p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"Upon hearing that Toothless was missing, Astrid gasped in horror, covering her face with her hands. "Are you sure, Hiccup? Where could he be?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""I don't know—everything was normal until he sensed something and dove down. I fell off his back and then, I…I don't know what happened. It was like he disappeared into thin air!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""But that's impossible!" Astrid protested as she began to pace back and forth in worry. "Dragons don't just disappear like that."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Apparently, Toothless did." Hiccup countered. "The only question is, why?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"All this time, Kijo had been listening intently, also trying to figure out how Hiccup could lose an entire dragon. Then he suddenly gasped as he put two and two together. "It's my fault!" he blurted out. "I was practicing my flying skills when the Claws of Imperium shot me down. I thought I was a goner, but somehow my Dragon Wings must have allowed me to cross over from my realm to this one!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"At Kijo's outburst, Hiccup and Astrid turned to stare at Kijo dumbfoundedly. "Wait-wait-wait-wait, you did this?" Hiccup asked. Kijo bowed his head in shame and nodded./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""But—but how is that even possible?" Hiccup continued./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""I should have seen it before!" Kijo cried. "Dragons are the only creatures who can ferry between realms on their own. And because I have Dragon Wings, I must have somehow been given the power to do the same."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Hiccup, did you know about any of this?" Astrid asked, clearly puzzled./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Not any more than you did. But what does this have to do with Toothless?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""I can't say for sure," Kijo stated, "but I do know that this isn't my own realm. I don't belong here. So when I crossed over, I must have created some sort of disturbance, causing Toothless to take my place in Ninjago!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"emNinjago/em. There was that word again. Now Hiccup knew that his hunch was correct—Kijo really emwas /emfrom another realm! "If Kijo is right, then Ninjago may be where we find Toothless. He couldn't have gotten far—not without a rider. But we can't do this alone. We need the others."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Really? Hiccup, are you sure they're up for the task?" Astrid asked incredulously./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""What other choice do we have? We need Toothless—he's the only alpha this world's got."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Well, I guess we're calling in the others, then." With that, Astrid mounted on Stormfly and flew off./p
div style="mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Others?" Kijo asked Hiccup. "What others?"/p
/div
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"Turned out the "others" were the friends Hiccup spoke of. One of them was rather short, with brown shaggy hair and a scowl that looked permanent. Another had small eyes and a head that appeared to be too small for his body. Then there were two with narrow faces and long blond hair. They appeared to be twins, but from what Kijo could tell, they didn't get along very well—which was kind of shocking since Kijo had always been taught, emFamily is key/em./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""All right, Kijo. These are my friends—Snoutlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut." Hiccup stated, pointing to each one in turn. "And here comes Cassie now." As he spoke, a red-headed girl of about fourteen came flying in on a dragon with white butterfly-like wings. "Hey, Chief Hiccup! Sorry I'm late."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"For a second, Kijo just stared. Then he gasped and said, "Wait! Why didn't you tell me you were the chief of this place?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""I guess it just didn't come up." Hiccup replied. His statement reminded Kijo of the time he and the rest of the team had been exploring the World Forest and had located the Dragon-Guide. When the team had asked about the location of the Dragon Cores, the Dragon-Guide had told them that only a descendant—an heir—of the First Spinjitzu Master could request the location. What had happened next was as vivid in Kijo's mind as if it had just happened./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"em"Um, Lloyd, you're up." Twinkle exclaimed, nudging Lloyd forward. Lloyd slowly stepped in front of the Dragon-Guide and declared, "My name is Lloyd Garmadon, son of Lord Garmadon, who is a child of the First Spinjitzu Master. I am the First Spinjitzu Master's heir, and I hereby request the location of the three remaining Dragon Cores."