"He better be good, Lloyd. Last time you brought me a mortal 'magician'."
"He turned a nickel into a quarter! Even you could've made the mistake."
"Son, I've never heard anything farther from the truth. When will I meet this 'Kai' anyway?"
"He should be on his way. He only just got out of school."
"You mean he's still in school?"
"Don't worry, Father. He's older than me."
"You're 12. This should reassure me why?"
"Have some faith! You should've seen him yesterday, he's powerful!"
Lord Garmadon decided not to get his hopes up; they had been searching for another human to join their army for ages now. Lloyd especially wanted someone new to talk to. Besides him and his father, the army consisted solely of what Lloyd considered monsters, the Skulkin and the Serpentine.
And there was the incident that made many potential villains scared to apply. A year or two after Lloyd was born, Garmadon had gotten so mad at a man claiming to be descended from the Elemental Master of Ice that he'd gotten rid of him. He wasn't dead, just gone. The man's ice was obviously just some form of an elemental spell, Garmadon had thought. It wasn't like he had anything against wizards; everyone knew Lord Garmadon prided himself on the fact that his family was the only descendants of the Elemental Masters left, so to even suggest there were others was punishable in his eyes.
How was he to know the man had a child? When he found out he secretly helped the poor boy, thinking of his own son's similarly white-blonde hair every time he looked at the 6-year-old. He didn't think it was fair for the boy to suffer for his father's actions. Because of Garmadon, he was soon adopted by a man with a son his age.
(Jay's POV)
"Give it back!" I yelled, jumping to try and grab my homework from a jerk. Kai was only an inch or two taller than me, but today he seemed to think that makes him better than me. I knew it wasn't personal, though, Kai's picked on everybody at some point. Well, not everybody. He's definitely never messed with Cole, or he wouldn't be here to torment me. Or his brother Zane. Cole tells people who don't know them they're twins just to laugh at them marveling at how different siblings can be. Honestly, Zane was adopted.
I've known Zane since I was a baby. Our parents were friends before Dr. Julien, his real father, disappeared several years ago. On the other hand, even though I've ridden the same bus as Cole since the beginning of time, I barely know the guy. It's not that he's mean or anything, we're just so different. He's been on various football teams as far back as I can remember; I've been inventing since I could hold a wrench. In other words, he's an athlete and I'm a nerd.
"Leave him alone!" The shout brought me back to the present, where Kai was giving me a wierd look. I turned around only to see Nya.
Fantastic, I thought, now I'll have to endure teasing about being saved by a girl.
"Look, your girlfriend's here to save your butt."
"She is not my girlfriend," I muttered as Nya said something similar, only much louder.
"Oh, dang," I heard Kai mutter, "I'm late." I shouldn't have cared, but I was a little curious about what a bully would be late to. A class on manipulating people smaller and weaker than you? If so, I'm hooped.
"Sorry, sis, I didn't mean to interfere with your love life." He dropped my stuff and ran off, laughing at his own lame joke. I had to chase my papers as the wind quickly started to blow it all away. Soon I was only missing a math worksheet. I looked around, barely moving a thing but my eyes. I gazed at the bench I'd been sitting on before Kai showed up, the near-empty school building, the autumn leaves dancing in the wind...
"You're Jay, right?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah." Why am I spacing out a lot more than usual lately?
"You don't sound so sure about that. I only asked since this has your name on it." She handed my math homework to me. "Sorry about my brother," she said as I secured the page in my notebook.
"Sorry that he's your brother?" I tried to crack a joke, but it sounded dumb to my own ears. Why is she still here? I wondered, I mean, I can see how she'd wanna stop her brother, but...
"You do that a lot, don't you?"
"Oh, look, there's the tw- adopted brothers!" I pointed out Zane and Cole, grabbed my backpack and took off. I didn't even think about what came out of my mouth until later. Yeah, I'm lame for leaving like that, but I know I would've embarrassed myself if I'd continued talking to her. It took me all of about 5 minutes to remember I'd been waiting on Zane in the first place. I had turned back around, hoping I could do something to fix my stupid mistake, when my foot was grabbed. I landed hard on my back someplace where I couldn't see a thing.
"What the-"
"Not so loud!" A voice cut me off, whispering.
"What just happened?" I whispered back, searching for a face in the darkness. A light suddenly flashed in my eyes, making me squint and shield my face for a moment before the flashlight was swiftly aimed down on my shirt.
"Sorry."
"For what? Shining that in my eyes or... doing whatever you just did to bring me here? Wait, are you one of those wiz-"
"Boy, I understand you would have questions, but there's no need to be foolish about it. This wasn't magic; I merely used a trapdoor, James."
"Don't call me that! It's Jay! Hey, who are you anyway?"
The flashlight moved under the person's chin, lighting it up as if he was telling a ghost story. "Whoa, you look older than dirt."
"When I was growing up, children were taught to respect their elders."
"Were the elders taught to kidnap children back in the day too?"
