Welcome to my next story!
First things first; if you haven't read the RISE OF THE GUARDIANStrilogy, go and read that or else you're going to be quite confused. I would recommend reading After the War as well, as the short stories therein work to set up some of the characters and elements in this story, but you'd probably be okay without it.
Even though this is a crossover with Legends of Chima, I think you'll be just fine to enjoy this story if you haven't seen any of it. I would recommend going to Wikipedia and reading the overview of the show's plot if you want to quickly get caught up.
There's not much else to say; I hope you enjoy the story!
DARKNESS IN CHIMA
Part One: Out of Place
Chapter I
Billingsley, Alabama
Earth
Saturday June 15, 2019…
Being a weatherman in Alabama was a particularly difficult job—that is, until summer rolled around.
Forecasting a summer day in Alabama was fairly straightforward. The morning will be calm and humid, the afternoon will be unbearably hot, and it will probably rain in the early evening, maybe into the night if the day is sufficiently hot and humid to provide adequate updraft.
And if it didn't rain today, it would almost certainly rain tomorrow.
In the wee hours of the morning after a violently stormy summer night, the Green Ninja tossed and turned in his bed. His hair, which had grown out to reach his shoulders, was beginning to mat to his forehead in his cold sweat.
Deep in his dream, Mack found himself floating in a dark void, the Sixteen Realms displayed before him, fifteen of them laid out around a large central realm. Ninjago, Earth, Cloud Kingdom, the Cursed Realm, and the Underworld were visible. The rest were obscured by bright light, except for the central one, which was obscured by shadow even darker than the void which suspended him.
The light obscuring one of the realms began to outshine the rest, and Mack was allowed a small glimpse of the inside. He saw a great stone by a river in a forest, several friends gathered around a fire beside the rock. The scene was blurry because of the bright light, so Mack could not make out anything more specific.
His view zoomed out, and Mack saw the outline of a civilized continent floating above a wild world below.
Mack blinked and found himself floating, but not in void as earlier; this was more like floating in deep water. His surroundings were bright, as if the water in which he floated was made of pure light. He was naked.
Several voices spoke from every direction in unison:
"When you wake, you will begin to make your way to us. You will need a power greater than your own to conquer the darkness we face."
There was a tremor in whatever medium Mack was floating in.
"Behold!" the voices echoed.
The light around Mack revealed several animals, blurry in the light, with a great dragon taking shape above them and spreading its magnificent wings.
A new voice spoke out; Mack thought the voice sounded like it came from directly above him.
"The time has come to find me," the voice boomed. It was deep, authoritative—but gentle. "Answer the call."
Mack was pulled with great force toward the dragon, which grew so much in brightness that it outshone the ocean of light around it. When Mack collided with the dragon, he snapped awake, lying in a heap on the floor of his bedroom in the Elemental Temple.
He had fallen off his bed. He almost brushed the dream off as simply that—a weird dream—until he noticed that he was soaking wet, as was the bed off of which he had fallen. There was a layer of standing water on the floor. He was naked, the pajamas he'd worn to bed folded neatly on his desk on the other side of the room.
Mack shook his head—as if trying to shake the dream from his mind—and used his power to lift all the water and vanish it. He got dressed and prepared to start the day.
He was worried; he had been having that dream for a couple of months, but weird dreams were nothing new to him. However, he had never woken up after the dream in the state that he did this morning, and this was the first time he heard any voices in the dream.
Mack wondered what it could mean.
It was Saturday, which meant there were no sunrise exercises today. Mack had originally planned to spend the day practicing piano and saxophone, but now he thought it would be better to spend some time in the woods meditating on the meaning of his strange dream.
However, it appeared that neither of these plans were meant to be, as while Mack was about to leave the Hut, his girlfriend Anna burst in, looking distressed.
"Anna?" Mack blinked.
Mack reached to greet Anna with a hug, but she gently pushed him away.
"What's wrong?" he frowned.
Anna took a deep breath. "We need to talk, now."
No sunrise exercises meant everyone scattered to enjoy their Saturday their own ways. Many of the ninja simply slept in, but some took full advantage of the pleasant morning weather.
Morro and Zee were out having a picnic at Peach Park in Clanton, the nearest town to Billingsley, and Pete was training extra hard, having struggled with his powers recently due to the blistering summer weather.
While Pete would never replace their fallen brother Danny in their hearts, the other ninja were much impressed and moved to respect the new Ice Guardian for his hard work.
Jay and Nya decided they would spend their Saturday morning swimming and relaxing at Swift Creek, a few miles down the highway from Billingsley. They loaded a cooler with some water and snacks and borrowed Mack's truck, affectionately named Old Faithful, to get there.
