Legends of Ninjago: Book 3: The Four Fangs: Chapter 16 — Crossroads

Wu pulled his cloak further up his face to keep the tiny, black grains of sand from cutting across his cheeks and nose. In order to keep his hat from blowing away, he had to keep his head down, and listened carefully for any shift in the sands or nearby growls. Despite the lonely rush of the wind and dark mountains, he never felt truly alone.

This empty place was known as the Dark Realm. Wu had heard his father, The First Spinjitsu Master, speak of this place on occasion. Although, his words were usually hushed and somber whenever he spoke of it, and now Wu knew why. Nothing grew here—there was no sun—it never rained here—there was no water. The only way to determine for how long you had been wandering the endless, black desert was by watching the blood red moon that rose and set in the deep purple sky.

So why had Wu come to such a place? A place where nothing grows and no one lives?

Long ago, when Wu was still a young man, and his father’s age was beginning to take its toll, he had sat Wu down and told him something important about the legendary Golden Weapons of Spinjitsu; a secret. He made Wu swear that he would never tell another living soul—not even his own brother, Garmadon. Leaning closer, he whispered these words:

“No mortal shall possess all four, and neither shall any immortal possess them. For the mortal shall perish, and the immortal shall henceforth be sent into exile in the Dark Realm.”

His father had placed a curse upon the weapons to ensure the safety of Ninjago even after he gone from the world. Garmadon, naturally, had not been pleased to hear that Wu had been told secrets and he had been left out, however Wu would later discover that Garmadon had been entrusted with secrets of his own. He supposed that this was one of his father’s many attempts to force the two of them to work together. In the end, it hadn’t worked.

Wu’s mind flashed back to the Underworld when Garmadon had taken all four weapons for himself, and then had subsequently been swallowed up by the portal they had opened. The Lord of Darkness, of course, had not known about the curse, and Wu was the only person in all of Ninjago that knew… his brother was still alive.

He had been traveling north (or, at least, he assumed he was heading north) for the better part of a day (or, at least, he assumed it had been a day.) So far, all he had encountered was a lot of sand and wind and emptiness.

But sooner or later Wu would find him. Or else, Garmadon would find him.

There were some short cliffs up ahead, marking (hopefully) the end of the desert and a good place to rest for the night. The winds were becoming unbearable now, pushing so hard against him he wondered if they would hold him up should he fall. All the more reason to head for the shelter of the cliffs.

They were about five yards away when—

Wu’s foot suddenly plunged downward and he fell into a pool of thick, black gunk, hidden underneath of the sand that stuck to its surface. He was up to his chest in the stuff, and it felt like it wanted to drag him deeper still, but thankfully he was stilling holding fast to his trusty staff. Now all he had to do was figure a way out of this… mud? Quick sand? For a moment, he feared that it may be tar, but it wasn’t quite sticky enough. At any rate, he could just move his feet and was slowly turning around, trying to make for the land again, when a voice cut through the wind like an ice cube in a hot drink.

“A pity the sink pit couldn’t drown you sooner.”

“It is good to see you as well, brother.” Wu was still facing the shore, but he could picture Garmadon perched atop the short cliff, glaring down at him disapprovingly.

“Don’t you ‘brother’ me, Wu. You and I haven’t been brothers in a long time. Not since you banished me here.”

“You are too quick to assume blame,” Wu responded calmly. “It was father who cursed the Golden Weapons, not I.” He watched the sands be scooped up in the wind and scattered far away into the dunes, while the large, red moon began to rise in the distance.

“Yet another secret he kept from me…”

“He kept secrets from the both of us—“

“I’M THE ONE HE HATED!!!” Garmadon suddenly barked. “I’M THE ONE HE FEARED!!! He was always keeping me at arm’s length, shutting me away like some sort of BEAST!!!”

It was hear that Wu forced himself to turn through the muck and look up at his brother, standing over him, his eyes blazing red.

“Father loved you just as much as he loved me—“

“LIES!!!” Garmadon drew one of his four katanas and barred his fangs. “You were always his favourite!”

Wu studied his brother—his ragged clothes, his unkept hair, his dirt-smeared and stubbly face. “I have not come here to argue, Garmadon.”

