded Rapunzel.
Eugene and Max we're soon to arrive. His first instinct was to ask Rapunzel if she was okay, but he soon looked in shock at what he saw.
"Rapunzel… please tell me that's not who I think it is."
"I wish I could." Rapunzel replied back.
"Gothel?" Eugene questioned.
"Gothel!?" Kai, Lloyd, Zane, Skylar, and Nya all yelled at the same time.
"Gothel? As in, the centuries-old lady who hogged Rapunzel's power to keep herself forever young? That Gothel!?" Jay questioned
"I thought you said she was dead!" Cole exclaimed
"She is.. she was!" Eugene replied with Maximus nodding in agreement. "We saw her… she turned into dust!"
"Is she a ghost?" Lloyd asked.
"No, she looks quite real." Zane corrected. "One hundred percent flesh and blood."
Gothel looked to Rapunzel. "You're new friends I take it?" She soon had the Golden Sword of Fire pointed closer to her, forcing to the ground even further.
"Listen up you hold hag." Kai began. "I don't care how you're alive now; we know who you are, and to be honest, kidnapping a baby just to look beautiful is just sad, and by sad I mean pathetic."
"You got that right brother." Nya agreed glaring down at the wicked woman.
"Now, we got some questions that you probably have the answers to." Skylar spoke to Gothel.
Lloyd was actually a little curious. He was sensing something inside her; it was odd but, it was something that felt very familiar. Something dark and evil; from what he heard, Gothel never had powers so… why was he sensing something from her?
Zane's eyes soon widened a slight bit as he sensed something as well.
"Brothers." He spoke up, getting all their attention. "I am afraid that she isn't alone."
"Not alone?" Rapunzel asked.
"What do you mean? Who else is with her?" Jay asked as well.
"Nindroids." Zane answered.
"Nindroids!?" All the heroes yelled at the same time.
"What… where are they?!" Eugene questioned as they all looked around and saw nothing.
However, they soon looked up to the top of a tree and saw a Nindroid uncloak and give an evil chuckle. As he jumped down, nine more Nindroids uncloaked and surrounded all the heroes.
"How the heck did these guys get here?!" Nya questioned.
"Wouldn't you like to know…" A familiar voice spoke up as a certain serpentine turned visible and stood in front of Gothel. "…Old chums."
"Pythor?!" Lloyd and Kai yelled.
"You mean, the same snake guy who tried to wake up that snake-god you told us about? That Pythor?" Rapunzel questioned.
"The very same." Cole answered.
Jay's hands soon cracked with electricity as the other heroes readied for battle. "Come on, we beat these guys before. I know we can do it again."
As soon as he said that, many trees in the forest behind them began to fall as a large entity began to come closer to them. The outer trees we're tossed away as the massive Stone Warrior came out and roared at the ninjas.
"My bad." Jay spoke, sensing that he was somehow responsible for that.
The Nindroids wasted no time drawing their swords and charging toward the heroes.
They we're all forced to scatter to avoid their enemies ganging up on them.
Cole was faced with two Nindroids. He launched two rocks from his hands at them, only for them to jump over and go behind him.
One tried to punch him, but Cole caught his fist, the other tried to bring his sword down, but Cole formed an earth gauntlet is his other arm and blocked the sword. The two Nindroids tried to push Cole down. He then tapped his foot and caused a mound of earth to suddenly rise, pushing him upwards and the Nindroids off of him.
They soon got back up and Cole cracked his knuckles. "Bring it, tin cans; I've been waiting to hit something for a while."
Lloyd stood in front of Rapunzel and Maximus as the stone giant slowly approached them.
"You two are gonna wanna stay back." Lloyd recommended as he threw both his hands out and sent a green energy beam to the giant, knocking him back. But he soon recovered.
"You did beat this guy before, right?" Rapunzel asked
"Yeah, but that was only because we had a bottomless pit." Lloyd remembered.
"Oh, right."
"Yeah, not looking good."
The stone giant lifted one of his massive blades; Max pushed Rapunzel out of the way as Lloyd dived in the opposite direction just before the blade slammed onto the ground.
Lloyd then began to throw large green energy balls towards the stone giant repeatedly; which did seam to hurt him, but not enough to cause a huge dent in his armor.
Kai and Eugene stood back-to-back as four Nindroids slowly approached them with swords on hand.
Kai looked to Eugene who was empty-handed. "Here, take this." Kai tossed Eugene his Golden Sword of Fire.
"You're giving me you're weapon?"
"Trust me, you need it more than I do." Kai then faced the two Nindroids in front of him. "NinjaGO!" Kai went into Spinjitsu mode and sucked in the two enemies and moved, leaving Eugene alone with his enemies.
