Legends of Ninjago Book 2: Rise of the Serpentine

Chapter 12: Out of the Frying Pan...

Kai was on the verge of ripping someone's head off, and that "someone" at the moment was Cole. He had already stomped off to the solitary confinement room, leaving Kai and Nya to slowly make their way after him in utter silence. But Kai's mind was far from quiet. As a matter of fact, he was concocting his latest scheme, fueled by anger and spite; a classic recipe for spectacular failu--ahem! I mean, greatness. Yeah, definitely greatness. That's what was going through Kai's mind, at least.
Nya rolled him to the door, stopping rather abruptly, and then left without a word. Kai took in a sharp breath and looked, not in the direction of his sister, but the door to the confinement room. There was light casting Cole's shadow onto the door, and he watched it closely as he began to speed away in his chair. His back ached like crazy, but he could fix that if he needed to.
Several members of staff seemed to be back and were carrying out their usual tasks (far better than any of the boys had been able to) but he didn't have time to hide from them, not to mention the freedom of movement. Instead, he hoped that none of them knew of his punishment and to his delight, no one seemed surprised to see him wheeling around. He took a shortcut to the one and only room Wu could have been leading everyone to, and held his breath, hoping that he wouldn't get into even more trouble.
The war room was full of people, but the doors were closed, and a sinister Kai pressed his ear gently to its wood. He could hear Wu's voice clearly enough, but then there was another, lower voice... maybe it was Ann? Was she back? Then Keaton's energetic cadence broke through and he was certain that they were planning something huge in there. But what? The words were all so distorted. What were they saying?
Something creaked down the hall and Kai sat bolt upright, looking in the direction of the noise. There didn't seem to be anything there. After one last glance, he put his ear to the door again.
"....numbers...too small...and...Serpentine..." Wu was saying. The only real word that stuck out was "Serpentine." What did those weirdos have to do with anything? They were the little dumb toys you found at the bottom of a cereal box--the statues you see at janky old-people stores--and the goofy supervillains in old cartoons.
"We have to...it's our..." said Ann.
"Well, we'd...to Jamanakai pronto!" That was Keaton.
Jamanakai? Ugh! What were they talking about?! If only they'd talk just a little bit louder, or maybe if the door was just a little bit thiner.
"Keaton is right...at once..." said Wu. "...must keep the people safe."
This had to be some kind of mission to Jamanakai village, though how the Serpentine fit into all of this, he'd never know until he got there and saw for himself.
"...Lloyd is there...be...sure..."
Lloyd!? That little brat! If he was involved with this, then... then there was no way Kai was going to just sit back and watch.
Kai rolled himself away from the war room and set a course for the medical room. He needed to get out of this wheelchair, because there was no way he was being left behind from their first mission after the the Golden Weapons ordeal.
He didn't really know why he was doing all of this--after all, this was the very same stupid thing he had tried the night in Wu's office. Except, this time, what he was doing was about a million times more stupid. But, for some reason, he just didn't care. He wanted to get out and unleash his fiery anger as fast as he could, and that seemed to be the only thought pushing him forward.
The longer he stayed out in the open, the more anxious he became. Soon, he was actively dodging staff members whenever they came near and jumping at the slightest sound. The med room doors appeared just around the corner, getting closer and closer with each strenuous wheel turn. He just needed to sneak in, grab something, and go. Plain and simple. Right?
If it weren't for his seat belt, Kai would have fallen out of his chair when it suddenly ground to a halt. He let out a gasp of pain while he stared at the floor beneath his feet and it took him all his strength to straighten up again.
"And where do you think you're going?" Cole asked, his hand still resting on the steering bar of the chair.
Of all the--now? Really? He sure had some sense of timing. Now what? How could he possibly get Cole off of his aching back?
"They're heading to Jamanakai," Kai blurted. He turned to face Cole as stoically as he could and held his gaze. "And I plan on giving a little payback to the punk who nearly blew us up."
Cole looked pretty ticked, not to mention ready to throw Kai into the confinement room, but for a while, he didn't move. He just kept taking heavy breaths and looking Kai up and down. Finally, he said,
"We are going to stay here and wait for Sensei Wu to come back, and then--"
"And then what?! We hear about how Lloyd got away again? Or do we wait for Wu to lecture us to death?" Most of Kai's energy was being diverted to stopping his flames from igniting right then and there. He was going to do this, and he wasn't going to let some goody-two-shoes stop him. "I'm going. You're welcome to join me, if you've got the guts."