/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"emAt first, all the new members of the team—Kito, Kelly, Kijo, Arin, Sora, and Wyldfire—just stared at Lloyd, not believing what they had just heard. Then Sora said what everyone was thinking. "Wait, how did you just never mention that you're the grandson of the guy that created Ninjago?" /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"em"It never came up." Lloyd replied./em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"The memory made Kijo miss Ninjago and his friends even more. But he shook his head to clear his thoughts, turned to Cassie, and said, "Hi, Cassie. I'm Kijo."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Oh, yes. Astrid told me and Valka all about you."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Valka?" Kijo asked. Just then another dragon landed. This dragon had red-and-green scales and huge floppy ears that seemed to droop over the back of the dragon's head. "Good landing, Cloudjumper." Kijo heard a distinctly female voice say before a woman possibly in her thirties dismounted. "Mom!" Hiccup cried out, running to her and hugging her tightly. Kijo gasped as he realized that Hiccup looked a lot like his mother. Then he realized that Hiccup's father was nowhere to be seen. "Um, where's your father?" he asked—right before he realized what the answer was going to be. If Hiccup was the chief, then that had to mean—/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""My…my father was killed in battle just five months ago."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Oh." Kijo said softly. "I'm so sorry."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""It…it's okay. You didn't know." Hiccup replied before turning back to his mother. "What are you doing here, Mom?" he asked./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Astrid told me what has happened and what you're planning. I wish you the best of luck, my son. But be careful. You don't know what you may be up against."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Don't worry, Mom. I'll be careful. And besides, I'll have my friends with me. I won't be alone." With that he mounted Cassie's dragon, Feather, since he currently didn't have his own mount. That was the others' cue to mount their own dragons. "Let's go, Dragon Riders!" Hiccup called out, and everybody—including Kijo—lifted off into the sky. Hiccup, Astrid, Cassie, and Kijo were all up front, while Snoutlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut followed close behind. "What's the plan, Kijo?" Hiccup asked./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Well, my Dragon Wings were what got me here, so it's probably my Dragon Wings that will get all of us to Ninjago."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Better make it snappy, then, pup." Tuffnut snarked./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Yeah, we haven't got all day, ya know." Ruffnut added./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""It's not that simple." Kijo replied. "I couldn't control it before, and I don't know if I can control it now. I think our best chance is to wait for whatever I did to happen again."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Hate to break it to you," Cassie exclaimed, "but the twins got a point. We don't have much time."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Maybe there's a way you can trigger it?" Hiccup offered./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""That's the problem! I don't know how I triggered it last time! All I know is that after that rope-thing wrapped around my leg and wing, I plummeted downward in a…" Then he gasped. "In a spinning motion! I've got an idea!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""What kind of idea?" Snoutlout asked incredulously./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Just follow my lead!" Kijo answered before entering a Pup-Dive. As he dove downwards, he started to spin in midair, just as he had done before. Hiccup quickly figured out what Kijo was thinking and asked Cassie, "Can you have Feather do the same?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""You got it!" the young girl exclaimed before whispering in Feather's ear what Hiccup wanted her to do. Sure enough, Feather dove downwards and began to spin. The motion made Hiccup dizzy, but he knew that it may be the only way to cross over into this realm called Ninjago. Realizing what Hiccup, Cassie, Feather, and Kijo were up to, the other Dragon Riders also instructed their dragons to spin as they dove./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Come on! Come on!" Hiccup exclaimed, while Kijo whispered to himself, "Please work. Please work. Please work. Please work." A few seconds later, the plan worked. Kijo's wings glowed again—the same blue-and-purple glow that Toothless's wings had had—and a portal opened underneath the Riders. The Riders and their dragons all dove through the portal and found themselves in what Kijo remembered Twinkle calling a lightbridge./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" Cassie cried in excitement./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Yeah, all right!" Astrid added./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Next stop, Ninjago!" Kijo shouted, and the Dragon Riders cheered with enthusiasm. As they flew through the lightbridge, Kijo was filled with excitement—and nervousness. What would they find on the other side, he wondered. He hoped it would, indeed, be Ninjago. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to tell for sure until they got there. He just hoped that he had done this thing right./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""I don't know—everything was normal until he sensed something and dove down. I fell off his back and then, I…I don't know what happened. It was like he disappeared into thin air!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""But that's impossible!" Astrid protested as she began to pace back and forth in worry. "Dragons don't just disappear like that."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Apparently, Toothless did." Hiccup countered. "The only question is, why?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"All this time, Kijo had been listening intently, also trying to figure out how Hiccup could lose an entire dragon. Then he suddenly gasped as he put two and two together. "It's my fault!" he blurted out. "I was practicing my flying skills when the Claws of Imperium shot me down. I thought I was a goner, but somehow my Dragon Wings must have allowed me to cross over from my realm to this one!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"At Kijo's outburst, Hiccup and Astrid turned to stare at Kijo dumbfoundedly. "Wait-wait-wait-wait, you did this?" Hiccup asked. Kijo bowed his head in shame and nodded./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""But—but how is that even possible?" Hiccup continued./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""I should have seen it before!" Kijo cried. "Dragons are the only creatures who can ferry between realms on their own. And because I have Dragon Wings, I must have somehow been given the power to do the same."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Hiccup, did you know about any of this?" Astrid asked, clearly puzzled./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Not any more than you did. But what does this have to do with Toothless?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""I can't say for sure," Kijo stated, "but I do know that this isn't my own realm. I don't belong here. So when I crossed over, I must have created some sort of disturbance, causing Toothless to take my place in Ninjago!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"emNinjago/em. There was that word again. Now Hiccup knew that his hunch was correct—Kijo really emwas /emfrom another realm! "If Kijo is right, then Ninjago may be where we find Toothless. He couldn't have gotten far—not without a rider. But we can't do this alone. We need the others."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Really? Hiccup, are you sure they're up for the task?" Astrid asked incredulously./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""What other choice do we have? We need Toothless—he's the only alpha this world's got."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Well, I guess we're calling in the others, then." With that, Astrid mounted on Stormfly and flew off./p
div style="mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-bottom: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Others?" Kijo asked Hiccup. "What others?"/p
/div
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"Turned out the "others" were the friends Hiccup spoke of. One of them was rather short, with brown shaggy hair and a scowl that looked permanent. Another had small eyes and a head that appeared to be too small for his body. Then there were two with narrow faces and long blond hair. They appeared to be twins, but from what Kijo could tell, they didn't get along very well—which was kind of shocking since Kijo had always been taught, emFamily is key/em./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""All right, Kijo. These are my friends—Snoutlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut." Hiccup stated, pointing to each one in turn. "And here comes Cassie now." As he spoke, a red-headed girl of about fourteen came flying in on a dragon with white butterfly-like wings. "Hey, Chief Hiccup! Sorry I'm late."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"For a second, Kijo just stared. Then he gasped and said, "Wait! Why didn't you tell me you were the chief of this place?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""I guess it just didn't come up." Hiccup replied. His statement reminded Kijo of the time he and the rest of the team had been exploring the World Forest and had located the Dragon-Guide. When the team had asked about the location of the Dragon Cores, the Dragon-Guide had told them that only a descendant—an heir—of the First Spinjitzu Master could request the location. What had happened next was as vivid in Kijo's mind as if it had just happened./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"em"Um, Lloyd, you're up." Twinkle exclaimed, nudging Lloyd forward. Lloyd slowly stepped in front of the Dragon-Guide and declared, "My name is Lloyd Garmadon, son of Lord Garmadon, who is a child of the First Spinjitzu Master. I am the First Spinjitzu Master's heir, and I hereby request the location of the three remaining Dragon Cores."