Hello, and a good Saturday to everyone. This is the last update before school begins for me, but just because I say that, don't freak out. I sometimes notice that people only skim through notes like these and don't always read them word for word. I don't write these for my health. I write these to communicate with you, my reader. Just a tid bit to keep in mind. So, just stating a fact that this is the last update before my next semester of school starts. That's it.

Chapter Nineteen: Persistence

The Overlord.

His name weighed heavily on her mind as she the vehicle she was riding in hit a large pothole on the road, pitching its occupants to and fro for the next few seconds. Laurie stared out the window that was to her immediate left and watched the landscape zip by, a blur of green and brown, but over the horizon she could see the glimmer of the city. It looked so out of place among the nature of Ninjago and, yes, she had been to the city before, in fact almost on a daily basis, but this did not mean that it felt completely normal.

Nothing was ever just normal.

She tore her gaze away from the sprawling environment and rested it now on Kai. He looked as out of place as any of them did now. It sent a shiver of uncertainty up the girl's spine. What had the world become in such a short amount of time? Everything and everyone was unrecognizable. Laurie looked down at her own hands, the still inexperienced hands of a novice fighter. She clenched them into fists before examining them further. Her knuckles seemed a bit rough, if one could even explain it like that, from where she would wrap the tape around her hands before sparring with Dareth's punching bag.

Sighing, Laurie opened her hands and placed them palm side up on her knees. The pink hued skin of calluses glowered back at her, both hands exhibiting match wear and tear. The skin between her thumbs and index fingers, the bone underneath all of her fingers, and even the middle of her palms grinned with their battle wounds. She lightly traced a finger along one of the calluses, noticing how the skin no longer felt as rough. Well...time healed all wounds after all.

"You still thinking about how this is all a bad idea?"

The girl nodded, not even looking over to see Kai. She felt his arm suddenly drape around her shoulders and she tore her ice blue eyes from her hands. Kai was smirking at her, one of those odd half smiles he did whenever he was a little too confident in his own abilities. Laurie just gave a small grin back. It did not matter to her that there was this odd, deep-rooted sense of foreboding that seemed to linger in her stomach. When she looked up into Kai's warm, light brown eyes or saw that stupid look on his face when he was trying to show up one of the others, she felt at ease. It was all familiar and she desperately clung to small things like that now, because the world was changing more than she ever expected it to. "No, not really."

"Will you ever stop that?" the brunet sighed, removing his arm from around Laurie's shoulders.

Laurie blinked, feeling slightly confused. "Stop what?" she asked genuinely.

"Stop lying to me," Kai finished, his brows furrowed in frustration and concern. "You're terrible at it. I see right through you, Laurie." He watched as the girl shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, blushing lightly and avoiding all eye contact. "If you're still worried about this whole trip, then I can't change your mind about it. All you can do is just try to enjoy everything and trust that if anything bad happens we know how to handle it, okay?"

The red head did not respond as the vehicle they were in hit another pothole, sending her thoughts whirling once more.

"She's still stable, for now." Laurie opened her eyes slowly, vision focusing on nothing in the dim light. Where was she exactly? "Heart rate is normal. Vitals seem normal. Her body temperature has finally risen into the acceptable range." She was trapped again, cocooned in all too familiar blankets, but why was it so dark? "I see no harm in leaving her here for now. Though, if things start to get out of hand, then I would suggest coming back here to take whatever we can before departing."

There was silence for a few moments, but then another voice spoke up. "Where would we go, Zane?" Kai asked, but beneath his harsh tone Laurie could hear a slight tremble. He seemed scared and Kai rarely let his nerves affect him. What was happening? "We...we can't leave this place. Its our base now. We'd just wander around and be even more vulnerable than we already are." The whole structure trembled and the red head could hear bits of concrete and dust falling from the ceiling. "If it's coming then we have to stop it here and now. We can't keep running after it and then hiding. It's not working."

"No one's gonna...die, right?"

Laurie felt her heart skip a beat as her brother lent his voice to the conversation. "I mean...I know a lot of people have already died, but...but I still need you guys to train me. I still need to master all the elements before my dad comes back..." She wanted to speak up, to tell Lloyd that everything was going to be all right, but her words stuck in her throat. A knot of anxiety. "Sensei's already gone and I know he couldn't have really taught me, but..."