"You're gonna get yourself killed!" Cole cried, more out of spite than concern.
"Better out there than in here," was all Kai had to say as he started moving again, and surprisingly, Cole didn't stop him.
"Fine! I'm done sticking my neck out for you," he said. "Go blow yourself up. See if I care!"
"Fine," Kai muttered.
"Fine!"
And just like that, it was over. Kai could hear loud footsteps going down the hall behind him, and for a brief moment he thought about stopping, but he squashed the idea instantly. Instead, he opened the med doors and looked around. He needed to get his body working again, and there was only one thing he could think of that would probably do just that.
The golden liquid was supposed to be some kind of booster, right? Well, what would happen if you injected a larger dose? Kai aimed to find out as soon as he discovered where Dr. Lee kept his stash of the stuff. He checked the cupboards and the shelves, but there was nothing as far as he could tell. He was reluctant, but there was only one other place it could be.
Kai wheeled over to the door that led to the Dr.'s bedroom and slowly turned the knob. The inside looked dark, so he opened the door further. The room was relatively small, with shelves of bits and bobs hanging from most of the walls and a desk next to the door. On top of the desk sat a big, glass beaker filled with the brilliant liquid Kai was after.
After checking to make sure he was really alone, Kai went to grab the largest needle he could possibly find and then came back to the beaker. Was he sure about this? Well, either way, it was too late. He was already filling the syringe to the brim, his hand shaking a tiny bit. Since he wasn't an expert on how to use syringes, he decided to look for one of the last places the doctor had injected him on the arm.
He took a deep breath. "Any last words?" he asked himself. He waited for a reply. "Fingers crossed, I guess." With that said, he braced his body and plunged the needle through his skin. He thought it would be best to take it slowly, but he began to feel really weird long before he was halfway through. His arm was positively tingling and his gut felt almost nauseous. But no matter how he felt, he refused to stop until every last drop of the liquid was in his body.
Finally, the syringe was empty, and he accidentally let it fall from his shaking fingers onto the floor where it shattered with a high-pitched crash. He clutched his body as his insides tightened and cramped, and he was beginning to wish he had just gone to the confinement room. He wasn't in terribly bad pain--he had felt worse--but this was coming from every muscle, organ, nook and cranny of his body, penetrating deeper than anything he'd felt before. He closed his eyes, wishing for it to be over, but he tried to be patient as the serum ran its course.
After a while, the pain reached a point where it felt like anything touching him was causing him excess pain, including his little seat belt, so he quickly reached for the buckle and undid it. The moment the belt fell limp, Kai leaned forward--a little too much--and began to fall from his chair and onto the cold floor. The good news was, he was starting to feel a little better. His energy levels seemed to be rising, and he had a growing itch to start moving around, maybe even run if he could. Some one could find him here at any moment, so hopefully he could harness that growing energy and escape.
He put his fists against the floor, took a deep breath, and pushed himself up. Surprisingly, his back didn't retaliate. He got to his knees, and still no pain. When he was finally standing on his own two feet again, his head became dizzy, but he also felt tall and powerful, in between the lessening cramps, that is. But he had been right; the serum had accelerated the healing process. Time for some payback.
He shuffled out of Dr. Lee's room, then walked out of the med room, and before he knew it, he was running down the halls. That felt good! The first thing he needed was his shozoku, so he frantically climbed the steps to his room and changed. His hands were still shaking, so it took longer than he wanted it to, but once his mask was situated, he pondered bringing a weapon with him. No, he decided. He didn't need a weapon. Right now, he could take on Lloyd with his bare hands! Yes! As a matter of fact, he didn't even need to use a train or a bus or anything to reach Jamanakai village, he could run there! Run and run and run!
Without another thought, he leapt out his own bedroom window and sped toward the ground. He slowed his momentum some with a burst of flames, and then rolled onto the ground with a surprising amount of grace. He unfolded himself from his little summersault and was launched into a mad sprint through the woods. Jamanakai village was down in the South, so he had quite the journey in store, but that didn't seem to matter. He just kept running, running, running, faster and faster and faster! He would never run out of energy, ever!
He started off through the forest and found a path that wasn't quite so mountainous. It brought him closer to the freeway (thankfully, he still had enough sense to know not to be seen) and every so often when the road came into view, he could see military vehicles whizzing by. He had to beat them to the town if he wanted a piece of Garmadon Jr. so he doubled his speed. It felt like he was flying. He had never moved so fast in all his life.
