Legends of Ninjago: Book 3: The Four Fangs

Chapter 6: Grand Escape

(Editor's note: I know this is super unprofessional, buuuuut in my hurry to get the first few chapters written and done, I realised that I neglected to include several important moments from the show in the last two chapters. Namely, Zane's dream sequence. I have since then updated the chapters, and if you're not inclined to read them over again, the gist of it is: the Green Ninja is now back on everyone's mind. That's all. Happy reading!)

Zane watched the purple Serpentine bend over him with his freakishly long neck and forked tongue. His eyes were a vibrant neon pink, squinted into conniving slits, while his weighty tail continued to crush Zane.
"But I don't really see what all the fuss was about," he said to someone just out of Zane's view. "They're hardly what I would consider a great threat."
Zane kept trying to push himself up, or to throw the snake off his back, but all he was getting was exhausted. Then he stopped and breathed in. He needed to think of something clever, not just brute force his way through. The answer made itself clear straight away in the form of the cold snow pressed up against Zane's skin. Closing his eyes, he called out to it, asking it for help.
"Now let's see—how close are we to discovering the beast's nest?" The Serpentine was saying.
"Pythor! Look out!"
Zane barely processed the conversation, as all his mental energy was going into creating a tidal wave of snow to wash his assailant away. He was up on his feet again the moment he heard the snake—Pythor—hit the ground and then was promptly buried, his long neck sticking out of a mound of white mass.
"See? I told you they were annoying."
Zane turned to face that second voice and saw a young boy dressed in a tattered, black uniform. His pale—almost yellow—skin looked rough and bumpy in places, giving his complexion a blotchy sort of appearance. His hair was undone and flowing messily in the wind, with more than a few tangles in it. His most striking features, however, were his slitted green eyes and fanged teeth.
"...Lloyd Garmadon?" Zane guessed after half a minute.
Something flashed in those green eyes; an emotion too tumultuous to comprehend. Without a word, the boy summoned a handful of dark energy and flung it at Zane who created a shield of snow. With everything else still happening around him, Zane couldn't afford to wait for Lloyd to fire again. While the shield was busy evaporating into nothingness, Zane took off toward the last place he had seen Cole.
The crowd of Serpentine was steadily growing larger, attempting to surround the queen Treehorn. Zane decided he needed to move quickly, and carefully created a train of ice beneath his feet to help him fly past his enemies without starting a tussle with any of them. He wove his way through the ever changing legs of the Treehorn and froze many snakes along the way—accidentally or otherwise—until he found Cole having the living daylights squeezed out of him by a group of black Serpentine.
"Unhand him!" He cried, launching a barrage of ice spikes at the snakes.
The second Cole was free to move, he summoned three stone slabs to push the last remained Serpentine away.
"Thanks," he breathed.
"We need to retreat!" Zane yelled as the Treehorn gave a mighty screech. The Serpentine were becoming more and more preoccupied with the army of smaller Treehorns emerging from the forest. "Let's go!"
"What?" Cole blurted. "But this is our chance to—"
"To die? Yes, that is exactly why we are retreating!" Zane said, grabbing Cole by the sleeve and pulling him along. "The others are in a bad enough condition as it is!"
"The others?" Cole repeated, suddenly following Zane willingly. "What happened to them?"
"They're—"
Zane stopped in his tracks as he looked around the mottled snow.
"They were right here... where did they go?!"
"Hey, onion-head!"
They turned around and saw Lloyd glaring daggers. "Forgot about me, huh?" He taunted.
Zane quickly looked over at Cole. "Does my hair really look like an onion?"
"Shut up!" Lloyd snapped. "S-surrender or somebody gets hurt!"
"Sorry, kid. We don't negotiate with terrorists," said Cole, stepping forward with a boulder at the ready and a deathly serious look on his face. "Stand down, or you get hurt."
His eyes flashed red. "DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!"
Zane only remembered a streak of purple whizzing by, uncomfortably close to his face, before his battle instincts took over.
His first attack—a direct blast—pushed Lloyd back a few feet but ultimately crumbled in a cloud of purple smoke. Cole followed up with a quick attack: two triangular stones, like sharks in a powdery ocean, hungrily charged at the boy. He leaped away from them both with alarming grace, letting them crash together as he landed, untouched.
Lloyd looked up and his slitted eyes were positively on fire. With a throaty scream he launched a hurricane of purple at them, forcing them to throw up shield after shield after shield. Zane could hardly find time to launch a counter attack. Lloyd had been using this time to get closer to the boys, but if he thought he could win in hand-to-hand combat, he was sorely mistaken.