“So then why have you come?” He narrowed his eyes while Wu adjusted his grip on the staff. “Don’t tell me you’ve come to rescue me. Are you going to make me see the light?” He laughed. “Or… oh, no, I see… little baby Wu needs my help, doesn’t he?”

This time, Wu narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”

“Then you’ve come to the wrong realm.”

Suddenly, the pit began rumble, and slow, thick ripples appeared all around him. There were things moving through the muck, like sharks swimming through mud. One by one, they lifted their heads above the surface and revealed their melted, gruesome faces.

“Enjoy the company here,” said Garmadon, taking a step back. “It’s to die for.”

“Garmadon—wait!” But Wu didn’t have a whole lot of time as he tried to make for solid ground. Using his staff almost like an oar, he forced himself to move and had one hand on the sand when suddenly, something grabbed him round the torso. It pulled him out of the mud, and further in, toward the monster the arm belonged to. “Garmadon!” He tried again, fearing that the gunk weighing down his legs would be to much to fight against. “I am not the only one who needs you!”

The mud monster was bringing him closer to his widening, cave-like mouth, so Wu used the only thing he had on hand—his trusty staff—and shoved it right through the back of the beast’s mouth and out the back of its head. It howled in agony as it began to sway forward and backward, loosening its grip.

Right as it seemed like he was about to let go, and Wu would be able to make a break for it, another mud monster came over and grabbed him by the legs. Then another, and another came, all crowding around, groping and clawing at him, trying to pull him into bite-sized pieces, or else drown him in mud. “Brother!” He called out desperately. “It’s your s—“ A huge hand had just smothered his face, clogging his nose and mouth. In a panic, he wriggled one of his hands free and unleashed his power of creation. A second later, a katana had sliced the hand of that mud monster clean off, and Wu frantically wiped the mud from his face. “IT’S LLOYD!!!”

The next second, the mud returned, stopping his lungs and making his heart pound loudly in his ears. He might even be submerged in the pit below, it was impossible to tell. He feared the worst. Perhaps his brother truly had lost what was left of his humanity after all… perhaps this had been nothing but a fool’s errand…

Red moonlight pierced the darkness.

All around him, the monsters were drying up and then crumbling to the ground like graham crackers. Wu landed in a pile of earthy rubble, his back positively throbbing and his heart ready to explode. Then, a black hand appeared before him.

“What has Lloyd gotten himself into?”

* * *

Lloyd shivered and scooted closer to the fire, then flinched when he got too warm. This had not at all been the life he had envisioned for himself.

As he scratched at his dry, half-scaly skin, he thought about the last few weeks and the torture they had been. His group of Serpentine had searched for the Fang Blade in every village, every temple, every tunnel, every crevice, and every hole they could find. Still there was nothing. Not one single sign of that forsaken blade. Just when Lloyd thought that perhaps his body could not take any more intense travel, the leader of the group had ordered them back to Pythor, deep underground in the caves and tunnels.

Upon reuniting with the other snakes, they had learned that another scouting group had managed to locate the blade in Brookside, and where there now, recovering it.

Lloyd flinched and clenched his jaw, feeling the pain swell again. He tried to slow down his breathing for a few minutes, and moved as little as possible, for what little good it did him.

Ever since, he had been confined to his little corner of the caves again, his only companion being Pythor. He would visit Lloyd just about every night and they would talk some. By the end of it, he was scarcely sure what they had actually talked about, but it felt nice just to have someone, meanwhile all the other snakes still gave him odd looks and whispered whenever he walked by.

They were still waiting to hear back from the group in Brookside, and Pythor had sent out another scouting party to assist them, fearing that something had come up to detain them. There were whispers among the Serpentine about the ninja, and any mention of their names always set Lloyd’s teeth on edge. Those pathetic, spoiled goody-two-shoes. He was sure Wu was tucking them in with a kiss right about now, and leaving his nephew to rot.

He stared at the fire. The fire didn’t stare back.

