Lloyd sighs in frustration. His attempts at activating his Oni powers to call out to Garmadon and Wu have been fruitless. Last time he had managed it out of desperation, imagining Ella beaten half to death, but seeing her right there in front of him resting peacefully made summoning that same rage difficult. He hears a small clank of someone opening the outer door and gets up to peer through the slit to confirm someone is coming before going over to wake Ella. She wouldn't forgive him if he let her sleep through something like this, as much as she needed the rest.
"Someone's coming." He says softly while gently squeezing her shoulder.
She sits up and removes the green hood, shoving it down between the bed and the wall. Three sets of footsteps come along the airlock and stop near the door.
"Who's there?" Says Lloyd, peering out the slot where he can see two masked guards and an old man.
"You don't recognise me?" Asks the old man.
"It's the same guy as before." Whispers Ella while igniting one fist with purple fire.
"Wait." Says Lloyd to her, placing a hand back on her shoulder. "It doesn't hurt to listen, hear what he has to say. We can always blast him later if we need to."
Ella puts out her fist with a frown.
The old man chuckles, "this is why I'm so glad you came Lloyd!" He says cheerfully. "You have such a calming influence on her."
Ella growls and trys to move closer to the door, but Lloyd puts out a hand to stop her and shakes his head slightly, mouthing 'not yet'. She sits back down crossing her arms.
The old man continues, "My name's Bill N. Ayre, but you can call me Bill. I really don't like keeping her down here, but our staff safety is of the utmost importance, if she could only behave herself, the accommodations could be improved significantly."
"She can be quite the handful." Says Lloyd, "so why don't you let us out of here, I'll take her home with me, and your staff won't have to deal with her behaviour."
The man laughs. "Oh if only it were that simple, but I still need her for a while longer."
"Why is that exactly?" Says Lloyd.
"We are on the verge of the single most important discovery since electricity! Your Oni blood could be the key to unlocking the fountain of youth! Just think, no more old age, we could double, or even triple the average human lifespan. Just imagine all the lives we could save."
"I don't think one child has enough blood for all that." Says Lloyd.
"Oh of course not." Says the man. "That's why we are trying to create an artificial copy. That is how most medicines are made, beginning from an organic component, before we come up with a way to chemically engineer the compound from scratch. The Oni components are proving difficult to recreate, but I am sure with time we will manage."
"How much time?"
"Months, a year tops. We have actually already made some significant progress thanks to you."
"Thanks to me?" Asks Lloyd.
"You remember a few months back you and the ninja participated in a blood drive to encourage more people to donate. 'Now it's your turn to be a hero!' Very inspiring stuff. Unfortunately your blood was unable to be used at the hospital, you signed a waiver allowing us to use it for research."
Lloyd frowns. "If your project is really for the benefit of humanity, why all the kidnapping and stealing of blood? You could have just asked for our help."
"And would you have helped me?" Bill asks sweetly.
"No." Snaps Ella.
"So you can see, I made the right call." Says Bill.
Lloyd sighs, "I might have, but not now, after what you have done."
"Your blood did help get us started, but the Oni portion is small and difficult to work with. The child's blood is much more pure, the results have been nothing short of amazing! As you can see I am much improved."
"He was bedridden before." Mutters Ella, "or at least pretending to be."
Bill puts on a big grin, "All this talk about could have, should have, shmould have! You are here now. I really am hoping that we can cooperate, when this is all over you can get a royalty on all the profits, set you up for life! No more stealing money from noodle shops. I can get you a TV, some comic books, what are kids into these days?"
"No." Says Ella forcefully. "I will never help someone like you."
Bill sighs. "Lloyd help me out here, talk some sense into her will you?"
"Her blood, her choice." Says Lloyd.
Bill sighs again. "That's a shame, a real shame. I don't like being the bad guy, I really would rather we could work together. Do you at least know of any ways to contain her Oni powers? If her destructive tendencies were easier to control we could at least get her out of this miserable basement."
"Can I blast him yet?" Snarls Ella.
"Hmm." Lloyd pauses, "getting pretty close."
"Fine." Says Bill with exasperation, "we'll do this the hard way." He pulls out a gas mask and puts it on.
"What's that for?" Says Lloyd while frowning. Ella is too short to see through the slot.