In some part of his brain he was vaguely aware that what he was doing seemed too rash, and that something wasn't right, but it kept getting smothered by the next thought that came racing through his brain. It was always, "How long till I get there?" "Did somebody see me?" "Faster!" One thought after another going as fast as he was running. All mention of Wu and Cole seemed far away, like a dream. The only things that existed were him and Lloyd and Jamanakai village.
As if he had been sleepwalking this whole time, Kai suddenly found himself standing on the edge of Jamanakai, while the sun hung low over the mountains. He was taking in large breaths, but he wasn't quite yet winded.
Taking his first steps into town, some inquisitive thought began to come to him. What kind of threat was he facing exactly? Was it just Lloyd? Did he have Sklukens with him? Also, when would Wu and the others arrive, if they hadn't already? Well, maybe it wouldn't matter all that much as long as he could get to Lloyd first.
He was jogging through the town now, looking for signs of battle or struggle, but the more of the town he saw, the more quiet it seemed to become. There was no one walking down the streets, he realised. There were no cars driving around either. The silence seemed to worm its way inside Kai's ears and linger there for far too long. No lights were on in any of the houses, toys and lawn mowers and sprinklers were strewn across lawns abandoned, and even the birds seemed eerily quiet.
All this stagnation was becoming irritating. Kai had come here for a fight. Where was everyone? Perhaps it was some sort of national holiday that he had forgotten about?
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
Something big must have been going on near the center of town, because that didn't sound like a vase or a needle breaking. It sounded like shop windows. Then Kai heard the distinct clamour of a crowd rioting and cheering somewhere very near him. He ran up the street and took a sharp turn to the right. He was in the financial district now, home to all the shops and banks and businesses, and most of them looked like they had been looted and burned. The crowd, meanwhile, seemed to be just one street over, and that had to be where Lloyd was. Kai could feel a mischievous smile spread across his face as he got closer and closer to the action, envisioning in his head how he would surprise Lloyd and take him down in one smooth attack. Then Wu would be so impressed, that he'd get out of trouble completely and... maybe even prove himself worthy of being the green ninja. This was his moment!
He darted around the corner, still hyped up and full of energy, and dove into the madness. There was a crowd of people making a mess of things, but Kai didn't stop to look at them. Instead, he charged at the first figure he saw: a small, blonde boy dressed in green, and he tackled him like a mad football player. He pinned him to ground, shouting,
"How does it feel to have someone scratch your face?!" and for a moment, he felt rather proud of himself. That had gone much smoother than even he had originally thought. But then, he tuned the boy over, and the face he saw was distinctly not the face of Lloyd Garmadon. It was just some random boy--a stranger--that he had just tackled and slammed into the hard asphalt. That's when he realised that all the commotion from before had stopped. He suddenly got the uncanny feeling that a hundred eyeballs were watching him in utter confusion.
His mind was racing far too fast for any words to come out of his mouth, let alone a comprehensive apology, but he did manage to get off of the boy and stand up. The crowd around him didn't look like the rioting type, and yet there they were, bricks and crowbars in hand, standing in the middle of a wrecked street.
Feeling his mouth go dry, Kai's only thought was: how long would it be before this kid's mother came and started shewing him out, and how fast could he get away from here? He decided he'd better enact that plan before the previously mentioned mother arrived. So he turned sharply but his way was barred by the crowd. They were all around him now, swarming him on purpose, but they didn't say anything. They didn't even look angry, they just.... kept starring at him with glowing red eyes.
This was a mistake. He should never have come. He had just jumped into something he knew nothing about. If only he'd stayed at the door longer to find out more about the mission. Maybe then he would know that there was some sort of major problem with the townsfolk. What to do? What to do? What to do?
The crowd kept him fenced in fairly well. Even when he tried to push past them, they would push back, keeping him at the center of the circle. Was this one of his nightmares, perhaps? Because this felt like it came straight out of his imagination.
All of a sudden, something leapt on top of his back, squishing him and his stomach into the road. He barely had a second to blink before his chin hit the pavement and the skin there broke.
"How does-s-s it feel, hmm? To make an utter fool of yours-s-self?" said the person on top of him. They had the most unsettling accent that strained the "s" sound almost as if he were hissing. It was just at that moment, when most his senses had returned, that Kai could feel this person's body moving and sliding all over his back. He felt no legs or knees pinning him to ground, but some other form keeping him down by sheer body weight.