Once the Brookside Fang Blade was taken, they’d be off to find blade number three, and Lloyd was determined to help as much as possible this time. As much as he didn’t want to be hurt by the Serpentine leaders, there was something he wanted even more. It was the very same thing all of the snakes were after. Revenge. These fang blades were the key they needed to unleash as much payback as they wanted on all of Ninjago, and from the ashes of their world, a new Ninjago would rise. One that the outcasts ruled over. One where the ninja were gone for good.

“Hail Anguis-s-s!” A group of Hypnobrai cheered nearby. They were gathered around one of the many fire pits and held up a bunch of glassed filled with some type of beverage that the snakes were fond of. He was too uninterested, and too afraid, to ask what it was.

Anguis was a name that was thrown around a lot lately. She was the Serpentine’s deity. Some sort of legendary Great Devourer who would rise up from the earth one day and consume all of Ninjago. Apparently, her eyes could see into the souls of men, her venom could corrupt all those it touched, and she could grow infinitely large, so long as she had something to eat. The legends state that she was sealed away, many years ago, beneath the lost Serpentine city of Ouroboros. Or, at least, Lloyd had surmised as much. The Serpentine were still reluctant to really chat with him, and any real information he wanted, he had to collect through eavesdropping.

It was funny… the longer Lloyd stayed down here, with all these Serpentine, talking to Pythor and so on… the foggier his previous life seemed to become. At times, it was genuinely difficult to remember how all of this had started, or what had gotten him so mad to begin in the first place, or what it felt like to live in a real home. All of that might as well have been from a dream. It wasn’t real anymore. What was real was the hard, dirt floor, the cold cave tunnels, the hot fire, and the hissing sound of Serpentine making hushed conversation all around him.

“Enjoying yourself?” Said Pythor as he slithered next to him. Lloyd didn’t look up.

“I’m alright.”

“Still no news on that scouting party… Say, you have some prior experience with these ninja. Do you think they’d be the ones likely disrupting things for us?” Pythor’s long neck leered closer to him, and his purple eyes watched him carefully.

“I wouldn’t be s-s-surpris-s-sed. They’re always-s-s doing annoying s-s-stuff like that.” Lloyd remembered their encounter in the snowy forest—how the big guy had grabbed him, and for a moment he had been so scared, he had lost his senses. But he could no longer remember what he had said, or how he had gotten away. He just remembered the way the ninja had looked at him. Like he was a monster. They all looked at him like that.

“Well, they won’t be able to stop us for long,” Pythor reassured him. “And when we set Anguis free, you will get the personal pleasure of seeing all of our enemies swallowed.”

“Yes-s-s…” said Lloyd, imagining the scene vividly. He felt his own pointed teeth and thought about much larger and sharper The Great Devourer’s might be.

“We’ll be heading for the fire temple as soon as time permits. If the third blade isn’t there, then I fear that some of the soldiers might start to get restless.”

Lloyd wasn’t really listening anymore, as per usual. He was just glad for the company.

“Pythor?”

The purple snake stopped and stared.

“Do you ever feel… alone?”

“…Sometimes. It isn’t always easy being the last of your kind.”

Lloyd kept his eyes on the fire and thought about how the two of them really were the only ones of their kind amongst all these other Serpentine. Perhaps that was why they got along so well.

“Well, you’re not completely alone,” Lloyd reassured him. “At leas-s-st you’ve got one friend.”

Pythor gave him a strange look. It wasn’t quite happy, it wasn’t quite confused, and it wasn’t quite uncomfortable either. It was just odd. Then he smiled quickly and said, “Thank you, dear boy. I’m so glad to have a friend like you.” He leaned over and put his hand on Lloyd’s shoulder. It may not have been what Lloyd had envisioned, but he was glad to have found a family, nonetheless. Pythor was the first person—well, snake—he had ever met who really seemed to look out for him.

Suddenly, Lloyd’s snake-senses became heightened, and his hand shot out to grab the rat that had just tried to scamper by. His pointed nails were digging into its fur as it wriggled and squealed viciously.

“You’re transformation come along more each day,” Pythor remarked. “Strange it did not happen quicker, though. Either way, I’ll leave you to your meal.”

As Pythor slithered away, Lloyd brought the rat closer to his face and watched it squirm. He watched its little feet scratch and claw, he watched its whiskers and fur stand on end, and he watched its eyes look around frantically. It was helpless now. At the mercy of its captor. Afraid. Clueless. Helpless.