The first Nindroid swung his sword at Eugene, who was forced to block with the Golden Weapon. The other Nindroid attacked as well, Eugene was blocking their relentless attacks, but he failed to notice the sword was now lighting on fire.
When Eugene struck one of the Nindroid's blades, he was surprised to find he cut through the Nindroid's blade. The Nindroid was surprised as well. Taking advantage of this, Eugene then decapitated the Nindroid. When the second tried to attack it lunged its sword forward, Eugene swerved out of the way and sliced downward, cutting the arm off. He then swiped up diagonally, cutting the Nindroid in half.
Eugene looked at the Golden Sword in amazement as the flames died down.
"Oh mama! I have got to get me one of these!" Eugene marveled with a confident smile. A blade was soon pointed towards him, Eugene pointed back with a smile, but his smile soon faded as he saw the blades' wielder.
Pythor gave an evil grin before colliding blades with Eugene.
Jay was leaping onto a large tree branch with a Nindroid jumping up after him. Jay's fists cracked with electricity as he motioned the Nindroid to bring it on. The Nindroid complied as the two charged and begun to trade punches and kicks.
Jay blocked a punch from the Nindroid, the Nindroid blocked a kick, Jay sideswiped the Nindroid off his feet and off of the branch. Jay blasted a stream of lightning towards the Nindroid.
The lightning shot and surged all throughout the Nindroid before several parts exploded and the evil robot was reduced to spare parts.
"Electricity versus robots; electricity always wins." Jay cracked.
Nya stood in the water facing another Nindroid. The Nindroid gave an evil laugh as he drew his blade.
"Not the best place to face a water ninja, buddy." Nya advised. Nya than formed water whips over her arms and lashed at the Nindroid.
The Nindroid blocked all the attacks with his sword with quick speed, but Nya wasn't about to give up. She wrapped one of it's arms in her right whip, and it's leg in her left whip and pulled him in close.
"NinjaGO!" Nya formed her own Spinjitsu tornado, which was a dark blue and sucked in the Nindroid. After about a minute of spinning, the Nindroid was tossed out back into the river.
A water dome soon surrounded it, and it was crushed by a large surge of water pressure.
"Not bad for a newbie ninja huh?"
Zane created an ice-wall to separate himself from his Nindroid. The Nindroid was so surprised, he failed to notice Zane jumping over the wall and freezing the Nindroid's feet.
The Nindroid blasted a red laser from his eye, forcing Zane back. He blasted his feet, freeing himself from the ice. The Nindroid continued to blast Zane, keeping him at bay and forcing the white ninja to back flip and avoid all the blasts that came toward him.
As the Nindroid chucked, the mechanical falcon came swooping in and claw at the Nindroid's face, forcing him to stop his assault.
Zane took advantage of this distraction by blasting a beam into the Nindroid's face, freezing its whole head. Zane then did a massive kick that shattered the Nindroid's head.
"Thank you my friend." Zane thanked the Falcon who tweaked in response.
Skylar jumped over the Nindroid as it slashed its blade toward her. When she landed, she sent a gust of wind, blowing the Nindroid back to a tree.
Skylar began to swirl around and create several wind blades and sent them towards the Nindroid. It blocked them with his sword, only for the sword to be cut into a dozen pieces and fall apart.
The Nindroid discarded the broken blade and charged to Skylar, trying to punch towards her while she was forced to block most of its attacks. Getting tired of playing defense, she performed a backflip kick, forcing the Nindroid back. She chopped directly downward sending a vertical wind blade to the Nindroid and went right through him.
A few seconds later, the Nindroid fell in half vertically and broke.
"Hm. Skylar, Master of Wind." She said to herself, looking at her hands. "I like the sound of that."
Cole lunged his arms forward, sending a stream of rocks to the two Nindroids. One jumped out of the way, but the other was caught up in the storm. It was completely disoriented as one rock hit its optics, blinding it.
Cole then formed another earth gauntlet and punched the Nindroid directly in the face, crushing it. The Nindroid fell back.
Cole turned to face the other one. He formed an earth gauntlet on his other arm and ran forward. He quickly brought both arms together onto this Nindroid's head, and crushed that one as well.
"Aw, I miss beating these guys, almost as much as the skeletons."
Kai blasted a stream of fire to his two Nindroids. He then came in and performed a roundhouse with his feet on fire and cut off one Nindroid's arm. He grabbed the sword that fell with it and impaled the Nindroid.
The other tried to sweep down onto Kai, but he rolled out of the way. He pulled both his arms back and lunged forward, creating a massive ball of fire that exploded as soon as it hit the Nindroid.
It struggled to get back up, but the blade it had was soon pierced in between its optics, courtesy of Kai.
