Legends of Ninjago: Book 2: Rise of the Serpentine: Chapter 20 — Old Friends

Ann wriggled her arms and legs as best she could, trying to stretch her sore muscles, but the ropes were tied well. Too well. In fact, she was so tightly bound that the bark of the tree was starting to chafe her back. Not to mention how tired she was of being gagged.

All the other Serpentine—save for a few lookouts—had gone to sleep around three dying campfires, and Lloyd was somewhere among them. He had grown quite a bit since the last time she had seen him. Thankfully, he had let his ridiculous bowl cut grow out, and now his hair was pulled up in a messy samurai bun. No matter how bad he used to be, though, Ann never would have guessed that he’d turn out like this.

Cole suddenly snored on the ground beside her. He was sitting cross-legged, his head drooping downward, fast asleep. Perhaps they thought they could use him to get to her? Not likely. This exact scenario was precisely the reason why Ann never got too attached to anyone. She had to remain unbreakable at all times.

She looked up just then and she could see the inky blackness of the night sky through the thinning branches. It was cold and there were clouds roaming low overhead, looking for a good place to unleash their load. Ann could always tell when it was going to rain. Call it a sixth sense. But then, very suddenly, a gap appeared in the clouds—enough to see a handful of glittering stars.

For a moment, Ann’s heart fluttered. A sharp breath went through her lungs, and she held it there for as long as she could. It was as if they were sparkling just for her. A reminder...

And just like that, it was gone. The clouds covered the stars up again and there was nothing else besides darkness.

Ann looked down again and thought long and hard. She needed to get out of here and bring Cole with her, but he wouldn’t come quietly. She needed to find a way to knock him out while not waking up everyone else. She could break out of the ropes fairly quickly—if she concentrated enough—but she didn’t exactly have a very useful element when it came to speed. Now, if there was a river nearby, that would be a different story, but unfortunately for her, the only water source nearby was a pathetic little stream. She wouldn’t make it very far... not with Cole weighing her down, that is.

She had to do something, though. If she waited until morning, who knows what they’d do to her. And she wasn’t about to let herself be brainwashed. The question was: how? How could she escape?

Something made a sound out in the woods—probably just one of the scouts—but it gave Ann an idea. It would take every ounce of her strength, though—and a good deal of timing—but she went for it anyway.

She closed her eyes and relaxed her body, using only her mind and willpower to summon help. Soon, there was a small trickle of water rising from the damp ground like a slimy snake. It worked its way over to the nearest campfire and slowly put out the embers. They sizzled angrily, and Ann was worried that it might be too loud. She stopped and waited to see if anyone stirred.

After a few seconds of silence, she continued. Tssss! Tssss! Tssss! Went the embers. One after another dying in a cloud of steam. The first fire was out now, and Ann took a deep breath.

The second fire was still flickering with small, sad flames, so she went extra slow this time. First, the outer ash, then the embers, and the remaining sticks, and finally, the smouldering center. TSSS! She had moved too fast! Did anyone hear that?

She opened her eyes and let the water sink back into the ground. Someone rolled over, and another gave a hefty snort, but aside from that, nothing. With baited breath, Ann waited another minute before continuing.

Down her eyelids went, and up the water rose, finishing its job at a painstakingly slow rate. But eventually, the fire was out cold, and no one was the wiser. Now it was time to tackle the final fire. The fire right next to the chief and Lloyd. She took another deep breath and tried to focus all her thoughts on the water.

‘Rise up,’ she said mentally, and the water listened.

It slithered its way over the barrier rocks and into the ash just like the last two times, but Ann hesitated just before the first embers. Heart racing, she decided to switch up her tactics. In one solid “munch” the water swallowed an ember whole, and the sizzling was completely masked. Holy cow, that had worked! Thankfully, this fire was already pretty dead, so it was all mostly embers by this point.

Munch, munch, munch, went the water, swallowing up ember after ember, leaving next to nothing behind. Ann was starting to get good at this, when all of a sudden, Lloyd moved. She dropped her concentration at once, calling for the water to retreat.

Lloyd seemed to be getting up, slowly and groggily. She watched him stumble around in the darkness until eventually he was out of sight. And then came the “water” sounds. Ann tried to tune it out.

Finally, he came back to camp, to the fire farthest from Ann. But it didn’t sound like he had sat down. Was he just standing there?

“I know you’re watching,” he said, completely out of the blue. Ann didn’t dare say anything in reply. Not that she could, anyhow, with the gag over her mouth. “I could always tell when you were glaring at me... it happened a lot.” What was he getting at? All she wanted was for him to get back to sleep. “I am sorry, you know.” Now Ann was paying attention. Did he just apologise for something? Never once had she ever seen him do that. Well, it was a little late for an apology, considering that everything between them happened over four years ago.