The more he looked at it, the more instinct to eat died away, and whatever was left of his humanity started to kick in. His grip began to loosen—

CHOMP!

The rat bit him on the finger and he yowled in pain as the disgusting little thing fell to the floor. In a blind rage, he kicked it, sending it flying into the dark tunnel where it disappeared, hopefully for good, or else next time he saw it, he’d go through with eating it.

A murmur rippled through the caves, until it became loud voices, saying things like, “They’re back!?” “What’s going on?” “This-s-s is-s-s outrageous-s-s!” Lloyd pulled himself up, but he still could not see anything until a group of Serpentine came slithering into the firelight. Pythor rushed to meet them.

“Well? Where’s the Fang Blade?” He demanded.

The leader of the group seemed to shrink back and wrung his hands over and over. “Forgive me, Chief Pythor, but…”

“It was the ninja!” Another blurted. More murmurs went through the crowds. “They ambushed us-s-s! Took the blade away from us-s-s!”

Lloyd’s eyes narrowed. Of course it was the ninja who stood in his way, yet again. It was hard to be surprised anymore.

“Insolent welp!” Pythor shouted, and he struck the Hypnobrai who had spoken with his fist. “You can’t handle a few children?!” This time, even Lloyd shrank back.

“B-but, my lord—“

“SILENCE!” Pythor’s voice echoed far into the cave, leaving behind silence. “We cannot enact our revenge without all four blades. There is no excuse in existence that could pardon such an egregious display of cowardice!” He turned to a nearby group of Constrictai. “Get them out of my sight.”

The Constrictai nodded, and then, with Serpentine screams mixed with pleads for mercy, they wrapped themselves around those who were to be punished, and dragged them deep down into the earth, where no light, nor air, could find them ever again. A few minutes later, those same Constrictai dug themselves back up into the caves, alone.

“Now, hopefully the rest of you will not disappoint me. We move out at sunrise to retrieve the second Fang Blade once and for all!” Despite the tension still hanging in the air, the crowd cheered and clapped for their leader as loudly as they could. So did Lloyd. He knew better than to not support the Chief. Knew better than to let his fear show. Knew better than to question the legitimacy of their friendship. Pythor wouldn’t lie to him—he said so himself, Lloyd was valuable. He liked that word. Valuable. It made him want to stand up a little taller. Yes, he was valuable to Pythor, and so he would serve him… or else.

* * *

“Nonono, not that—Jay!” Kai yelled from the bottom of the ship. “It’s supposed to go here!”

“Well, why don’t you do it, Mr. Smarty Pants?” Jay retorted, pointing with his hammer.

“Give me that hammer and I’ll show you something that really smarts!”

“What’s going on, ladies?” Cole asked as he climbed down to meet them. Jay and Kai were still in each other’s faces, still ready to boil over.

“Jay’s not listening to a word I say! This beam is supposed to go over here!” Kai angrily explained.

“Well maybe it’s escaped your notice, but I am not Boat-Building-Person!” Jay fired back.

“Right! You’re a lazy, sit-about, bad-joke-machine who wouldn’t know a peanut from a screwdriver!”

Cole put his hands in between them and pushed them apart before someone inevitably fell into the water and got hypothermia. “Name calling is not gonna help fix the ship. Now, either you have something helpful to say, or you’re going up to help the girls shop for food supplies.”

“Who put you in charge?” Kai grumbled.

“OR I could turn you into a human pretzel,” he added, cracking one or two of his large knuckles. “What’ll it be, Bunsen burner?”

Kai sighed and looked like he was saying something real snarky in his head, but he eventually found enough strength to straighten up and say, “Let’s just get the nails out and put the board in place.”

With the situation mostly resolved, and the work on the ship underway again, Cole went back inside the ship and grabbed his can of aerosol waterproofing spray that he and the boys had bought earlier that morning. Zane turned when he came back.

“Getting along, are they?”

“For now,” Cole muttered. “But if those two chuckleheads don’t get their act together soon, we might as well set sail on a pool noodle nailed to a piece of bark.”

“Do you really think that would work?” Zane asked, tilting his head slightly.