"And Nya," Jay choked from somewhere across the room.

There was the sound of a forceful pat. "You did everything you could, buddy," Cole answered, his voice compassionate. "We can't always save everyone."

"What in Ninjago is going on?" Laurie finally spoke up, feeling like an outsider that should not have been intruding. "Talking about death, and dying, and leaving? Something's going on..." The building shook again as the girl shifted her legs around and managed to kick layers of blankets off of her. "Man, I'm sweating to death," she mumbled, tossing everything to the end of the worn couch that she had been lounging on.

"Oh, sorry about that. Maybe we should have just let you freeze to death like we should have done the first time you just fell unconscious in the snow," Kai spat. "In fact, maybe we shouldn't have even helped you back with the Devourer. It would have been a load off all of our backs. One less person to be responsible for."

She jumped to her feet and stumbled slightly. Her legs felt like gelatin and she tried to put on a mask of composure, but it felt like everyone could see right through it. "No one is responsible for me," Laurie hissed. "I appreciate your help and everything, but don't blame me for your problems." Her eyes bounced from person to person as she stood. "I didn't release the Great Devourer. I'm not stopping you from going out and killing it. None of this is my fault, Kai, and you know it."

"We...we don't know how to kill it," Lloyd interrupted, his voice small. "Kai found a weak spot on it's head, and the guys have managed to hit it a few times, but nothing works."

Silence. Laurie blinked. She could feel the hopelessness permeating the air, extremely disheartening. "You guys don't know how to?" she repeated slowly. "You guys know how to do everything though. You've all done so many impossible things." When had she become a motivational speaker? "You guys just have to come together and...work it out?"

"Work it out?" the red ninja scoffed. "That's your advice?" He pulled the Sword of Fire off of his back and gripped it tightly in both hands. "You think we haven't tried something, anything, we could think of? You don't have any idea what any of us have been through, so you can shut your mouth!"

"I know a little something about persistence," the girl argued, seeing Lloyd shrink back near Zane out of the corner of her eye. "If you know there's something that you have to do, you better do it. It's your obligation to take care of the people in Ninjago and if that means trying to figure out how to take down a giant snake, then you need to figure out how to do it. And don't try to threaten me with your stupid swo-"

She stopped mid-sentence, suddenly remembering something. "Your weapons. You need to attack it at the same time, with all of your weapons." Laurie recalled it all now, the stories she had heard of life before she had come to live with them. Her father had been the one to defeat the Great Devourer, with all four of the Golden Weapons in his grasp. Her friends though...they would have to be careful with how they approached this. "Don't ask me how I know, just...just trust me."

"Her logic is sound," Zane cut in, before Kai could have any chance to argue back. "It does seem possible that the power from an attack by all of our weapons could potentially destroy the Great Devourer. It is the best lead we have to go on right now."

A shrill cry erupted from outside and the building trembled worse than ever. Gears and tools bounced their way across work tables and everyone clapped their hands tight over their ears. For some, odd reason, it was at this moment that Laurie remembered what had happened back in the other world. She needed answers about the Overlord. She had to get back their somehow, but until she could figure out how to willingly jump from dream to dream, she was stuck. Is this even a dream though? What...what if this is the one that's real?

The possibility of dying was far too real now. Maybe...maybe everything she thought she knew about her life and her friends was actually just another dream. And this was the first time she had actually ever met any of the people she thought she knew so well. Her heart was pounding against her chest now, adrenaline pumping. What was she going to do? Laurie had no way to defend herself, no idea about what she could do to try and help.

And the Great Devourer was knocking at their door.

To address a review from "Guest": if you refer back to Chapter 13 of this story, you will see that I specifically stated I would go back to working on Shifting Winds after I finished this story. Also, if you just need more stuff from me, I once more throw out the fact that in addition to this story, I am co-writing a story called "Neverender" under the pen name SenseiKiwiAndLloydGarmy. That story updates every Friday.

Thank you for reading. See you on January 24th.