With that, Lloyd laid back down among the Serpentine and a minute or two later, he was softly snoring.

Ann shoved what just happened into the back of her mind. She needed to focus, because what she was about to do required the most delicate precision that she could muster.

Taking a cleansing breath, she said again, ‘Rise up,’ and the ground at the base of the tree where she was tied up grew increasingly soggy. Up, up, up, the water climbed, covering every inch of the trunk. It tickled her feet and made her clothes stick to her skin, but it felt good to be cleaned off a bit. Now everything touching the ropes was completely wet and growing wetter. She expanded the water, pushing the ropes away from her body as much as possible, and then enveloping herself with as much water as she could, which ended up being only about an inch. It was always a strange feeling—being lifted up by water—but as she rose ever higher, no longer feeling the burn and sting of the dry ropes, she felt her whole body relax.

A tree branch bounced off of her head, and she reached for it, using it to pull herself up into the tree. Finally sitting down, she let go of her harsh grip, and heard the water trickle back down to the ground. She untied her gag and unrolled it, flapping it once or twice. She had drooled all over it, so she had no intention of wearing the mask for a little while.

Now came the tricky part. How to move Cole. Now, since Scales was asleep, that meant that no new orders were going through his head, meaning that even if she did wake him up, he wouldn’t retaliate. However, there was no way of knowing weather or not Scales had already given Cole an order in case something like this happened. For instance, “if anything happens in the night, wake me up,” or, “do not let the prisoner escape.” Should she chance it?

Well, she didn’t exactly have a lot of time. Sooner or later, one of the scouts would circle back, and then she’d be done for. She quietly slipped down out of the tree and landed on the grass with the faintest of “thumps.” She knew that feeling wet often times wakes people up, but she didn’t really have any other option, unless she wanted to try and carry the big guy on her shoulders all the way home.

A stream of water went out from her hands and formed into a scoop underneath Cole’s body. Before long, she had him up in the air on her little magic carpet, and thus far he hadn’t so much as flinched. They were on their way now.

Ann chuckled ever so slightly to herself. Now they were even. He had saved her in the woods the night the assassins came, and now she was saving him.

The scouts were her final obstacle. If they spotted her, it was all over. This would mean a lot of time spent sitting and waiting and watching and dashing, which was not at all ideal since her elemental strength was waning fast. At one point, she came across an area with three scouts patrolling, so she hunkered down. They’d be there a while, and she was already so tired from carrying Cole that she decided to put him down and give herself a rest. He was getting closer to the ground when she let go too early and he plopped onto the ground instead of being delicately placed.

Cole woke up as quietly as a person can and looked around. He immediately spotted Ann and then just stared at her for a while. It was honestly kind of creepy, especially while his eyes were all red.

“Check over there,” someone said.

Shoot! The scouts! Now was the time to put her idea into action.

With all the strength she had left in her body, she crafted a water deer and sent it jumping out of the bushes and into the forest. She startled two or more of the scouts, and when the fake deer’s hoof beats were gone, she heard one of them say,

“Only a stupid deer.”

She let out her breath of relief as slowly as humanly possible and felt shaky as she tried to normalise her oxygen intake. She quickly turned back to Cole who was still just staring at her.

At any rate, she wasn’t going to be able to move like this anymore. She needed to find a safe place to rest for a little bit and to wait for the scouts to move on. Luckily, there was a thick little bush right next to a large stone. It wasn’t perfect, or very large, but it should be able to hide the two of them for a while.

Ann started crawling toward it, and Cole began to do the same, though not nearly as quietly. She stopped at once, and so did he. She needed to move slower. And so, one tiny, sluggish step at a time, they moved toward shelter. It took them at least half an hour before they were firmly settled underneath the roof of stone and branches, and Ann felt positively exhausted.

Cole still didn’t do anything besides stare at her, even as they sat across from each other in the little den. They were very close, too, Ann noticed. Uncomfortably close. But there wasn’t much she could do about that. So, she tried to get comfy and focused on resting.

* * *

Cole had been enjoying the sweet release of sleep when he had suddenly been jostled awake. He looked up frantically at the big screen and saw a lot of pitch blackness and—Ann! What was she doing? Why wasn’t she tied up? Was she—No! No, he couldn’t let himself finish that thought. She was fine. His job was to guard her, and that’s what he was doing. No one specified where he had to guard her, or to what end, so he was doing his job, technically. He had to keep repeating that in his head, or else he might betray her.

I’m guarding Ann, I’m doing my job. I’m guarding Ann, I’m doing my job. I’m guarding Ann, I’m doing my job.

He was so focused on his mantra that he didn’t even notice when Ann created the water deer. He did, however, notice when she started to crawl forward.

