Thundersnow

The Great Serpentine War: Intermission

Wu was panicking when he got back to the monastery.

He had to go with the twins on a mission in an area just outside of Hiroshi's Labyrinth. It has gone fine but as soon as he returned home he saw smoke.

Black clouds were slowly dissipating, which was good, but it still meant the monastery had been on fire at some point.

The only ones who should've been in the monastery right now and back from their missions were Maya, Ice, and... Ray.

He threw the doors open and ran inside. The courtyard was streaked with blood and scorch marks. The left wing of the monastery looked like it had exploded and then caught fire. Chunks of the roof were scattered all over the courtyard.

Large pillars of ice were shooting up from the ground, creating a wall between the left wing and the rest of the monastery.

"Ice!" He shouted as he ran through the halls. "Ice! Fire! Water! Anybody! What is going on?"

He found Ice, Ray, and Maya in the dining room.

Ray was pacing, a large wad of gauze was taped to his face. Ice was standing over a table holding his hands over Maya who was laying on top of it and dear master, Maya.

Maya was laid out looking like she was ready to pass out at any second and he wouldn't blame her considering the state she was in. There were deep red slash marks all across her back and between the angry red wounds there were small burns creeping across her skin.

She was bleeding profusely and the gashes it was coming from were dirty and looked like they were on the edge of infection.

"Ray," he gasped, "what- happened?"

Ray opened his mouth but no words came out.

"Libber happened." Ice replied for him darkly and Wu frowned.

"Ray. Get over here." Ice commanded and the boy scampered over.

"Liberty, actually," he muttered quietly and Ice's lip curled into a scowl. 

He held up a cloud of icy mist and Ray took a flame to it creating a small shower of water to wash out Maya's gashes.

The master in question hissed in pain, her back arcing in instinct to try and escape the feeling.

"Why haven't you taken her to the med bay?" Wu asked quickly.

"Liberty's no idiot, especially not with that snake in her head. She knew where she was aiming that strike. Med bay is the first thing that went up." Maya spoke through gritted teeth as she banged a fist on the table.

"She lit the left wing on fire with a lightning strike?!" Wu cried anxiously.

"Wu. We got back from Hono Mizu only to find her in the courtyard holding a scroll and planning to escape with it. She infiltrated the monastery while it was unguarded and when she got caught she attacked." She explained, still trying to distract herself from the pain.

"Look, we destroyed the scroll before she managed to get away with it but think, are there any scrolls you had, any in any room, that she might've been looking for?" She asked seriously.

Wu thought about it for a moment.

"I- no? All I had was... Was a message... From Garmadon."

"What?" Maya asked abruptly "what does he suddenly want to do with uusssaagh!" She cried as more water flushed over her back.

"That's the thing, he's coming back. Something went wrong with Chen that made him leave the island. In fact in his letter he included... A map... Of the route he was gonna take..." He slowed down as he realized.

"So it was a map, both to Chen's island, and to the monastery?" Ray asked

"No." Wu stated with a horrifying realization. "No, not just that. Garmadon was going to make a cross country trip..."

Wu's head shot up and he looked suddenly startled.

"He was going to stop at all the major alliance townships on the way."

Even Ice looked fearful at the implication.

"But... We destroyed it. Libber- Liberty, doesn't have the map anymore." Ray said.

"True..." Wu took a deep breath in. He waved his hands around and in a show of light some gauze, bandages, and sewing materials appeared on the table.

The master of creation shook himself off.

"The map should be safe. For now let's focus on fixing this."

...If only they knew how deeply imbedded the Hypnobrai was in the girl's mind.