La tee da!
Don't ask me why, 'cos I dunno.
GUEST05: Thanks for the review! Heh, funny thing, I used to think Cole was a little bland myself. He didn't really have a "defining trait," like Zane is robotic or Kai is feisty . . . essentially he was the most "normal" of all of 'em. XD I came around, though. You just have to look a little harder to figure Cole out. :)
Yeah, Lloyd's been taking charge quite a bit through the last season. Part of me wonders how much of it is just the others playing along to humor the kid. XD
Yep! It's come in very handy more than once. Spam, trolls, OC naggers, random angry people, the whole spectrum of 'em. XP
Awwh, glad you liked the chapter! Misery all around, b'lieve me. The only thing worse than crying alone is knowing somebody's crying and not being able to do anything about it. I've been there. It sucks.
Haha, no intentions of taking my time whatsoever! I have each chapter already written, and the hard part is waiting to put up the next one. :P
There is an energy which springs from sickness and debility: it has a more powerful effect than the real, but, sadly, expires in an even greater infirmity. -Novalis
The next morning, Vaal joined the others for a hasty breakfast as soon as dawn grayed the sky. It was the most awkward meal in anyone's recollection; everyone nibbled uneasily at their food and tried not to sneak glances at Vaal, who was sitting and staring off into space with a stony expression. He ate only a bit of fruit, nothing else.
"I would love to see this guy walk into a disco," whispered Kai. "He could put it out of business just by standing there."
They went to the Ultra Dragon's cave immediately afterwards. Vaal followed them down the tunnel without comment, but when he saw the Ultra Dragon, dimly illuminated by flashlight beams and morning light filtering through the cracks in the ceiling, he suddenly froze. His eyes roved over the creature for a moment, and something about his manner seemed to come alive.
"So it's true," he murmured. "It really is four fused into one . . . "
Without further preamble he began to prowl all around the dragon, prodding at its scales and tugging at its claws and muttering to himself. The four heads were still drowsy and somewhat bewildered at waking to the attentions of this stranger, but very soon Vaal began to lurk from head to head. As he studied each dragon's teeth and eyes he murmured something softly, and every time the individual head suddenly snapped wide awake, gazing at him intensely with bright, amazed eyes. Fifteen minutes, and he seemed to have become the Ultra Dragon's new favorite person: the usually shy and reserved Shard was rubbing against him lovingly, and the normally rebellious Wisp allowed his mouth to be pried open to check the back teeth—and Wisp was notoriously touchy about his teeth.
"Well, he does seem to have a way with dragons, anyway," said Cole under his breath, watching with arms folded.
"Dunno what they see in him," grumbled Lloyd, just a touch jealous.
Eventually Vaal returned, his expression unchanged.
"Well?" asked Cole, as the dragon master was fixed with seven hopeful gazes.
"He is sick," said Vaal, as if they needed confirmation of that. "His energy levels are depleted to almost nothing."
"But why?" asked Jay. "Does he have an infection or something?"
"Nothing that simple," retorted Vaal grimly. "The illness is caused by an instability of elemental energy."
He got some quirked eyebrows.
"The four dragons are imbued with four elements, are they not?" he said impatiently. "Fire, lightning, earth, and ice. Yet they are fused together into only one body with their elements mingled. That is not a natural state, not supposed to be sustained. I am amazed this creature did not become ill much sooner."
"But—but if he's not supposed to be fused, why did he?!" demanded Cole. "Wasn't merging part of the normal growing-up . . . thing?"
"In all of Ninjago's history, dragons have never before been seen to fuse while completing the final molt. After all, most of them have elemental powers, and it is very difficult for different elements to coexist in close proximity. A precarious balance can be maintained, with great effort and precision—and the interplay of elements does create much greater power while it lasts. But inevitably, the balance will break, and the elements will begin to conflict. Violently."
"Like the Tornado of Creation!" blurted Jay suddenly, his eyes wide. "If you balance it just right—the most powerful move ever. If you do it just a little wrong—disastrous consequences!"
"And that's what's happening to him?" whispered Nya.
Vaal shrugged silently.
"But . . . Why?" Kai voiced what they were all thinking. "Why did the four dragons fuse? Didn't they know it would make them sick later?"
The others traded silent looks. Somehow, even as it terrified them, they all knew: the dragons had done it for them. For Ninjago. For the superior power that had let the Ultra Dragon stand a chance in their battles. Now it was just paying the price for its devotion.
"What can we do?" asked Sensei Wu steadily.
"You have to bring his energy levels back up," replied Vaal. "Then he will hopefully be able to stabilize his elements again. I will give you a recipe for an energizing mash you can prepare for that purpose."
"But he won't eat!"
