(A/N: Okay, back to the main story. Also, I want to let you know. Wiring fight scenes while watching them... REALLY FRUSTRATING AND BORING... but worth it)
Up on the surface, Vania was in her room, pacing, as she spoke to someone. "I am really not good at making decisions like this." She said. "Which is why I need your advice. The Ninja have been underground way too long and I think something terrible might have happened to them, and I think I should go after them, but... they're Ninja. They can take care of themselves, right?" Light growling was heard from the one she was talking to. "Master Wu even said I shouldn't go after them." More growling is heard. "Not even Mantis or Maggie would go. But what if they've been attacked by crazy monsters?" She heads over to the front of her bed and grabs a naginata that was leaning against. "I should at least alert the palace guards, right?" A light disapproval growl is heard. "But, if my father knew the Ninja went down into the tunnels, he'd banish them from Shintaro forever. Even if their intentions were good. Oh, now what should I do, Chompy?" As it turns out, the individual she was talking to was a small white dragon, who was sitting on Vania's bed before it moves forward and spins around, screeching lightly until it stops to face her. "You're right! Oh, you always know what to say. I need to relax. I'm sure Cole is doing just fine."
"HELP!" Cole screamed at the top of his lungs as he was hanging upside down. His left leg was caught in a root that was rooted into a cliff he had fallen from when he wasn't looking while running away from the Skull Sorcerer. "Someone help me!" His minor shaking was bending the branch a little. At the bottom of the cliff were pillars. "I'm in serious trouble here! Please!" He sobs a little. Giving up, Cole tries his best to lift himself up to the root and manages to grab hold of it. Unfortunately, the added weight causes it to crack at the base as he tried to free his leg, and eventually breaks. Cole then found himself hanging upside down again as the root had snapped, but was still holding, causing him gasp out of fear. "Shit! Okay, that's not working. I'll just hang real still until I come up with a plan. I just have to think." He puts his hands to his head. "Think, Cole, think." He looks further down the cliff to see a skeleton stuck in some tree roots with a grappling hook and rope attached to its belt. "Oh, great!" He sarcastically spoke to himself. "Now, I feel much better." He then notices the grappling hook. "Hey, a hook! If I can get to it..." He looks at the skeleton. "You don't mind if I borrow that, do you?" The skull tilts downwards. "I'll take that as a no." Cole then started to swing himself to try and get free as well as break the root to reach the grappling hook, until the root snaps, and he manages to jump and grab hold of the roots around the skeleton. The right arm suddenly breaks off, making him fall, but he grabs hold of the left ankle. "Whoa!" He exhales out of relief before moving his other hand to the skeleton's right ankle. "Oh, great!" He sarcastically spoke to himself. "Now I'm hanging from a skeleton that's hanging from a root. And now I'm talking to myself again." The right leg suddenly breaks off, making Cole gasp out of shock as he was moved to the side a little before letting go of the leg. "Keep it together, pal. Just hold on." He turns back to reach the grappling hook and manages to grab it. Cole started swinging the grappling hook around before hurling it to the top of the cliff. Unfortunately, there was nothing secure to stop it as it drags along the ground. Soon, the skeleton broke apart, sending Cole falling, causing him to scream before the grappling hook managed to snag onto a rock, stopping Cole from falling. He takes some deep breaths as he looked down to see the skeleton reaching the bottom before he started to climb up the rope. But as he does so, the rock comes out of the ground, sending the grappling hook over the cliff, and he started to fall again. "OH, SHIT!" He lands on a rock before sliding off, but manages to grab hold of the edge as the grappling hook falls past him. He soon wailed out of fear. "Help! Someone help!" He soon realises something. "What the hell am I doing? What if the Skull Sorcerer hears me? That would be ****ing terrible! Oh, you don't really have a choice, Cole, do you?" He thinks for a few minutes, but eventually opened his mouth. "Help! Someone help me!" Screeching was soon heard, making Cole look around, curious about the noise. "Hello? I... Is someone down here?" Pretty soon, Dire Bats pass by underneath him, causing him to gasp. "Dire Bats?" He started to wail out of fear as they turn to him. One tries to strike him, making him let go of the rock with one hand as it hits it before it stomps on the other hand, making him fall. He started to scream as he fell, until a Dire Bat grabs hold of him and flies down a path.