"I was only getting warmed up."
Lloyd tried to blast the giant Stone Warrior with his energy attacks, but all it seemed to do was make him mad. Thankfully though, the Stone Warrior was not as quick as Lloyd, so he was able to avoid all the attacks that we're heading his way.
"Hey Lloyd! Is there anyway I can help?" Rapunzel caught up.
"I know it's hard, but just stay back. You can't handle this guy!" Lloyd called back as he dodged another strike.
Rapunzel did not like the fact that she was unable to help her friend fight off this giant monster. Her stubbornness was about to get the better of her as she was about to try and run over to help, but soon saw ice form below the stone giant, causing it to slip and fall over.
When it tried to get back up; a bolt of lightning, blast of fire, and a boulder all hit the Stone Giant, sending it into a tree, causing it to topple over onto him.
Kai, Jay, Zane, and Cole all came and stood beside their fellow elemental warrior.
"Need some help bro?" Kai asked.
"Great timing as usual." Lloyd thanked.
"Hey what can we say, we're just that good." Jay boasted as they each took a fighting stance, their own respective element surging in their hands.
The Stone Warrior got back up and glared before charging, while the five ninja charged in as well.
Rapunzel sighed in relief when she saw them all rally together. "For some reason, seeing these five fight together just seems awesome. Right Max?" She turned her head only to find Maximus was gone.
"Max?" Rapunzel looked around. She looked down onto Pascal on her shoulder, who only shrugged.
Eugene continued to block strikes from Pythor with his Sword of Fire, but the white serpentine was not about to give him an opening.
"You fight well for a human." Pythor mockingly acknowledged.
Eugene soon moved up onto a rock looking down onto the evil snake man "Pythor right?"
"Pythor P. Chumsworth at your disservice." He bowed in a polite fashion.
"Why are you doing this? Didn't you help the Ninja fight off Chen and his army?"
"Aw so they told you about that? Well, that was only a temporary alliance, if anyone is to rule Ninjago; it better well be me!"
"Never trust a snake." Eugene recalled as he sent a fireball down to Pythor with the sweep of the Golden Sword, only to find Pythor was gone.
Pythor then suddenly uncamouflaged behind Eugene and put him into a headlock. "You think a little fire is enough to defeat an Anacondrai?"
A blade was pointed to Pythor, forcing him to let go of Eugene. Pythor looked in surprise to find it was the horse Maximus, with a blade in his mouth, glairing at him. Pythor was then forced to block the sword swings from the mighty horse.
"You should know that this is the strangest thing I have ever done." Pythor told the horse. "And that says a lot coming from me."
When Pythor locked blades with the horse, a gust of wind sent him falling off the rock and hard onto the ground. When Pythor tried to pick up his blade, a water whip knocked it to the side.
He looked to see Skylar and Nya looking down on him, with Eugene and Max joining him.
"Overpowered by two girls, a lowly thief, and a horse; how humiliating." Pythor sighed.
"There's plenty of that to go around." Nya told him.
"So, it's time for some answers." Skylar demanded.
"Sorry my dears, not today." Pythor soon turned invisible again.
"He's gone." Eugene growled.
"Yeah, he does that quite often." Nya replied in a not-so-surprised tone.
The five ninja continued to pound away at the Stone Giant with their own elemental attacks. Keeping him off-balance with hit and run attacks. Kai would attack, the Zane, then Lloyd, then Cole, then Jay, then Kai, and so-on.
So far, it didn't seem to penetrate his armor.
"Are you kidding!? Is there anything that can kill this guy!?" Jay exclaimed.
"I believe there is." Zane announced as they continued to dodge the giant's attacks.
"Well, what is it?" Cole asked.
"This thing may claim to be indestructible, but it is still made of stone, and no matter what, stone will always and slowly decay. Due to all the time it spent dormant, and erosion, its armor is slowly beginning to crack, and our attacks seem to be accelerating the process." Zane explained.
Lloyd jumped to avoid the next attack. "Okay, so how do we finish this guy for good?"
Zane avoided a ground stomp from the giant. "If we take this giant to a certain height and drop it, the impact should be enough to shatter its armor."
"Alright then. Knock it down!" Kai called.
They all stood together and blasted a large blast of Fire, Energy, Lightning, Earth, and Ice; knocking the giant down. The ninjas each came to a place on the giant; Lloyd came to its left leg, Zane went to its right leg, Jay came to its right arm, Cole on its left arm, and Kai to its head.
"Let's take this guy for a lift." Kai said.
They each spun around til they we're surrounded in spheres of their respective color (Kai-Red, Jay-Blue, Zane-White, Cole-Black, Lloyd-Green). They each grabbed the part of the Stone Giant they we're closest to and ascended as cyclones formed under the spheres and they quickly took to the skies.