“What? No—Zane, it was just a joke. Forget it.” Cole grabbed his white mask and started spraying the wooden walls again, plugging up all the gaps in between the boards. The stuff they had made before out of tree sap had done… okay… but if Ann hadn’t been holding the ocean back, it probably wouldn’t have held for as long as it did.

Speaking of Ann, she and the other girls had gone out into town to buy food for their journey at sea, but so far it wasn’t exactly going as planned. She was standing by a stack of canned beans while Nya and Keaton were grabbing two dozen packs of sugary cereal and cookies.

“No,” Ann said again. “Just because it has a long shelf life, doesn’t mean it’s good for you, or that it won’t get ruined sitting in a salty, musty pantry. Besides, the milk would go bad.”

“Aw, come on! Not even the gummies?” Keaton held up a pack of gummy worms and looked pleadingly at her sister.

“I already got you that nice big bag of sweets. We’re here for real food,” Ann said sharply, and she put five more cans of corn, beans, and ham into her basket. “We will need a can opener, though… let’s see if we can find one in the baking isle.”

The dance competition seemed to be a world away for all of them. The Serpentine had vanished from police custody (but who was really surprised?) the auditorium was being fixed up currently, the festival was still going strong, and Cole’s father… they hadn’t seen him since that day when he discovered the real reason why they had come to town. Why Cole was really going through with the competition.

But none of that seemed to matter anymore. The Blade Cup had turned out to be merely a replica, so they needed to head out for the Ninjago City Museum where the real cup—and more importantly, real blade—was being kept. Now, if only they could get going before spring came, that would be a big help.

“We are not buying donuts!” Ann said, exasperated.

“But they’re baby-sized donuts!” Nya and Keaton objected.

Ann eyed the donut cart, smelled the oil and sugar, and turned away. “We spent too much already, we need to start buckling down, not throwing caution to the wind.” The girls followed her, dragging their feet and moping all the while, but still, they followed. Ann more or less understood how they must be feeling. After all the fun they had during the last few weeks, it would be hard to get back into the groove of things, but so long as she was consistent and gave everyone structure, that muscle memory should start to kick in. Hopefully, soon.

Ann also noticed that wherever they went, Keaton was always between her and Nya. Not to mention, Nya was making eye contact as little as possible. Well, avoidance was one way not to start a fight. She thought back to the night when Keaton had asked them to stop arguing and wondering if Nya was feeling as guilty as she was.

The shopping trip concluded with several bags of canned foods, citrus fruits, a few bottles of medicines plus another first aid kit (you could never be too careful), some chopsticks, a can opener, and about five pounds of instant ramen. As much as Ann protested on that last one, the other girls had made a good point about its convenience, shelf life, and potential as a morale booster. It certainly had more of an appeal to it than “Old Smokey’s: Canned Red Beans!”

They were heading back to the ship at around eleven in the morning, when the festival crowds were just starting to pick up again, and Ann pulled her hat a little further down over her eyes. She knew that her face wasn’t in the police data base, but she wanted to keep it that way. From underneath her visor, her eyes scanned the dozens of legs walking around, hoping that she wouldn’t see an officer’s uniform steadily approaching them.

Thankfully, there weren’t any more run ins with the law, and the girls were walking down the old path outside of town when they heard oh-so-familiar sound of boys shouting at each other. They jogged the rest of the way—their bags of supplies jostling in their hands—until they reached the ship and found Jay and Kai at each other’s throats. Curiously, Kai’s arm seemed to be pinned to the hull of the ship, as was Jay’s leg.

“What are you doing?” Ann asked in more of a drone than anything else. Honestly, looking down at them like this, it was hard not to feel like she was the mother of a troop of monkeys.

“HE STARTED IT!” The both said. Ann sighed, feeling large bags forming under her eyes.

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Nya muttered, handing off her bags to Keaton before climbing down and grabbing a hammer. Ann assumed she had everything under control, and led Keaton inside where they deposited their loot into a small room which they had designated as their storeroom. It was cool enough to keep just about anything, but insulated just enough that nothing would freeze. Ann wished they had thought about how they would keep all the food pinned down while the ship was in motion, but it was all pretty durable. At least, the cans were.