Follow her and guard her. Follow her and guard her. Follow her and guard her.

There wasn’t a lot of room for finesse with the loose control he had over his own body, and he didn’t blame Ann for slowing down, but boy! did things get tedious really quickly. He was beyond relieved when they finally reached where they were going. He understood perfectly that they were hiding and sat down next to her in the small thicket.

Now he stared at her for a different reason. He had never been this close to a girl for this long before... and under such awkward circumstances. He couldn’t even talk to her. But of course it was Ann whom he was stuck with. He was sure that his real world face was positively flushed, and was glad that it was so dark out tonight.

After a while of sitting in silence, Ann gently laid down in the dirt under the slanted rock, meanwhile Cole sat with his knees to his chest, watching. He had never seen her so relaxed before. It was almost like she was a completely different person. All of a sudden, he wanted nothing more than to feel her skin and touch her hair and keep her warm in the cold of the night... but he tried to shove those thoughts away. This was not the time for stupid crushes. And besides, even he could tell that it was kinda creepy, given the circumstances, but... there was still a part of him that longed for that kind of affection.

He swallowed hard and tried to look away, but found that he couldn’t. Before long, he was leaning on his knees, his chin resting on his folded arms, just listening to the sound of her breathing. There, in the darkness, he promised that if he could, he wouldn’t let anything else happen to her. That’s when he realised that he was looking through his own eyes again, not just sitting in front of the screen. He still couldn’t really control much of his body, but at least it felt like he was in his own skin again.

* * *

Ann felt more tired now than she had in a long, long time, but at least she felt strong enough to use her powers. She pushed herself up and dusted off all the loose bits of dirt from her face and arms and torso. Cole was still there, watching. What was going on in his head right now? She’d ask him if she could, but she was worried about the scouts still.

Speaking of which, she gingerly rose to her feet and peeked out from behind the big rock. The darkness was starting to thin with the coming dawn, so she needed to move fast. There didn’t seem to be anyone nearby in any direction. This was her chance! By hook or by crook, they’d make it out of here tonight!

“Come on,” she said in a breath of a whisper to Cole. He rose to his feet and stayed close behind her.

Ann stepped out into the open, hiding in any shadow she could, and surprisingly, Cole was doing the same. It would seem that he was starting to gain a little control back, which would explain why he didn’t attack her before.

Three yards... seven yards... thirteen yards... they were getting so close now. Just a little more and they could start running.

All of a sudden, Cole stopped moving entirely. Ann turned around quickly to see what was wrong, but his face was blank as snow. Oh no. Had Scales woken up? There was no time for this now! They were so close! She couldn’t risk anything going wrong now!

Ann grabbed Cole in a blob of water and started running. She covered everything except his head while still keeping his mouth shut and bolted around the trees as fast as her legs could carry her.

Cole began to struggle, now, and she could hear loud voices far behind her. Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! She tried to double her speed, but her sore legs could only go so fast. The scouts would be onto her in a matter of minutes, and then the rest of the snakes after that. She needed to find a place to hide, but there was nothing except for skinny trees as far as the eye could see.

Ann started to feel a nasty headache coming on from overusing her powers. It was mostly due to the extra force she was using right now to keep Cole at bay. She had never realised before just how strong he was! It took everything she had to keep him contained, but he still managed to stretch out the blob and make parts of it break apart.

“AAAHHH!” Ann suddenly cried as she tripped over something and fell on her face. The next thing she knew, Cole was on top of her, sopping wet, pinning her to the ground. The Serpentine weren’t far behind.

“I’m sorry.”

Ann opened her eyes. That was Cole’s voice.

“Don’t be,” Ann replied. “This isn’t your fault.”

“S-s-so, thought you could get away, huh?” Scales sneered as he and his platoon came closer. Ann simply glowered. “My, my, my, how rude! We’ll have to fix-x-x that, won’t we?” The other Hypnobrai chuckled, but that’s when Ann spotted Lloyd among the crowd. He didn’t seem happy about her capture like the rest of them. “Exc-c-cellent work, Cole. Bring her.”

Up she was pulled by the back of her shozoku, and immediately wrapped up in snake coils. She glanced sorrowfully at Cole. What must he be feeling right now?

* * *

The camp had been in complete disarray when they returned, and it took some time before everything was organised and everyone was moving again. Where they were moving was anyone’s guess, but Ann knew it could only be somewhere bad.

The thing she was most worried about, however, was the conversation going on right now as they marched.

“About time,” Scales muttered. The chief turned back and gave a raised eyebrow. “I mean—heh heh—I s-s-serve at your pleas-s-sure, Your Highnes-s-s.” Then he turned to Cole who was still walking beside Ann. “Now then, what did allow me to enter your mind, young Cole? At the very firs-s-st, that is-s-s.”