Rapunzel looked up in amazement as she and Pascal watched her friends ascend to the heavens.
The Ninjas used Airjitsu to ascend higher and higher, carrying the struggling giant with them.
They went to a point just below the clouds and saw the green specks that we're the trees below them.
"This should be high enough!" Zane announced.
"Okay big guy." Kai started. "I think you're going down, right, NOW!"
The ninjas let go and the Stone Warrior was sent screaming and plummeting back down to the earth.
Rapunzel ran back as she saw the giant fall close to her location.
*BAM!*
Rapunzel was sent back by a shockwave. She slowly got back up.
"You okay Pascal?" She asked as the chameleon shook off some dizziness and nodded.
She sighed in relief and ran back to where she was. She was surprised to see the massive crater and the Stone Giant in the middle of it; it's arms, legs, and head all off it. It grunted one more time before its head fell back and the green glow left its eyes in the form of a mist and the giant crumbled.
Close to her location, Gothel hid behind a tree glaring at Rapunzel. Now was her chance, before she could make a move, an invisible force grabbed her arm and pulled her back, while the same force covered her mouth.
Gothel looked to see Pythor uncamouflaged again, glaring down at her.
"Not quite yet. The Overlord wants a word with you." He said as he pulled Gothel away.
"Rapunzel!" She turned to see Eugene, Max, Nya, and Skylar all run towards her.
"You okay?" Eugene asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She assured, earning a sigh of relief from him.
"What was that loud explosion?" Nya asked.
Rapunzel motioned to the crater, the two girl ninja looked in surprised to see what was left of the Stone Giant. All of them looked up to see the Ninja come down and their Airjitsu vortexes cease as they safely touched the ground.
"Not so indestructible, huh?" Jay cracked.
"Overkill much?" Skylar lightly criticized.
"Hey, it's what we do." Kai lightly boasted.
"Where's Pythor?" Lloyd asked.
"Gone." Eugene answered.
"What about Gothel?" Rapunzel worriedly asked.
"I do not sense her presence either." Zane informed.
"Well… this is bad." Cole said.
"Yeah, Pythor and Gothel together. Those two could spell all sorts of trouble." Kai said.
Rapunzel soon shook with fear as the one person she never thought she'd ever see again as come back. Eugene put a comforting hand on her shoulder, though he was quite worried to.
"Hey Rapunzel?" Lloyd spoke, getting her attention. "Did Gothel have any powers?"
"Not that I know of?"
"Well, I sensed something in her, something dark and yet, also familiar."
"You think Gothel is the great darkness we're looking for?" Cole asked.
"I doubt it." Kai replied. "What about Pythor? You think he could have brought her back."
"Highly unlikely." Zane responded. "While Pythor is resourceful, he lacks the ability to bring the dead back to life."
"So whoever or whatever brought Gothel back, and Pythor, the Nindroids, and the Stone Giant to this realm has got to be the main bad guy." Nya guessed.
"This just got scary." Jay said with a shrug.
Kai looked to Rapunzel and saw her worried face.
"Let's get back to Corona. I'm sure the King and Queen are worried."
Gothel and Pythor then came to a nearby rocky landscape, facing the transparent Overlord who looked at Gothel with a deathly scowl.
"Aw, my mighty Overlord." Gothel began. "I you will allow me to just…"
Before Gothel could finish her body withered in pain as she clutched her body and yelled in agony. She looked to her hands to find them turning white and frail; she felt her hair was becoming shaggy, she could feel hundreds of years all coming back up to her.
"YOU FOOL!" The Overlord yelled. "You thought you would steal the Flower-Child from under my nose and thought I wouldn't NOTICE!?"
"I don't… I was only… trying to bring her to you…" Gothel's pain intensified even further.
"DO NOT TAKE ME FOR A FOOL GOTHEL!" The Overlord shrieked. "I can sense your thoughts, I would end your life right now, if I didn't still need you. Don't think, to ever betray me AGAIN!"
"I won't! I promise! I PROMISE!"
With that, Gothel felt a great sense of relief. All the pain ceased and she looked to her hands as they returned to their normal state and she felt herself become young again.
Gothel smiled with a huge sigh of relief, but the smile faded as she looked up in honest terror at the being who literally holds her life in his hands.
"You have no idea to whom you speak, foolish mortal." The Overlord spoke. "I may need you alive now, but try and pull something like this again, I will subject you to an eternity of agony and pain; understood."
"Yes." Gothel said with fear evident in her voice.
"Good." The Overlord replied, while Pythor looked on in honest amusement at such a scene.
Done. What did you all think?
Thank you all for your support and patience. See you next time.