Jay was about to jump into the refreshing water, but Nya suddenly called out, "Wait!"
"Huh?" Jay stopped in his tracks, worried something was wrong. "What is it?"
"Look." Nya pointed to a glowing white orb lodged between some rocks in the shallow water.
"What is that?" she asked.
Jay frowned. "Oh, wow. I don't know."
Jay slowly approached it, but slowed when he got close, feeling a chill.
"I have a feeling about that thing that I don't like," he said.
"Yeah," Nya nodded, "me too. I don't think we should touch it."
Jay agreed. "Tell you what: I'll keep an eye on this thing, you go get Mack."
"Good idea," Nya replied. She kissed Jay on the cheek and said, "Be right back."
She got into Old Faithful and made quickly for Mack's family property.
Nya was at the Hut in just a few minutes. As she was walking up to the Hut, she ran into Anna, who was storming out of it.
"Hey," Nya greeted. "I didn't know you were here."
Anna didn't respond. Nya noticed the downtrodden look on Anna's face.
"Everything okay?" Nya asked.
"Fine," Anna huffed, pointedly making her way past Nya.
Nya goes into the Hut and finds Mack simply standing in the middle of the common room, his face blank.
"Is something wrong?" she asked. "I just saw Anna, and she look kind of—"
"Yeah," Mack interrupted, quickly shaking his head, "she's been through it lately. I think she's gonna be okay; things are looking up for her now."
Nya slowly nodded. "Well, that's good."
"Yes," Mack replied, a sad smile on his face. "What are you up to?"
"Well, Jay and I were going to swim down at Swift Creek today, but we found something… strange."
Mack frowned. "Strange? How so?"
"Well… maybe you should just come look."
Instead of taking Old Faithful again, Mack simply teleported himself and Nya back to the creek.
"Hey! You're here!" Jay said when Mack and Nya appeared.
Mack didn't respond yet, closing his eyes to concentrate.
"You were right to come get me," he said after a few moments. "I sense something strange here… where is the object?"
"It's there, in the rocks," Nya pointed to the orb.
Mack bent down and cautiously reached out to touch the object. When his finger made contact with it, a vision flashed across his eyes. He saw the dark central realm from his dream expanding and swallowing all the other realms.
He quickly withdrew his hand and shook his head to get rid of the image and maintain his concentration; he didn't have the time or energy to parse through his dreams right now.
Jay frowned. "What's the matter?"
The deep voice from Mack's dream echoed in his head, as if speaking again. Answer the call.
"Whatever this is…" Mack hovered his hand around the orb but did not touch it, "it's powerful. We have to find out where it came from. Y'all brought a cooler, right?"
"Yeah," Nya nodded and grabbed the cooler she and Jay had brought for their snacks and drinks.
Mack used his power to levitate the orb—noting how heavy it felt in his invisible grasp—and lowered it down into the cooler.
"That'll do for carrying it," Mack said. "Let's run this by the data station in the Hut. Maybe Zane will know something about it."
The three ninja teleported back to the Hut, and Mack carried the cooler inside. Just inside the door, on the wall opposite the one that housed the entrance to the mystical Elemental Temple, sat the data station Dr. Borg installed so that the now-digitized Zane would be able to aid the ninja should they find themselves in puzzling situations.
Mack levitated the orb out of the cooler and placed it on a panel where Zane could scan it.
"This object is unknown to me," Zane said, a hint of confusion in his voice. "I am now cross-referencing with all available Earth and Ninjago data. Stand by."
After a tense moment, Zane spoke again. "Based on the absence of any information resembling the limited data I have gathered analyzing the object, I must conclude that the object is not from Earth or Ninjago."
Mack nodded. No one spoke; Mack had his 'thinking face' on.
"Let's run a little experiment," he said after a few minutes, "for my curiosity. Zane, analyze any residual radiation emitted by the object, however faint."
After a moment, Zane announced he had done the requested analysis and found an unfamiliar faint radiation.
"Okay, now—" Mack summoned the Super Bolt in his hand. "—I'll be right back."
Mack opened a swirling blue portal. On the other side, Jay and Nya could see the training room of their house back in Ninjago.
The Green Ninja stepped through, stood in the training room for a moment, and then stepped back through to stand in the Hut again. Mack closed the portal.
"Now," Mack said stepping up to the data station, "scan me, analyze residual radiation."
Zane scanned Mack with a laser scanner.
"I detect an almost perfect match between the radiation emitted by the unknown object and the radiation emitted by you!" Zane had astonishment in his voice.