"Thanks, I guess." It soon stops as two more Dire Bats came between them, and the Dire Bat that attacked him came at him to try and scratch him, but he manages to raise his legs to avoid it. Then again to avoid another before it managed to grab hold of his right foot. "Get... off!" He raises his free leg to kick the Dire Bat's hands, making it, and the other Dire Bat holding him by his hands to let go of him, while his right boot slid off his foot and he started to fall again, until he managed to grab hold of a Dire Bat's foot as it flew by, and was hanging onto it as it flew along some pillars with the others chasing after it. "Whoa!" He notices a pillar in front of him before moving his feet to the right to avoid it before noticing one of the Dire Bats about to attack. "Yikes!" Cole immediately activated his Earth Punch before holding his free hand out to some stalactites on the ceiling, causing them to shake, break off and fall onto the Dire Bat. He soon chuckled at his accomplishment. "Yes!" He then noticed another pillar. "Whoa!" He holds his hand to it, and the pillar breaks apart, but also makes him let go of the Dire Bat as he soon fell past the broken pillar and lands with a roll while deactivating his Earth Punch. Cole started to groan in pain before hearing the Dire Bat screech, causing him to get up and start running.
He comes across two tunnels before, without thinking, heads down the tunnel on the right before dropping and slides as the Dire Bat stops at the entrance. (A/N: When will he ever take the left tunnel?)
He turns around to see it about to grab him, but he rolls back to stand on his feet before it could happen, and started to back away as the Dire Bat tries to get at him before he brings his fists together, activating his Earth Punch. The Dire Bat soon whimpers and takes off. Cole scoffs while deactivating his Earth Punch. "Maybe you realised you were messing with the wrong Ninja!" He starts backing away. "Nice try, pal! Better luck next ti-" He suddenly steps on something, and he looks down to see what it was. "What?" He raises his shoeless foot to see a strange substance on his sock. "What is this stuff?" He kept raising his feet as he moved back, stepping in the substance.
As Cole was moving back, something from above looks down at him. "Really sticky." As he kept moving back, the being, revealed to be a giant spider, climbs down behind him. "Almost like spider-" The spider soon hisses, making him turn to see it and gasped out of shock as it lands. It hisses at him before charging at him, but Cole manages to roll underneath it to dodge it. He turns around to face it and backs away as it turned back to him. "Look, I'm getting a little tired of things trying to eat me!" The spider raises a front leg to try and strike him, but Cole managed to move to the side, making it hit the wall behind him. It then went to strike with another front leg, but he managed to dodge it as well before jumping to the right to avoid another strike, somersaulting as he did so, and turns back to it. He then looked down at the spider web stuck to his feet and tries to lift them as the spider comes at him, rises up to hiss at him, then lunged, but Cole quickly grabs hold of its fangs and tries to force it back before it soon turned around and struck him with its back, sending him flying to a wall, which he hits and lands on the spider web laced ground. He gets back up and activates his Earth Punch, only for the spider to shoot a web shot at his right hand, making him deactivate it. "Hey!" It then shot another ball of web, hitting his left hand and sticking it to the wall. "Don't think about how gross this feels." He tries to free his hand. "Do not think about how gross this feels." He soon groaned in disgust. "I'm thinking about it!" The spider starts to head towards him. "I'm thinking about it!" The spider raises a leg to strike, but Cole moves to the side and raised his free, but web covered fist to strike the leg back and kept swinging it until the spider shot another ball of web, hitting him, and completely sticking him to the wall, causing him to groan. "I'm now willing to discuss the terms of your surrender." The spider starts to move close to Cole and was about to bite him when someone soon came between them and nearly struck the spider. It was Vania, who was wearing battle appropriate attire and had her hair loose, and holding her naginata while Chompy flew around it. "Princess Vania?"
She holds her naginata out to the spider. "Back!"
"Oh, wow, am I glad to see you?"
"I hate spiders, especially huge slobbery ones with fangs." Chompy flies up next to her. "Don't make me step on you!" She turns to Chompy. "Chompy, help!" Chompy flies towards the spider, who strikes to swing its front legs at him, but he flies up, making it miss, until it managed to strike him, making him land on the ground behind Vania, who looks at him. She turned back to the spider, who shoots a ball of web, but she manages to move her head to the right to avoid it. It then shot another ball of web, which she dodges by ducking down, then jumps while holding her naginata upside down and throws it at the spider. It strikes it aside and moves towards Vania before raising its left leg to strike him, but she manages to jump out of the way as it missed her, ending up getting its leg stuck to the ground. She rolls over next to Chompy before getting up just as the spider turns to her as it raised its leg to free it. Chompy gets up and glares at the spider before squealing in anger. "Okay, now you've made me angry." A glow suddenly emits behind her as big dragon with white and glow gold scales soon appears and roars at the spider, who looked up at it. Cole gasped at the sight of the dragon as the glow fades, and the spider backs away in fear, shoots a webline upwards and ascends, hissing in fear. As Vania smiles at her so called victory, the dragon suddenly shrinks before she sighed.
"What! What just happened? Did you see that? Your dragon, he... he..."
Vania turns to him, confused. "What?"