Wake up now, he was saying to himself. Now would be a great time for this to be a dream. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
"Well, look who we have here!" Kai knew that voice. He was in for it now.
The crowd suddenly said, all in unison, "Hail, Emperor Garmadon!" as they bowed on one knee to the prince of darkness himself. Kai couldn't see him, but he could hear him approach from behind. He could already see in his mind the smug grin that little brat was sure to be wearing, and it made him want to punch something.
"If it isn't Raiden, the fire loser!" the little punk went on. Kai could now see the boy's feet walking in front of his squished face. "Where are your loser friends?" he asked. Kai would have said something if his lunges weren't being so crushed right now. Lloyd only laughed. "Do you like my new friends? They certainly stay on top of things, don't they?" Kai let out an angry grunt, which was all he could muster. "Hey, look your Emperor in the eye when he talks to you!" the boy cried indignantly, although with a hint of glee in his words.
As if on queu, the person on top Kai grabbed his head and forced him to face Lloyd. He was still as small and smug as he was before, but he no longer wore the heavy black armour of his father. Now he was enwrapped in an exoskeleton of engraved golden armour, which, in Kai's opinion, matched his inflated ego to a tee.
"That's better," said Lloyd. Oh, how Kai wished he could punch the little twerp square in his little twerp face. "On second thought, you should be bowing down like everyone else!" Oh no. No, no, no.
Just as Kai had feared, he was grabbed by his limbs and forced into a bowing position. He jerked and yanked his arms with every ounce of force his muscles would allow, but whoever or whatever was holding him was far stronger than anything else he'd ever faced before. With a sick feeling of humiliation oozing in his chest and stomach, he now sat on his hands and knees, head bowed toward Lloyd Garma-derp. At least now he could breathe.
Lloyd kept on going with the most annoying laugh on the face of the earth. "What even was your plan? Did you seriously come here all by yourself? Does Uncle Wu think that I can be stopped by one guy?"
"Lloyd Garmadon, I feel that this-s-s is-s-s an unwis-s-se us-s-se of our time," said someone else nearby. He was walking over--wait a minute, he wasn't walking. Kai couldn't hear any footsteps. But he did hear something moving. If only he could turn his head and see, but the hand keeping his head in place wasn't budging.
"Yeah, yeah, okay, I was just having fun," Lloyd said, clearly annoyed and more than a little pouty. "Scurge, hypnotize him."
What?! Was that code for something? He was let out of his bowing position and was now being lifted up by his shozoku. He could now see most of the street, including the crowd, Lloyd and--a tall, teal, scaly man?! He felt something long and cool coil around him, squeezing his arms to his sides. His shozoku was let go of, and he was now held aloft by the tail of a... a... Serpentine! What else could it be? The only way to describe the monster holding him was that he was half man and half snake, a classic description of the ancient beasts. He was starring at him the biggest, reddest eyes Kai had ever seen in his life.
What should he do? How could he get out of this? His heart was beating too fast and he couldn't think straight. What was going on? Could he use his fire? What did Lloyd mean by "hypnotize?" He kept asking himself all these questions over and over for a lot longer than he thought he would. Soon, he realized that nothing was happening. The snake-man was just standing there, looking at him.
Lloyd began to growl. "Why isn't it working?!"
"Is-s-s this-s-s boy one of the 'ninja' of which you s-s-spoke?" said the Serpentine who had come to stand by Lloyd.
"Yeah, why?" asked Lloyd.
"If he carries-s-s a Keromine, then our abilities-s-s cannot effect him," the Serpentine replied.
That sounded like good news. That was good, right? Kai couldn't tell anymore. His head was positively swimming. This was so unlike him, too. As a matter of fact, all of this was so unlike him. Just as the thought hit him, he began to feel drowsy and weak, as if his energy was wearing off.
"So now what do we do with him?" Lloyd was saying.
"There is-s-s only one thing," said the Serpentine. "Kill him. I will let you do the honours-s-s."
Just as the snake-man spoke, Kai was lowered down again to face Lloyd. Now would be a really good time to come up with a plan.
Lloyd was looking down at Kai, but he wasn't smiling anymore. "Kill him?" he asked tentatively. "I mean, wouldn't it be more fun to torture him instead?"