"Dragons are intelligent," replied Vaal coolly. "They'll never eat anything that they know will be poisonous or indigestible. Right now, almost all foods are too much for his stomach to handle; but he will eat the mash. He'll know it will help him, and there are certain ingredients in it that are essentially irresistable to dragons."
The ninja exchanged dubious glances. If Rocky wasn't touching liver-and-toads, it seemed unlikely anything else was about to go down any dragonish throats. But what else was to be done? Apparently the mash was their only hope.
Back on the Bounty, Vaal asked for paper and pencil and began to write down a lengthy list of ingredients and procedures.
"So what about the scars?" asked Jay. "Do dragons have really intense fights for mates or something?"
Vaal looked up.
"So those scars were not from battling under your care?"
"What?!" spluttered Jay, scandalized. "He was fine when we let him go off to find a mate, and next we saw him he's like that!"
"Ahhh." Vaal's expression softened ever so slightly; evidently he'd thought the scars had been their fault. "That is interesting, actually. Even I do not know anything about dragon mating habits—no courtship rituals have ever been observed, nor have any dragon eggs or even nests ever been found. Most people assume that dragons cross over into another dimension to mate and raise their young, but some people say that dragons just might not mate at all."
"What do you think?" asked Jay.
"I prefer the former theory," conceded Vaal. "They go through adolescence and transform into adulthood, so it stands to reason there must be an infancy before that. A few ancient documents also describe 'dragon younglings' that sound like juvenile versions of common elemental breeds." He resumed writing with a thoughtful expression. "Actually, I have been curious about that aspect of dragon lifestyle for a long time. If you do find out anything concrete about its mating and child-rearing habits, let me know."
"Sure thing," said Jay. "Least we can do."
"And do try to pay slightly better attention to your dragon's habits and health," added Vaal, sighing. "I will confess I am appalled at the ignorance you all show, considering how long you claim to have owned this creature."
The ninja gave each other dismayed looks. In hindsight, testing Vaal by asking him all those questions mayyyyyy have backfired just a little.
The recipe was uncommonly long. Sensei Wu was first to read it, and he had quite a few questions for Vaal about the details of the procedure, what things were and where to get them and what in the world that verb there entailed. After answering the questions and making sure everything was understood, Vaal gathered up his blankets and struck out.
"Don't you want a ride back?" asked Cole. "There's miles of woods out there!"
"I would rather travel by foot. I watched the way here; I know the way back," retorted Vaal, and loped off into the trees without anything else in the way of a farewell. The ninja stared after him curiously.
"Welllllll, then," said Jay at last.
"We'd better get to work," sighed Lloyd. "What's on that recipe?"
"I love this," groaned Jay, resting his forehead on the back of a neighboring chair. "They can tell us where the pileated whatsisname plant grew during medieval times, during the last Ice Age, and roundabout the dawn of the dinosaurs. But where it grows now? First Spinjitzu Master forbid!"
Lloyd rolled his eyes at the ceiling; he'd never quite gotten used to his granddad's name being used as an oath and/or imprecation. He hoped his dad's and his own weren't about to go the same way.
"The growth patterns of pileated gullymoss are tightly guarded," said Misako patiently over the video link. "It is a very delicate plant with very particular needs, and picking or carelessly destroying even a little too much of it could cause years of decreased supply. Even extinction."
"How do we know it's not already extinct, then?" asked Kai grimly.
"The tea growers of the eastern forests," said Misako. "Every year they produce a new batch of herbal tea made from pileated gullymoss—very good for healing wounds and restoring the body after blood loss. Only the tea growers know where the moss can be found, and they cultivate it with great care, passing down the craft from generation to generation. Convincing them to tell anyone else where it grows will probably be . . . difficult."
"Perhaps we do not need to," said Wu. "I have several acquaintances in the tea trade, and they may be able to connect me to someone who could supply us with some of the moss."
"If it's super-rare and tightly regulated though, how are we going to afford it?" fretted Jay.
"The tea-trading world does not function solely on hard currency," said Wu. "I am sure they will be willing to negotiate for something else."
"I hope so," sighed Nya, tallying figures in a notebook. "We're riding the ragged edge of disaster as it is—those jungle gourds weren't cheap."
Cole balanced his chair on the back two legs and listened distantly to the continuing discussions about gullymoss and other bizarrely-named plants. It had been going on like this for two days now—finding all the ingredients for the dragon mash was turning out to be fiendishly complicated. Once they did have everything, they would have to procure an enormous cauldron of some sort and boil the ingredients in a very particular order, for a very particular amount of time—upwards of several days. It was definitely going to be a long week or few . . . but they weren't complaining. At least they had something they could do.
"I've had it with this," said Kai at last, waving off the continuing deliberations. "I'm out of here. Is there anything on that list that we can actually get, you know, from around here?"
Nya sighed and perused the ingredients list.
"All right, restless people. Out."