Tides of Reality| Ninjago | Monkie Kid | ROTTMNT

Chapter 40 - A bunch of stuff happens

"Hey, can you believe this?" Cole asked during breakfast in the awfully large dining hall. "Yesterday night I woke up and a weird, purple creature was in my room."

Amongst all the "No way!"'s and "Is this a prank?"'s, showed up also "Yeah." and "Yes. I can." from none other than Mei and Sky.

But the "Ha! I knew it!" from princess Vania who popped up from behind Cole's chair, startling everyone, was rather unexpected.

"I think they live in caves underneath the city! Wanna go there with me?" Vanie offered, ecstatic as always.

"I mean... Why not?" Cole asked rhetorically. "I'm in."

-

And so the team divided. Cole, Mei and Sky were all in from the start; Jay, Kai, Rumi and Lloyd were going only for the 'adventure' and the rest decided to stay. Liv, uncle Nix and Raven were rather bored by that idea, Zane said he'd rather not get caught up in another dangerous adventure and Unagami still hasn't gotten over his fear of unsafe places, since he couldn't change reality like in the game and he was quite afraid of dying.

And so the adventure seven followed Vania to the caves. She gave them all torches and all eight started exploring. They didn't, however, go far, until they started hearing strange noises.

Naturally the morons followed them. When they got to the source of those sounds, a large cave befell their eyes. On the bottom were moving figures, looking like they were bound by chains and mining something.

Suddenly a figure flew out of a castle-like building in the centre of the cave. He yelled at his slaves for a bit, and then disappeared.

Sky could already tell, by the voice, that it was Vangelis. And honestly? She was already tired.

She gets illegal tournaments and just thievery, but enslaving entire races of creatures? She won't be having any of this.

They walked away from the group a bit and called Raven.

"Hi. I have a case for you. Top-secret. Can you do that?" She asked quickly and quietly.

"I am Ghost. Of course I can do that." Raven deadpanned.

"You have to kill Vangelis." Sky whispered.

"Say no more." Raven ended the call.

-

The king of shintaro was found dead the next morning in his bed. Everything pointed to a heart attack.

After a big funeral, the ninja went back to the monastery. And that's when problems started.

The moment Sky and Liv entered the building, everything containing water spontaneously blew up.

Wherever they wouldn't go, water would start acting up, busting the pipes and making taps go crazy. Sky let out a long, tired sigh. She didn't have the energy to deal with this.

"Listen up! We have to go investigate to the middle of the ocean. Liv, Jay, you have a submarine, right?" They decided to cut everything short. She was 23 and her old age was starting to get to her.

Or everything she's been through. Or that countless scars.

"What? Well, yes we do have a submarine, but why would we have to swim to the middle of the ocean?" Jay asked, probably rightfully confused.

"Uhhh... When the overlord bit me some evil stayed in my body and now I have a psychic scar. So I sense that we have to go on a water adventure." That was total bullshit Sky outright stole from some old fanfic she read once.

"Ummm... Okay." Jay nodded slowly, pretending it makes sense to him.

-

The journey was long, but neither Raven, Harumi, Jay, Liv nor Mei complained. Does that mean the rest did?

No. Only six people were investigating this particular case, because the rest simply stated that they wanted a small break.

The submarine stopped in some seemingly random place. "I'll just do one thing and we can go back." Sky didn't elaborate on that beyond adding "I have some business with an old friend here."

To be perfectly honest, she never even met Kalmaar before. She was here just to steal the Wave Amulet and maybe send Raven after the squid if he becomes a problem.

And so they swam through the underwater cave as a fish so as not to look out of place. Passing the bars and swimming in, she resurfaced and turned into an octopus.

A shame, really. Normally she would love to choose her cat form, but it would be far too suspicious underwater. If Kalmaar even knows what a cat is.

Sky sneaked through corridors to quickly find themself in the chamber where Glutinous was just testing another one of the Storm Amulet substitutes.

Sky waited for the moment he heard Kalmaar yelling out to him and stole the amulet when he wasn't looking. Now to get to the ship- someone grabbed the amulet and lifted it up, along with the octopus.

Turns out that the prince of Merlopia was faster than she thought. He was now holding her up to his face, examining the creature before his eyes. "You dare steal from my-" He couldn't finish, because Sky quickly turned back human and kicked him in the face.

"Thanks for the amulet bye!" They shouted, running down the hallway and jumping into the water, quickly turning themself into a mermaid. Despite swimming as fast as she could, Sky couldn't shake Kalmaar off her tail.

She quickly boarded the submarine to give the amulet to the rest of the group and quickly jumped back out. "Thief! Give me back the amulet!" The squid shouted and Sky immediately knew that this was not only going to end in a fight, but also will be fun.

"Why should I? Come on!" She teased, quickly making the Merlopian angry. He attacked with some kind of laser being shot from his trident.

Oh, Sky knew how to dodge those. And in water it was even easier than on the surface during her countless sparring sessions with Mei.

"Are you even trying?" They taunted again, going around the angry squid. "Like, really!" As a confirmation of her opinion on Kalmaar being awful at this, she swam away and, dodging every attack swiftly, using her momentum, hit him on the head with her tail, knocking him out.

Victorious, they looked back at the submarine, only now realizing that it was getting flooded quickly. Kalmaar must've hit it at some point. Okay, okay. She just has to use her awesome water power to keep the water out, right?

She tried to push water away from the ship. It can't be hard. They have done countless other great things with their power. So why couldn't she just do it?

Why was it so hard now? Was it some kind of power exhaustion? Or maybe the sheer water pressure?

Why couldn't she just do it?

Why wasn't she strong enough?

S̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶n̶o̶u̶g̶h̶.̶ She was more of a puppeteer, like Macaque.

T̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶o̶b̶t̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶p̶o̶w̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶o̶.̶

Sky sighed. Or more of exhaled, since water doesn't make the 'sigh' sound. She knew what she had to do.

She started spinning and, despite having learnt it once three years ago, she did spinjitzu. It was quite sloppy, but worked.

Inhaling, they felt water in their lungs and felt like they were about to explode with all the newfound energy.

She became one with the ocean.