"We are was-s-sting time here! He is-s-s a threat to us-s-s Hypnobrai, and therefore mus-s-st be dealt with harshly." The Serpentine seemed firm in his decision, but Lloyd did not. "What are you waiting for? Kill him!"
Lloyd locked eyes with Kai and for a moment he looked scared--sorry, even. He swallowed hard, then began to lift his left hand. His fingertips thrummed with dark energy, poised to strike and turn Kai into dust.
Kai tried to get one of his hands free, tried to move at all, wishing desperately that he had listened to Cole in the hallway and stayed where had been told. There had to be something he could do! Anything!
BOOM!!!
"AAAAAAAAHHH!!!"
The Hypnobrai holding Kai let out a terrible screech as the ground around them rumbled like an earthquake. Kai felt his body fly into the air and plop back onto the ground hard while the snake tail started to unfurl around him. Lloyd, the other Serpentine, and the townspeople, had also been knocked over, and were now bumbling around on the broken asphalt.
"Don't you dare touch him."
Kai looked up and spotted the source of the voice: it was Cole. He was standing over him, dressed in his black ninja garb, and holding a stained scythe. It was at this moment that Kai realized that the tail sitting around him was no longer connected to a body. He pushed the gross thing away as quickly as he could and then turned back to Cole. There were so many questions he wanted to ask.
"You!" Lloyd cried, pointing a small finger at Cole. "Where did you come from?"
"Where I came from will be the least of your problems," was all Cole said in reply.
Sensing Cole's threat, the leader Hypnobrai shouted, "Attack!" and all the other Serpentine started toward the two ninja.
Kai was jerked to his feet by Cole who then pulled up a ramp of dirt that went over Lloyd's head. Kai's heart was still racing as he felt his feet start to run by Cole's side, up the ramp and over the crowd. They jumped back down to the ground and continued running, putting some distance between them and the snake-men.
"What were you thinking?!" Cole shouted in Kai's ear. It was a fair question. One that Kai didn't have an answer for. "You're lucky Wu doesn't know about any of this."
"He doesn't?" Kai asked. When Cole had first arrived, he had assumed that Wu and the rest of the team weren't far behind. Now he saw that Cole was alone.
"I left before they did, but if you don't want add three more years of disciplinary action to your life, I suggest we high-tail it out of here before anything else goes wrong," said Cole. Kai couldn't argue with that logic. "But for the record: I told you so!"
"You know, somehow, it's more annoying when you say it," Kai managed to retort.
They were rounding another corner now, heading into what appeared to be a suburban housing district. In between their conversation, Kai could hear the sound of terrified people screaming and calling for help.
"What exactly was going on back there?" Cole asked, hearing the voices.
"Well, either I'm going crazy, or those freaks were Serpentine," said Kai. Cole looked over at him in surprise. "I overheard Wu talking about them, but I didn't think he meant they were real."
"Which kind are they?"
"What?" Kai was sure he'd misheard the question.
"What kind are they?" Cole repeated. "When Sensei Wu was teaching us about the Serpentine, he said that there were five tribes with unique powers."
"When did he teach us that?" asked Kai as they rounded another corner.
"When you weren't paying attention, apparently," Cole mumbled. He looked behind them and saw a dozen or so Serpentine gaining on them.
"Well, they said something about hypnotizing," said Kai suddenly.
"Then these would be the Hypnobrai. That would explain why everyone in town was acting weird," Cole reasoned. It did, actually. Kai found the realization startling and more than a little creepy.
Five more Hypnobrai suddenly appeared in front of them, blocking their path.
"This way," both boys said, and Kai took off to the left, cutting across someone's lawn to get to the next street over. But when he made it to the other side, he looked around, expecting to see Cole close by, and only found the Serpentine behind him.
Great. Just great. They had been separated. Well, all he could do now was try not to get killed and hopefully meet up with Cole again so that they could get out of here in one piece.
Kai started running down the street, hoping to get around the snake-men and get back to where he had been before being separated from Cole. It was getting late and the sun had started to set already, while the cold night air was already beginning to set in.  He would need to act fast if he didn't want to get caught out in the dark, he realized.
"AAAAHH!!!"
There was a young couple somewhere up ahead running from a Hypnobrai. He was going to have to help them, wasn't he? Sometimes having a conscious really messes with your plans. He checked to make sure he still had his mask on and then went to go get the two civilians to safety. As long as he hurried, it should be fine. He hoped...