Mack couldn't help himself and smirked—he loved being right. "This orb came here from another realm and picked up some radiation when crossing the Ethereal Divide."
"Wait, Zane said the radiation was an almost perfect match?" Nya asked.
"Indeed," Zane replied. "The unknown object emits a less refined energy, suggesting a natural portal rather than the artificial ones opened by the Super Bolt."
"Looks like if we want to find out where this thing came from, we gotta go back to the creek and find that portal," Jay said.
"Agreed," Mack nodded, levitating the orb into a bag he swung over his shoulder, much easier to carry than the cooler. "Where is Kasey?"
"She's helping Pete with his powers, at the bottom of the big hill" Nya said.
"Then we're going to the bottom of the big hill. We'll need Kasey's help for this—I'll explain when we get to the creek."
They started to walk, but Mack stopped them. He had a feeling about all this and didn't want to take any chances.
"Nya, stay here and gather the rest of the Guardians into the central room of the Elemental Temple. Just in case. Find Lloyd and tell him to come join us at Swift Creek. I'll send Pete back here to help you gather everyone."
Nya nodded. Mack and Jay left the Hut after Jay kissed Nya goodbye for now.
Mack and Jay retrieved Kasey, sent Pete back to the Hut, and teleported away, heading back to Swift Creek again.
"Okay, so what do you need me to do?" Kasey asked when they arrived at the creek.
"As the Water Guardian," Mack explained, "you should be able to sense the flow of different types of energies in the creek's current."
Mack floated the orb out of the bag.
"Whoa," Kasey gaped. "What is that thing?"
"That's what we're trying to find out," Jay replied. "Nya and I found it in the water earlier."
"Now, Kasey, don't touch this orb. I want you to hover your hand over it and open your senses to the energy it's emitting."
Kasey closed her eyes and did as Mack instructed. She opened her eyes.
"Now what?" she asked.
"Now, put your hand in the water and… listen."
Kasey put her hand in the water, letting it speak to her. Then, she felt the same energy that radiated from the orb. She gasped and nearly stumbled into the water.
"What is it?" Mack asked, catching her.
"I've got a trail," she replied. "The same energy from the orb is running in the water, so the source must be upstream—I can follow it."
Mack smiled. "Good work. Lead the way."
Just then, Lloyd teleported onto the scene.
"Hey," he greeted. "What's going on?"
"We'll explain on the way," Mack replied.
"On the way where?" Lloyd asked.
"Wherever this energy trail leads—just follow Kasey."
It only took a few minutes to catch Lloyd up on everything that had happened that morning. The group fell into a tense silence. Everyone felt uneasy about the object's arrival—things didn't just end up in other realms randomly, or at least, they shouldn't.
These events in junction with Mack's dream left the Green Ninja in no mood to chat.
The four Guardians spent an hour following the creek. Every few minutes, Kasey reexamined the water to make sure she still had a lock on the radiation's source. Every time she checked, she reported that the trace was stronger than the last time.
Then, they turned a bend in the creek and saw it. A swirling vortex and blue and purple light floating just above the middle of the creek, energy dripping from it into the water.
"We were right," Mack said. "There's a natural portal here."
"So that orb fell into a sort of sister portal in another realm?" Jay asked. "And if we jump in, it'll take us through to where the orb came from?"
"Not necessarily," Mack replied. "Natural portals form one-way tunnels. That orb didn't come out of this portal, but it popped into this realm somewhere very close."
"Sounds like one heck of a coincidence," Lloyd said.
"Unless it's not," Mack shook his head. "Someone with a great deal of Ethereal power could control where an object exited the tunnel."
"So, someone dropped that orb into this realm—into this creek—to lead us to this portal?" Kasey asked.
"This is a trap!" Jay cried.
Mack remembered his dream. "Or… a call."
"What are you talking about?" Lloyd asked.
"I've been dreaming of other worlds," Mack replied, "and voices—powers—calling to me from them. This orb…"
Mack stared at the portal then turned back to his friends. "I must follow it."
Lloyd took a deep breath. "We're with you, Mack."
Jay and Kasey nodded in agreement.
Mack smiled. "Alright, let's go!"
Without any more ado, Mack leapt into the air, did a twisting back flip, and dove headfirst into the portal. The other three Guardians with him followed one-by-one—Jay the last one in—and thus entered an entirely unknown world.
It drives me crazy that my grammar check always flags "ninja" thinking the plural is supposed to be "ninjas." Any other writers here get annoyed by that? Or just me?
Anyway, I'm excited to be sharing this new story with y'all. Thanks for reading!