The man who looked old enough to be my grandfather's grandfather chuckled softly, twisting the ends of his long beard around his finger. "Touché."
"Is there a point to all this? The surprise and the excitement are kinda wearing off here."
"Yes, of course. How foolish would it be to bring you here without a purpose in mind?" The flashlight clicked off and something was shoved into my hands a moment before I realized I was being pushed. I heard a faint creak before I was squinting in the sunlight, the wind was blowing on my face... and I was only a few yards away from both the 'twins' and Nya.
"What was that all about?" Nya immediately asked.
"It was to my understanding we were to meet after Cole's football practice. Was I mistaken?" Zane said to me.
"So that's what I was waiting on... I thought it was one of your clubs."
"I don't blame you," Cole said, "Zane's got so much going on. Beta Club, Chess, Robotics, nobody other than him could keep track of it all."
"I am not in the Robotics Club. You are most likely thinking of Jay."
Cole shrugged. "He comes over so much, is there even a difference between you two?"
"There are many differences-"
"He was joking!" I interrupted. One thing about Zane: He's a genius, but he never understands when people are joking. He has about no sense of humor.
"What's that in your hand?" Nya asked. I think she was trying to change the subject, but what do I know?
Only then did I remember the old man had given me (more like forced me to take) something: a folder. I opened it and immediately a picture fell out.
"I knew you liked her!" Cole grinned, picking the photo up and letting the others get a look at it. You know what I said earlier about Cole? I probably should've mentioned this, but he knows me better than I know him, mainly because I go over to their house a lot to hang out with Zane. Anyway, the picture was of the black-haired beauty that is Nya. And I definitely didn't think that.
"It's not mine! I didn't put it in there!" Searching the folder for something to prove my point, I found three other photos loosely attached to the folder by a paperclip. I grabbed two and waved them in the air. "Look, there's a picture of Zane and you too, Cole, and I don't like you- I mean, I do, but not like-like-"
"Oh, shush, Jay, and tell us why our pictures are in there. If it's not yours, then where'd you get it?"
"An old man with a long beard and a straw hat. He- Well, he didn't do much actually. But he gave me that and..."
"Can I see that?"
I handed the folder over to Cole, where he pulled something else out.
"Did you realize there was a note under that picture of you?"
"No," I answered, shaking my head, "What's it say?"
" 'Find Cole Hence, Zane Julien, Nya Smith, and James Walker. Your name is included, since I'm not sure which of you will receive this. I have also attached photos in case you don't recognize the names. Hopefully you've seen them, as you go to the same school. When you have them, take this to the museum and ask for Mrs. Misako. All will be explained in time.' " He looked up. "Okay, what the heck does an old man want with us? Think he's just plain crazy or... something worse?"
"Don't even go there!" I interjected.
"How long ago did he give you that?" Nya asked, once again changing the subject.
"Just a minute ago."
"You talked to an old man in the five minutes since you ran off, and he's somehow disappeared since then?"
"I must agree with Miss Nya. It seems unlikely that an elderly man such as you've described would be capable of moving fast enough to be out of sight, especially when factoring in that we are surrounded by grass."
"He was never up here. He pulled me underground, I think, with a trapdoor."
"A trapdoor...?" Cole repeated, "Wouldn't it be easier to put it in your mailbox, or even just hand it to you without going to all that trouble?"
"Wait a second, back up. Did Zane just call me 'Miss'?" Nya suddenly asked.
"He called me mister when we first met," Cole told her, "Zane's always really polite."
"To be honest, Zane's just kinda weird." Cole gave me a slightly threatening look, but I couldn't tell if he was joking. "Um, getting back to that folder, do you think we should go to the museum or not?"
"No way," Cole asserted.
"What's the big deal?" Nya asked him, "I've met Mrs. Misako, she's nice. If we go during the day when there's other visitors nothing that bad could happen, right?"
"Yeah, Cole. What're you afraid of?"
"I'm not afraid. In fact, nothing in this world scares me!"
"Brother, was it not just the other day that you said, were you ever to see one, you would be scared of dragons?"
I snickered. Zane probably wasn't trying to be funny, but it definitely came out sounding at least a little like that.
"Dragons aren't real," Cole argued.
"They're as real as my hand!" I interjected. Zane nodded in agreement.
"Your hand's fake?"
"If that was a joke, it was pretty lame," I muttered, shaking my head slowly as if I was disappointed.
"Um, the museum?" Nya said softly.
"Why do you two keep taking the topic back to that?" Cole asked, "If you wanna go to the stupid museum, go ahead. I ain't stopping you."
"The note said all of us. Come on, Hence, aren't you even the least bit curious?" (I could say I took a risk calling him by his last name, as I had never done that before.)
The quarterback silently turned around and walked away.
Nya sighed. "Tomorrow, right after school. I know Jay'll come, but what about you, Zane?"
The blonde nodded. "Perhaps I could convince Cole as well."