When they were finished, Ann headed up to the Captain’s Quarters where she had left the map of Ninjago. Cleaned up, the room wasn’t so bad. There was a desk—or, what was left of a desk—an old bed built into the wall, a fireplace, even. It would be a good room for Sensei Wu, when he returned.

Ann shuddered. Just thinking that made her nervous. Her sensei could arrive home any day now, and he’d come looking for them in the cavern and find nothing there. Would he be worried out of his mind? Would he be furious? How much trouble would they be in when he found them? All these fears, she carefully tucked away, telling herself that she would get to that problem after the Serpentine had been dealt with. Surely Wu would understand that their intentions were pure.

As she reached for the map, left on the old desk, she thought she saw something etched into the wall. The morning sun was shining right through the window, lighting it up perfectly. It was three words, written in an older form of Ninjagian.

“The Destiny’s Bounty”

‘Poetic,’ she thought. Then she opened up the map and started plotting their course.

* * *

It was well and truly noon by the time that Jay and Kai had finished with the hull of the ship. Nya had to come and take out the nails the two boys had somehow managed to put through their own clothes. It couldn’t have possibly been intentional… or anything… Jay would never be so childish as to nail his teammate to a wooden ship.

Either way, their work was down now, so they headed inside to warm up and help Cole and Zane waterproof the floors. Nya, sadly, went off in search of Keaton, leaving Jay with her cranky brother: Señor Sizzle Fingers.

For the benefit of everyone’s eardrums, the two of them were stationed at opposite ends of the ship—Kai with Zane, and Jay with Cole.

“I just don’t get what his problem is,” Jay was saying as the two of them worked. “I mean, I don’t think I’m asking a lot for him to just explain things in a way I actually understand! I’m a tech guy, I’ve built things before, but noooooo, he’s the only one who can ‘do it properly.’ Teh.” He sprayed away at the floor, frowning under his mask. Cole still hadn’t said anything. “And then, if that wasn’t enough, he doesn’t even thank me after I got that nail out of his thumb!”

“Jay,” Cole said suddenly. He took a breath. “Maybe, just, focus on waterproofing the ship?”

Jay sighed and got back to work.

All of a sudden, a flinched and dropped his can of spray. His wound was flaring up again—really badly. Lucky for him, he was already crouched over the ground and Cole hadn’t noticed yet. It was difficult to take large breaths with the mask blocking his oxygen intake, and the chemical smell of the spray was making him nauseous. His arm—the infected arm, that is—was shaking something awful. Over the course of the last few weeks, it had been developing a kind of scab, but not one he’d ever seen before. It was thick and green and impossible to peel off. For a while it seemed like maybe it was finally healing, in it’s own weird way, but the night of the competition, just before they had gone on, he had felt it start to hurt again. Cole had even noticed that he was looking off. He took it for stage fright, luckily, but there was no cover story he could think up now, so he clenched his jaw and forced his hand to grab the spray can. He was fine, everything was normal, he could handle this. He just needed to get through it.

A half hour later, the moment they had all been working toward was finally upon them. They ship was stocked and ready, and sea was calm. It was as good a time as any to head out toward Ninjago City.

Everyone was gathered on the deck to watch them take off, but Jay noted the odd lack of excitement. Cole, in particular, seemed especially stern. He used his powers to retract the stone pier he had made at the start of the month, letting the ship bob up and down in the water freely and reminding Jay of just how much he hated being on boats. The earth ninja stood by the side of the ship for a moment, watching Brookside from the safety of the harbour. From there, Ann took control, commanding the ocean to push them where they needed to go, without sails and against the wind. It was quite an inefficient way to travel, though. Even with the hydrodynamic design of the hull, their top speed could easily be increased. He just needed to figure out how.

“Alright, while we’re all here, we might as well do some practise,” said Ann from her perch at the end of the ship where the steering wheel was.

“Speak for yourself,” said Kai.

“I’m steering. So unless you wanna get rammed into a rock, please don’t make me lose my concentration,” Ann fired back. “Practise. We’ll need it when we get to Ninjago City.”