/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"emAt first, all the new members of the team—Kito, Kelly, Kijo, Arin, Sora, and Wyldfire—just stared at Lloyd, not believing what they had just heard. Then Sora said what everyone was thinking. "Wait, how did you just never mention that you're the grandson of the guy that created Ninjago?" /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"em"It never came up." Lloyd replied./em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"The memory made Kijo miss Ninjago and his friends even more. But he shook his head to clear his thoughts, turned to Cassie, and said, "Hi, Cassie. I'm Kijo."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Oh, yes. Astrid told me and Valka all about you."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Valka?" Kijo asked. Just then another dragon landed. This dragon had red-and-green scales and huge floppy ears that seemed to droop over the back of the dragon's head. "Good landing, Cloudjumper." Kijo heard a distinctly female voice say before a woman possibly in her thirties dismounted. "Mom!" Hiccup cried out, running to her and hugging her tightly. Kijo gasped as he realized that Hiccup looked a lot like his mother. Then he realized that Hiccup's father was nowhere to be seen. "Um, where's your father?" he asked—right before he realized what the answer was going to be. If Hiccup was the chief, then that had to mean—/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""My…my father was killed in battle just five months ago."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Oh." Kijo said softly. "I'm so sorry."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""It…it's okay. You didn't know." Hiccup replied before turning back to his mother. "What are you doing here, Mom?" he asked./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Astrid told me what has happened and what you're planning. I wish you the best of luck, my son. But be careful. You don't know what you may be up against."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Don't worry, Mom. I'll be careful. And besides, I'll have my friends with me. I won't be alone." With that he mounted Cassie's dragon, Feather, since he currently didn't have his own mount. That was the others' cue to mount their own dragons. "Let's go, Dragon Riders!" Hiccup called out, and everybody—including Kijo—lifted off into the sky. Hiccup, Astrid, Cassie, and Kijo were all up front, while Snoutlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut followed close behind. "What's the plan, Kijo?" Hiccup asked./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Well, my Dragon Wings were what got me here, so it's probably my Dragon Wings that will get all of us to Ninjago."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Better make it snappy, then, pup." Tuffnut snarked./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Yeah, we haven't got all day, ya know." Ruffnut added./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""It's not that simple." Kijo replied. "I couldn't control it before, and I don't know if I can control it now. I think our best chance is to wait for whatever I did to happen again."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Hate to break it to you," Cassie exclaimed, "but the twins got a point. We don't have much time."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Maybe there's a way you can trigger it?" Hiccup offered./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""That's the problem! I don't know how I triggered it last time! All I know is that after that rope-thing wrapped around my leg and wing, I plummeted downward in a…" Then he gasped. "In a spinning motion! I've got an idea!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""What kind of idea?" Snoutlout asked incredulously./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Just follow my lead!" Kijo answered before entering a Pup-Dive. As he dove downwards, he started to spin in midair, just as he had done before. Hiccup quickly figured out what Kijo was thinking and asked Cassie, "Can you have Feather do the same?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""You got it!" the young girl exclaimed before whispering in Feather's ear what Hiccup wanted her to do. Sure enough, Feather dove downwards and began to spin. The motion made Hiccup dizzy, but he knew that it may be the only way to cross over into this realm called Ninjago. Realizing what Hiccup, Cassie, Feather, and Kijo were up to, the other Dragon Riders also instructed their dragons to spin as they dove./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Come on! Come on!" Hiccup exclaimed, while Kijo whispered to himself, "Please work. Please work. Please work. Please work." A few seconds later, the plan worked. Kijo's wings glowed again—the same blue-and-purple glow that Toothless's wings had had—and a portal opened underneath the Riders. The Riders and their dragons all dove through the portal and found themselves in what Kijo remembered Twinkle calling a lightbridge./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" Cassie cried in excitement./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Yeah, all right!" Astrid added./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;""Next stop, Ninjago!" Kijo shouted, and the Dragon Riders cheered with enthusiasm. As they flew through the lightbridge, Kijo was filled with excitement—and nervousness. What would they find on the other side, he wondered. He hoped it would, indeed, be Ninjago. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to tell for sure until they got there. He just hoped that he had done this thing right./p