"We have to move you. Some of your friends are getting too close. You might want to lie down."
There is a hiss as white smog starts coming out of the air vents. Lloyd and Ella look around in a panic. Ella lets out a cry as she sends a couple of blasts towards the door. Only one makes it through the slit, but due to the angle it flies right over their visitors' heads.
Lloyd takes a deep breath and tries to clog up one of the vents with damp toilet paper, it is not working as well as he hoped, sticking more to his hands. He hears a thud and looks over to see Ella collapsed on the floor, it is too late, there is already too much gas in the room. He focuses on Ella's collapsed figure while desperately calling out with his mind DAD, HELP ME! but he is probably not angry enough to be getting through. His lungs are burning from the lack of oxygen so he finally takes a breath which quickly makes the world get blurry before he joins Ella on the floor.
After Wu and the others left at dawn to return to the monastery, Garmadon had ignored Pixal's search plan and wandered around aimlessly for a while. He had chased what turned out to be a pretty athletic cat for a couple of blocks, in case it had been Ella transformed. Eventually he returned to the area in which Lloyd vanished. They had searched this area in great detail already, but his guts were telling him that they had missed something. After brooding on the rooftops for a while he decided to go down into the sewers where he had run into that copy cat ninja. Surely whoever took Lloyd would have known the team would scout the surrounds, and move him to a more secure location, so why couldn't he shake this feeling? Anger flared in the back of his mind, the feeling was faint, but it was definitely an Oni. A smirk grew across Garmadon's face. "Robot girl, I have something." He says into his earpiece.
Skylor hung up the desk phone with a triumphant grin. She had just finished speaking to people at the hospital who confirmed Lloyd's blood had been turned over to Normatech. Kai grabs her arm, he holds his other hand to his ear, listening on his earpiece.
"Garmadon senses Oni," he says, "where you bumped into him yesterday."
"So we did sense Ella… " she mutters, "I'm going to the chief, this has got to be enough for a warrant."
Nya and Cole were making their way to the police station to enquire about the arrested venemari, when they heard Kai announce over the comms "We have a warrant! Meet at the intersection where Lloyd disappeared in 10min."
"We were just there!" Grumbles Cole as they turn around and head back the way they came.
Garmadon hadn't been paying much attention to the comms, so wasn't sure where the warrant was for. He thought about asking, but didn't want to sound ignorant. As he was already in the area, he was the first to make it to the rendezvous point. He quickly got bored of waiting and climbed a nearby building to try and catch sight of the others. Instead he catches sight of a couple white vans leaving an industrial building with a faded Normatech sign. He follows them for a few blocks, before their paths diverge, but he couldn't sense any Oni presence coming from either of them so he decides to stop. There is plenty of other traffic in the area, and had been all morning, "just chasing another cat." He mumbles before heading back.
At the intersection Kai, Skylor, Nya and Cole arrive at roughly the same time.
"Where is Garmadon?" Asks Kai
"Right here." Says Garmadon as he jumps down the last section of a fire escape and lands beside them.
"Good, we're all here." Says Skylor, "we have a search warrant for the Normatech building." She waves a bit of paper in front of her face.
"Normatech?" Says Garmadon with surprise. "I was just trailing a couple of vans that just left from there."
"Why didn't you say something!" Says Nya, "they could be moving them!"
"We'll, why didn't you say the warrant was for Normatech?" Snaps Garmadon.
Cole moves between them, holding a hand towards Nya who was about to keep arguing, "did you sense anything?" He asks Garmadon.
"From the vans? No."
"Would you be able to sense something if they were unconscious, like if they were drugged?" Cole asks.
Garmadon pauses, the ninja look at him impatiently. "I don't know! Ok? It's not like I have practised drugging Lloyd to see if I can still feel him."
"Errgh." Kai drags his fists down his face. "Just when I felt like we were getting the upper hand! Where did the vans go?"
"They headed north for two blocks, then split up, one going west, the other east." says Garmadon. "Plain white, no logos."
"Myself and Cole will try and catch up," says Kai while grabbing Cole and heading towards the vehicles. "you need to search that building before they hide any more evidence."
Skylor, Nya and Garmadon make their way down towards the Normatech warehouse. There is a barricade between the road and parking lot which is dented.