"He... he just got bigger!"
She heads over to Cole. "Chompy? Don't be silly." Chompy soon jumps and flies before landing. "He just growls a bit sometimes, when he gets angry." Chompy soon growled in anger, displeased that she didn't see his transformation.
"Are you sure? Cause I could swear."
"Oh, dear. Let's get you out of these." She starts to remove the webbing off of him to free him.
In the palace gardens, Maggie and Hayden follow Dragon as he sips a cup of tea while walking along, admiring the view before stopping at some flowers. "Ah, a beautiful blossom." He said.
Hayden moves to smell it. "And it smells nice." He replied as Maggie does the same.
"Definitely." She said as Dragon soon did so himself.
"So peaceful." He replied before they continue moving along, passing by the tunnel, which had been re-covered with the grate.
"See, Master? Doing something like this will brighten you up."
"And get you out of all the gloomiest of things." Hayden said.
"I agree." Dragon replied. "I must remember this moment. The beauty of it, the calm. If only the Ninja were here to enjoy it."
"You know, I'm kind of worried, Master." Maggie said.
"I'm sure they'll be fine. After all, Geoff and Gewuji are perfect fighters and excellent students."
"If you say so."
Behind them, Cole and Vania reach the grate before Cole started to push on it. "Come on!" He muttered as he did so.
"I can almost hear them now." Dragon said, not looking behind before he takes a sip of tea.
"You're right." Hayden replied, also not looking. "And does that sound like Cole?"
"I'm not sure." Maggie said.
Pretty soon, the grate breaks off and clatters on the ground. The sound made Dragon spit out his tea and dropped the cup in a state of shock, the spat out tea unintentionally splattering Hayden's jacket and shirt. "Dragon's turd! My jacket!"
"Sorry." Dragon said before they all turn around to see Cole and Vania exit the tunnel with Chompy on her shoulder while Hayden took off his tea stained jacket to look at it. "Cole!" He then noticed Vania. "Princess Vania? What happened? Where are the others?"
"Where's Geoff?" Maggie asked.
"And Gewuji?" Hayden asked.
"You mean they're not back?" Cole asked, surprised.
"No."
"We had to fool and make excuses to the guards so that they wouldn't get suspicious." Maggie said.
"And you, Princess." Dragon said, turning to Vania, a little disappointed. "You gave me your word that you wouldn't enter the mines."
"Oh, did I?" She asked as Chompy flies off her shoulder and into a nearby bush behind Maggie, Dragon and Hayden. "Did I actually give my word? I thought it was more of a... possibility."
"It was most certainly not." Chompy emerges from the bush and starts to climb up Hayden's back.
Vania nervously chuckles. "I guess I'm not very good at doing what I'm told."
"I'm beginning to see that." Chompy soon climbed onto Hayden's head.
He then looked down at him, which he notices. "And whose dragon is this?" He asked, grabbing Chompy off of his head and looks at him.
Chompy breaks free of Hayden's grip and flies towards a nearby bush with flowers. "That's Chompy." Vania replied. "He's mine."
Chompy then emerged from the bush with a couple of flowers in his mouth before coming back to them. "I've never seen that kind before."
"What is he?" Maggie asked.
"Is he a Shintarian Ridgeback?" Dragon asked.
Vania tries to think of an answer as Chompy moves closer to Hayden. "He's just Chompy." She replied as Chompy then flies back on top of Hayden's head, scaring him. Vania soon giggles. "I think he's taken a shine to you. He can definitely smell that you have hung around with dragons a lot, Mantis."
Hayden soon sighed and turned his head away, annoyed. "Merely 7 months since I've been living in Ninjago, and I still smell of dragons." He muttered to himself.
"Dragons do have better senses than humans do." Dragon replied.
"I know."
"In fact, as part Dragon, I can still smell it on you."
"Now, that is educational." Vania said as Chompy comes onto Hayden's shoulder and he notices the flowers in his mouth.
"Oh, are those for me?" Hayden asked.
"No, he just likes to eat flowers. Chompy, will you quit eating the flowers?!" She scoffs in disgust. "You're just gonna barf!" Chompy soon swallowed the flowers before squealing out of delight and flies off of Hayden's shoulder.
"We've got bigger problems, guys." Cole said. "There's an evil sorcerer in the mines and he's got this magic skull, and he commands an army of skeletons! We got separated and barely escaped. They must still be down there!"
"How?" Dragon asked. "How could all that be down there without anyone up here realising it?"
"I don't know." Vania replied. "But we have to tell my father, immediately!"
"The King needs to send his guards to stop this weirdo." Cole said before pointing to the tunnel. "If his skeleton army ever reached the surface, all of Shintaro would be destroyed." They immediately take off as Chompy spits out the flowers before following them.