Zane feigned weakness and stumbled back and few times, luring the boy in, and when he was close enough, Zane threw aside his ice shield and grabbed Lloyd by both arms, twisting them around to his back and making him grimace. Desperately, he tried to stomp on Zane's foot, but he barely felt a thing.
"Let me go!" He screamed, and Zane adjusted his grip to make sure that his own hands were as far away from the poison dripping down Lloyd's fingertips as possible.
"Not a chance," Cole said solemnly. "Where are our friends?"
Lloyd suddenly sprang up and kicked Cole square in the face. Zane saw blood trickling down from his nose.
"That's it, you little punk!" Cole grabbed Lloyd by the scruff of his shirt and lifted him off the ground, ready to punch him if he didn't tell them what they wanted to know.
An angry Treehorn screeched in the background.
"You've got one last chance before I pulverise you!"
All Lloyd said was, "Eat wasps!"
There was a golden glow from his other hand and then, in a single moment, the air was filled with a swarm of angry hornets. Lloyd was instantaneously forgotten as Cole and Zane scrambled to get as far away as possible. He hadn't felt any stings yet, but Zane knew better than to let them try.
He ran and ran and ran until he ducked behind a tree, the sound of buzzing wasps completely left behind. More and more Treehorns wailed nearby, echoing far and wide. A lonely cry in the dead of winter.
Zane's train of thought went back to the mission at hand. His insistence on following the falcon had led them here, into the heart of battle and danger, and now it was only fitting that he be the one to bring them out of it.
A splash of red in the white forest caught his eye. He zoomed in on it and saw Kai trying to climb a tree. For what purpose was anyone's guess, but Zane quickly made for the fire ninja without another thought.
"Kai!" He yelled as soon as he got close. "What are you doing up there?"
"I'm not coming down! You can't make me!" He yelled back.
Zane actually had to take a breath and rubbed his temples. "Come down this instant or I will cut down this tree!"
"Help! Help! This gingerbread man is threatening the environment!" Kai cried to the whole forest.
"Kai, get down here at once!" Now Zane had started climbing up in an attempt to grab him, but Kai just kept climbing higher.
"I will eat you!" He screamed.
"Kai—"
The tree started moving, and not in an "earth-shaky" kind of way. It was moving, moving. Like they had accidentally climbed up the leg of a Treehorn.
"EEEooooogghhhh!!" It moaned, lumbering toward its kin, leaving Zane and Kai to scream in terror as it tried to shake them off.
"Curse you, Muffin Man!!!" Kai yelled at the top of his lungs.
With a roll of his eyes, Zane set his jaw and started climbing up. Kai was still screaming bloody murder, but he eventually climbed passed him and then clawed his way onto the Treehorn's back, keeping his body low so that the wind didn't blow him over.
From up above, the battle looked quite different. He could see Cole still chasing down Lloyd, the Serpentine were largely still biting at the Treehorns' feet, and at the edge of his vision, Zane could make out a second crowd of multi-coloured snakes, though what they were doing was impossible to tell.
At the moment, the Treehorn they were riding was headed straight for the queen, but Zane knew better than to enter back into that maniacal ant farm. He crawled along the creature's back until he was within arm's reach of its neck.
'Now what?' He asked himself.
'Grab its neck,' he heard himself answer, as though it were obvious. So he did. The monster screamed and wailed, but Zane refused to let go. With both hands now in a death grip, he found himself able to push the Treehorn left and right and used this newfound control to steer them toward a small patch of teal on the forest floor. It was making snow angels while a smaller, grey figure was trying desperately to pull the other up to her feet.
"Grab on!" Zane yelled down to them.
"Zane?!" Keaton called.
"Naturally," he replied.
"I'm not with him!" Kai cried to no one in particular.
With some effort, Keaton used a wind blast to launch her sister and herself up onto the Treehorn's back. They crashed landed with a loud "OW!" and Ann—seemingly unaware of the events currently unfolding around her—nearly rolled off, but Zane's reflexes caught her by the leg just before she fell.
"I believe I can flyyyyyy," she was singing as she dangled upside down.
"Keaton!" Zane gasped. "A little help!"
The two of them hauled Ann up and Keaton made sure to hold on extra tight to her as they started moving again.
"What's the plan?" She asked, her voice cutting surprisingly well through the wind.
"We are leaving," he said. "In style."
The Treehorn kept moving until they found Jay fending off a group of Serpentine with the last of his strength. They didn't stand a chance against four walking tree trunks. Jay clung to one of the legs for dear life and off they went again, looking for Cole.