"Lloyd came on his bike." Says Nya, pointing to the damage.
Skylor gets out a magnifying glass. "Green paint." She says before taking a photo. She then gets out tongs, putting the sliver of paint in an evidence bag.
The group makes their way into the lobby.
Jaki greets them. "Oh, you again! The gummy detective from yesterday. Unfortunately we don't have any updates on those tests just yet.." she trails off slightly, pausing when she sees Garmadon standing behind them.
"He's with us." Says Nya.
"We're not here about the gummies." Says Skylor, we have come for a thorough tour of your facilities." She holds out the warrant.
Jaki takes it from her and reads it over. "This is absurd, we are one of the most trusted corporations in Ninjago, what could you possibly hope to find?"
"We believe this building may be involved in a missing person case." Says Skylor.
Jaki raises an eyebrow, "and who exactly is missing?"
"Why don't you just let us in?" Says Skylor.
Jaki grumbles and fetches a set of keys, "Where to first?"
They go through the ground floor first, which includes a large loading dock, then make their way up inspecting every lab, halfway, toilet and storage room. Jaki opens every door as requested, but every computer they walk by has been switched off, or at least had the screen blanked.
"Look at this!" Says Nya in one of the labs. "That vial!" She points to a vial of blood in a mini fridge with a glass door. It has Lloyd written on the side.
Skylor takes a look and raises an eyebrow. "Where did you get this?"
"Oh, that?" Jaki examines a code on the side, pulls out her phone and taps away. "Unusable donation from the hospital."
"And what are you doing with it?" Asks Nya.
Jaki frowns. "You have a search warrant, not an information request. Our research is highly confidential, and I don't think any missing persons are hiding in that vial…" she paused, "you surely aren't suggesting that the green ninja is missing?"
Skylor rummages through the other vials in the fridge, but none are labelled Ella, or similar.
"We could take them all and get them tested?" Whispers Nya.
"And where do you think Borg got the DNA tests done last time?" Says Skylor. "We already knew they had some of Lloyd's blood. Let's keep going." she takes a couple of photos before moving on.
On the top floor they search Norm's office, although he is absent. Skylor pays particular attention to any papers on the desk, but nothing jumps out as being related to Lloyd or Ella or Oni in general.
Once the top floor is complete they check the roof before going back into the elevator.
"What is that button for?" Asks Garmadon who points towards an unlabelled button in the lower corner of the control panel.
"Oh right, the basement." Says Jaki. "I often forget about it, as it hasn't been used for a while." She inserts a key, and presses the mystery button.
Skylor watches her closely, she seems just a little nervous. The elevator ride takes longer than expected, the basement could be a fair way below ground.
The elevator doors finally open revealing a small lobby and a sturdy metal door which has been propped open.
There is a short airlock before a second metal door, which opens onto a small domed room, which looks eerily like a prison cell. Skylor feels goosebumps running up her body. "Anything?" She whispers to Garmadon who shakes his head. "When I felt them, I was underground."
"Why do you have a prison in your basement?" Says Nya, disgust leaking into her words.
"Oh, this isn't a prison." Says Jaki. "It is a research facility for nuclear medicine. We needed somewhere shielded, somewhere for test subjects to recover, but clinical trials haven't been done here for years, they are mostly done at the hospital these days, safer that way."
They enter the room, the second door is dented, with blast marks on the inside. Skylor points to the marks. "Care to explain this?"
"There was a small explosion, problems with a test, it was a long time ago."
There is a pile of rubble to one side, cracks can be seen on the ceiling and floor in some places. The room smells strongly of bleach. Some patches on the floor are still damp.
"If this room isn't in use, why has it been cleaned?"
"Our cleaners do the whole building each week."
Nya sees vengestone in the floor. "Why is the room lined with vengestone?"
"It has good insulating properties, for the radiation."
Skylor thinks to herself. The vans just left less than 20 min prior, the floor is still damp from rushed cleaning, they must have missed something… She methodically goes over every part of the room, taking lots of photos. She pauses when she gets to the bed. It is bare, sheets stripped, taken away for cleaning, but when she pushes it away from the wall a couple of bright green threads greet her, having snagged on the frame. "Bingo." She mutters, getting out her tweezers and adding them to an evidence bag.