Ann was somewhat curious too, and she watched impatiently as Cole marched, not saying a word.

“I don’t know,” he replied in a hollow voice.

“Of cours-s-se the boy won’t know! He knows-s-s nothing of hypnos-s-sis-s-s!” Chief Slithraa bellowed, slamming his golden staff into the ground. Scales seemed to shrink backward a bit. “Try s-s-something more spec-c-cific. S-s-something he will unders-s-stand.”

“Very well,” Scales muttered. “Cole, do you have any mental weaknes-s-ses-s-s? Injuries-s-s? Birth defects-s-s? That s-s-sort of thing?”

“Yes,” Cole said. All the Serpentine perked up. “I hit my head. It hurt there when you entered.” It was so unnatural to hear him talk like that. Ann prayed that they wouldn’t try bashing her head in with a rock or something.

“A head injury...” Slithraa mused.

“That just might explain it, S-s-sire,” Scales hissed. “But don’t get your hopes-s-s up too high, My Liege. Getting in was-s-s one obstacle, but gaining control is-s-s another.”

Gaining control, huh? Ann may very well just have a shot after all. She just needed to stay strong.

“Hmmm... well, I s-s-see no reas-s-son to pos-s-stpone this, especially given all the trouble this-s-s one’s-s-s causes-sed us-s-s,” the chief said, turning around to point at Ann. “Knock her out if you mus-s-st, but try not to kill her.” Scales looked far too happy with this order.

Ann struggled against the coils of her captures as Scales took a wooden club from one of the other Hypnobrai and slithered up to her, playfully tossing the weapon in his scaly hands. Wasn’t anyone going to stop this? Cole? Lloyd? Anyone? Maybe she could dodge just in time? Or maybe... this was going to hurt. A lot.

WHACK!!!

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“Sensei Wu, I’m hungry.”

A large, warm hand rested on her back.

“A ninja must be patient in big things and little things. Dinner comes to those who wait.” His voice was soft like a mother’s, but firm as a father’s.

She sighed again. “Okaaaaay.”

“Why don’t you see what your brother and sister are doing?” He nudged her toward the door with a smile. “Make sure they’re not getting into trouble.”

“And then we’ll have dinner?” she asked, looking up at him with a smile.

He chuckled. “Yes.”

Ann whooped with joy and skipped away, looking for her younger siblings. They ought to be around here somewhere doing something boring. They better not be getting into trouble like Sensei Wu said, but more than likely, they were. They always were.

“Helloooooo?” she called, wandering the halls. There were very few people around, just the personal chef and three maids, so the monastery usually felt big and empty. It was great for hide-and-seek, though. Ann hadn’t lost a single game ever in her whole life! “Keeeaatooon!?” She peeked inside a large room, which was empty of course. “Where could they be?” she wondered out loud.

The courtyard was a good place to look, since it was so sunny and windy out today, so she changed direction and galloped to the very worn shoji doors. Pulling them apart, she saw her siblings standing right in the center of the yard next to someone.

“Found you!” she cried. “Who’s...?” But as she got closer, she realised who it was all by herself. “Oh. Hi, Lloyd,” she said stiffly. He just stuck out his tongue and cackled. Ann could not believe him sometimes! So rude! “Cut it out!”

“Watchya’ gonna do about it, weeny?” Lloyd taunted, sticking out his tongue even further this time.

“That is it!” Ann yelled. She raised her hand and shot out a small burst of water that reached about two feet. Lloyd jumped back just in time.

“Na-na-na-na-boo-boo!” Lloyd jeered, sticking out his tongue some more.

Ann tried to spray him again and again and again, but he kept running away! Why wouldn’t he stand still for just two seconds!? He was such a brat!

“Come on, before she barfs water cooties all over us!” Lloyd said, calling him over. They started running away together, cackling and blowing raspberries. Keaton actually started to follow them when Ann grabbed her arm.

“Just ignore them, Keat. We’ll find something fun to do on our own.” She glared at the two boys as they disappeared into the labyrinth of the monastery, then looked down and realised that she was talking to a four-year-old. “Oh, umm... you wanna play hide-and-seek?”

Keaton’s round face lit up. “Yeah!” she cried.

“Let’s go!” Ann shouted, holding her sister’s hand and leading the way.

They were halfway up the porch stairs when,

“I may vomit.”

She turned around to see a snake-man standing in the courtyard. He was tall and scary-looking, with a big golden staff in one hand. What was he doing here?

“You humans-s-s and your s-s-sappy nos-s-stolgia,” he went on.

“D-d-don’t come a-any closer!” Ann warned, instinctively protecting Keaton.

The snake-man only chuckled.