Everyone spaced out among the deck and basically created their own little world to practise in. Or, at least, that’s it always felt to Jay. He had been loving his powers ever since he’d gotten them, and they kept surprising him too. For example, back just before Zane had dragged him along on his first falcon chase, he had been trying to navigate through a cloud of smoke and had inadvertently discovered a new use for his power: electro-sense. Well, that was what he was calling it anyway.

He sat down on the deck and closed his eyes, thinking that it might be cool to practise with that power some. In one breath, he felt his chest light up with excitement, and then his fingers and toes began to tingle. Then whole nervous system, and then his head, and before long, he was completely statically charged. He could even feel his hair standing on end. A smile spread across his face as the feeling overtook him, making it feel almost as though he was floating just above the ground. He still had no idea how he had lived his whole childhood without knowing this part of him existed, and it truly was a part of him, as much as his arms and nose and heart.

Information started popping into his head, which had to mean that the tendrils of electricity were already buzzing around him like a plasma ball. He could sense the wooden floor, the nearby mast, but nothing else. There just wasn’t a whole lot there to see. Still, the electric buzz felt good on his skin.

Then he sensed a pair of very feminine legs and all that electricity disappeared with a nervous POP.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to distract you,” Nya said quickly.

“No, no, you’re fine,” Jay smiled, hoping that it didn’t look like he was blushing. “Came by to check out my sweet moves, huh?”

Nya stifled a giggle. “I was just curious. About your powers, I mean.” She leaned against the mast, the salty wind whipping her short hair around her face. “When did you first realise that you had them?”

It took Jay a second to remember that Nya hand’t been present that day at the lightning temple and he quickly coughed and pulled his thoughts together. “Uhh, well… just recently, actually. I had no idea that I was anything more than just a normal kid until Wu showed up. Then, when I grabbed the Nunchucks of Lightning for the first time… I dunno, it just… happened. Like something inside me was suddenly… unlocked, I guess.” He thought back to how short and skinny he had been before that strange event and was grateful that Nya hadn’t met him until after the fact.

The more he thought about it, though, the more things started to come back to him, like the stranger who had helped him the night he had tried to run away, and the strange language he had spoken.

“Jay? What’s wrong?”

Jay looked up at Nya, frowning with concern. “Nothing, just thinking,” he said.

“…Is it nice having powers?” She asked suddenly.

He blinked. “Oh, well, yeah, I mean…” he rubbed the back of his head. “It’s pretty cool.”

She smiled weakly and her eyes fell to the floor. Maybe she’d been expecting something more exciting?

He cleared his throat. “It’s also pretty… electrifying.” With that last word, he shot a gentle tendril of static at Nya’s bangs, making them stand straight up. Her eyebrows shot up too, not because of the static, but out of genuine surprise.

“Pfft! How long you been waiting to use that pun?” she asked, flattening her hair.

“Eh, you know, just a few months,” he admitted sheepishly. “But you know… I’ve been wondering… how come you didn’t get any powers?”

Nya stiffened and her smile faded. “I wish I knew. But your guess is as good as mine. I’ve tried doing some of the exercises that Kai does, and… I just don’t have it.”

“Well… it’s not like you need powers, anyway.” Just before Nya asked why, he finished, “Because you’re perfect with or without them.” The way she smiled just then made him inwardly do a victory dance. Honestly, he was just relieved that he’d nailed the delivery of that, honestly, very cheesy line.

“Hey, sis,” said Kai in an icy tone. “What are you two talking about?”

“Nothing, Kai.” Nya rolled her eyes, and Jay wished he had her confidence as Kai stared him down.

“Right.” Kai turned and went back to his own practise, but not without keeping one eye locked on Jay at all times.

“Sorry about him. He’s always kinda been one of those protective brothers.”

“More than just protective, I’d say,” Jay thought out loud. “When Sensei Wu first got the team together, the only thing he ever thought about was… making sure you were okay.”

He could see her expression soften and her eyes drifted in her brother’s direction. He smiled, wishing he had a brother or sister who’d be willing to go the lengths Kai had over the past year. But, then again, Wu was always calling them brothers… and they had been there for him more times than he could care to count… He breathed a small laugh. Maybe he already had brothers who would go above and beyond for him. Only time would tell if it would last, though.