Legends of Ninjago: Book 2: Rise of the Serpentine: Chapter 16 — Destination

Cole drifted in and out of sleep. His mind, being far too exhausted, could not construct any form of coherent dream, or particularly frightening dream for that matter, so he instead drifted through muddled memories, both old and recent. Even in sleep he could feel something was bothering him, but he tried to forget what it was. Now was the time for sleep.

The sun was climbing the morning sky when Cole rolled over and looked out one of the windows. Had he really slept on the floor all night? He suddenly felt cold and wished that he had a blanket he could wrap around himself.

As he began to stretch his aching and numb limbs, he looked around the room and saw Kai sprawled out a few feet away from him, snoring away. Ugh. Right. For a moment he had managed to forget about yesterday. What a horrible day. Not that today was going to be much better. When in the confinement room, you aren’t allowed meals, only water and crackers, then throw in two stubborn boys with a heck of a lot to explain to Sensei Wu, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Cole sat up and moved into the sunlight. He smiled as the warm rays wrapped around his skin and gave him goosebumps. Was it possible that Wu had already found out about their little trip? How much would he know?

The two boys had come home straight away and slipped into the confinement room under the cover of darkness where they promptly fell straight to sleep. Cole definitely still felt sore from all the unexpected physical activity, but it was mostly his head that felt weak.

Maybe on a normal day, he would have been up and walking by now, doing something like push-ups or pacing. Right now, however, all he wanted to do was sit in the sunshine and not think about anything. It was nice to just relax and not move. He began to pay attention to the sun beams; how it felt like they were rolling over him in waves. There were also tiny particles of dust floating around his head that could only be seen in the light, and vanished if they went too far. How nice would it be if he were a spec of dust? No duties, no responsibilities, no emotions, no problems, no choices, not a care in the world. Just drifting on and on and on and...

Cole stopped himself when he realised that what he was thinking sounded eerily similar to what that Hypnobrai had told him yesterday. No, those thoughts needed to be gotten rid of. He stood up, hoping to distract himself, when the blood rushed to his head and he went dizzy. And dizzier. And dizzier. Soon, his head was hurting, and he was beginning to fall on wobbly, sore legs.

‘No!’ he told himself. ‘I’m not going to think about it any more!’ He pushed passed every attempt his mind made to remember the Hypnobrai and the trip inside his head. Grabbing hold of the window cill, he attempted to distract himself with the outside world. There were birds flying all around, mainly geese heading south, and the wind had picked up a few leaves and was blowing them every which way. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Nothing here. Nothing.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

A servant suddenly came it holding a tray of water and crackers.

“Your rations, sir,” she said politely.

“Thank you,” he muttered.

“Are you all right?” she asked, coming closer. “You seem unwell.”

She handed him the tray and he said, “I’m fine. Just waking up.” She eyed him for a second and then left him alone.

Cole slunk back to the floor and chugged down his glass of water. That was much better. The crackers didn’t really satisfy, and that was kind of the point, but at least he wasn’t completely starving. Then Kai began to stir.

“Is it morning already?” he mumbled. Cole didn’t say anything. Kai seemed to spot the tray and began to hobble over, licking his dry lips. Before long, the two of them were sitting side by side, with only the tray to separate them, and no more crackers or water to distract them.

The seconds turned to minutes and the minutes turned to hours. Still, nothing was said between them. Perhaps they were each waiting for the other to begin?

Another servant came in and delivered the next round of rations, but this time, it was accompanied by a message.

“Master Wu requests both of you in his study in an hour,” he said before leaving.

Neither of them so much as glanced at each other. They just kept eating and drinking. If only he had made an effort to say something early on, maybe then things wouldn’t feel so stiff now.

The hour came and went. At one o’clock, the two boys got up and started for their master’s study. They found him hanging up on the phone and looking very tired.

“Come in, come in,” he said distractedly. Cole and Kai moved closer, but they did not sit down. “I have some news for you both. Yesterday’s mission did not go according to plan. Zane and Jay have gone missing, and Ann and Keaton have gone to find them. In the event that they require assistance, you two will be sent after them. From now on, consider yourselves on standby.”

* * *

“Where could a bird possible be taking us?” Jay whined as he trudged along. He and Zane had been walking all night long following the strange falcon from yesterday, and it didn’t seem to be stopping any time soon.

Zane looked back at his sleepy teammate and said, “Perhaps we should take another break.”

“Thank goodness,” said Jay, plopping himself down on some grass.

As it always did when they stopped, the falcon began to swoop down and grab at their heads with its talons. Jay didn’t really care anymore, but Zane was still mildly frustrated by it. He wanted to follow, he didn’t need to be pushed.

“Ngghh... get off... ehh...” Jay muttered, waving a stick he had grabbed at the swooping bird. “He just down’t quit, does he?”

Zane smiled. “No. No he does not.”

“You know, what if this has been a huge mistake? For all we know, he could be leading his to his nest, or to a beehive, or something,” Jay rambled on. “I saw in this documentary once that there are some birds who’ll find a creature larger than themselves and lure them to things like beehives so that they can break them open, and then both creatures get some honey out of it. This could be like that.”

“Not likely,” Zane said, watching the bird. “Falcons are birds of prey, they hunt for their own game.”

“Well then, what is it trying to do?!” Jay cried, throwing his arms in the air.

Suddenly, the falcon landed right on top of his mouth and Jay frantically shooed him away and sat up.

“Eewwww!” Jay said, spitting and wiping his mouth. “Bird feet!”

Zane chuckled. “Maybe he wants you to be more quiet.” He looked up at the sky, lightening more every minute. “Come on. Let’s start moving again.”

At the notion of continuing, the falcon started off in one direction again, urging them to follow. Zane couldn’t quite understand his own reasoning for what he was doing, all he knew was that this was definitely the falcon he had seen hanging around the monastery, which meant that it had flown an awful long way just to find him. His own curiosity must be getting the best of him.

An untold number of minutes passed by, perhaps half-an-hour of them, and still the falcon goaded them on. They were just climbing a fallen log when Zane thought he heard something. With Jay’s grunting and sliding over the rough bark of the trunk, he didn’t really catch what it was.

“Jay, did you hear that?” he asked.

“Here what?” Jay asked, freezing all of a sudden.

...clang....clang...clang...clang....clang...clang....

“What is it?”

“Sounds metallic...” Zane said, trying to figure out from which direction the sound was coming. “Could be a construction sight...” Just then, the falcon called to them again. “And I think that, perhaps, it is precisely the location our little friend has been leading us to.”

“Really?” Jay asked, sceptical as usual.

“Let’s go.”

“Wait up!”

Zane was already catching up to the falcon and the clanging sound was becoming louder. This must be it, he thought. Soon, other noises were revealed. Buzzing sounds, hammering sounds, sawing sounds, and lastly, voices. Zane had been running so fast that he nearly ran right over a drop off. He teetered on his tiptoes and reeled backwards, finally falling on his backside.

“What is it? What did—” Jay was saying, running up behind him. But Zane leaped up and tackled him as quickly as possible, covering Jay’s mouth with his hand. “Dude, what the—” he tried to say, but Zane stopped him again.

“Shhhhh. Look,” he said, tilting his head toward the drop off. Both boys slowly moved closer, and as the ground beneath them moved away, it revealed a large valley filled with Serpentine. They were building something large; laying down the framework for some kind of fortress, it seemed. They also noticed that the falcon had finally perched itself atop a tree branch and was now happily preening itself.

“Okay, so maybe this is kinda important,” Jay whispered.

“There you are,” came a voice from behind.

Zane and Jay were turning around in a flash, and Jay had to cover his mouth to stifle his scream.

“Ssshhhh!!!” Ann hissed. “It’s only us!”

“Sorry if we scared you,” Keaton whispered.

Jay seemed to deflate like a nervous balloon. “Next time, give us a warning the next time you decide to scare the living daylights out of us!”

“Stop being a baby,” Ann said, rolling her eyes.

“Stop sneaking up on people in the woods,” Jay retorted.

“Stop running off into the woods,” Ann shot back.

“His fault, not mine,” said Jay, pointing a finger at Zane, who gave an indignant look.

Ann rolled her eyes again. “It doesn’t matter who’s fault it is, we need to get you out of here and report this back to Sensei Wu.” She gestured to the massive construction sight below them.

“As plans go, it’s not... terrible,” Jay said, crossing his arms.

Zane thought for a moment. “But if we’re here already, can’t we at least do something?”

“No,” Ann said. “We have no plan. What would we even do? Try and destroy it? What would that accomplish? Construction’s only just begun anyway. If all we do is knock down their support beams, they’ll just put them back up again. Count this is an advantage. We know where they are now. Let’s not blow our cover and deliver this information to someone who can do something with it.”

“Ugh, you know, sometimes you even sound like Sensei Wu,” Jay muttered.

“At least I don’t smell like his dirty socks,” Ann said with a sidelong glance.

“It’s a manly musk,” Jay blurted, crossing his arms even harder.

“Let’s go.”