Legends of Ninjago Book 1: Brotherhood (Ninjago AU, Cole, Jay, Zane, Kai)

Chapter 20: The Underworld

"How exactly did we get here?" Jay asked as he looked around the dark room they were currently in.
The Skulkens had teleported into a large clearing, then had driven into this room and left to join some special meeting. Keaton, Cole, and Jay then wobbled out of the back of the truck they had snuck onto and were now trying to piece everything together.
"Umm, well... Sensei Wu had been working on a side project," Keaton explained. "He was trying to figure out how the Skulkens crossed over to our world." She waved some floating orbs away from her face and sat down next to the boys. "He said they'd need some sort of special... thing to do it."
"Special thing?" Jay repeated.
Keaton sighed loudly. "We didn't know what they were using, and it could have been anything! But I'll bet you Ann's left foot that it's those fancy-shmancy cars."
Jay frowned. "Why Ann's left foot?"
"Better her's than mine," Keaton shrugged. Jay chuckled.
"By the way—just a random side question here, but—what freaks Ann out the most?" Jay asked.
"Jay, is this really an important conversation to have right now?" Cole cut in.
"Sorry, sorry..." Jay muttered, looking at the ground.
"Birds," Keaton whispered, and Jay's face lit up.
"We're here, and we can do something," said Cole, getting to his feet. "If this is the Skulken home world, and those cars are the only way to get from here to Ninjago, then I say it's high time we suspend their traveling rights."
"Good idea!" Keaton exclaimed, bouncing up from the ground. "I bet that's why they didn't ride these things into battle, too. To make sure they always had a way home."
"Exactly," said Cole, and he marched up to what looked like some sort of monstrous jeep.
"But let's make sure to at least save one car, preferably the doom-buggy over there, so we have a ride home, yeah?" Jay added as he walked up next to Cole. He really didn't want to be stuck in this depressing cave for the rest of his life.
The three of them exchanged an excited look, then set to work. Keaton began with flipping the smaller cars with her wind and doing her best to smash them while Jay sabotaged all the wires and the engines and all the inner mechanisms. Cole was most effective, however, in his endeavours to crush the vehicles with large boulders.
"Hey guys, this is kinda loud, isn't it?" said Keaton after a while. Jay stopped what he was doing and looked up at Keaton with wide eyes. Then he looked at Cole, who had a similar expression. But when there was no sound of approaching soldiers down the halls, Cole quickly smashed two more cars and then they all jumped in the 'doom-buggy.' Cole took the driver's seat, Jay rode shotgun, and Keaton plopped down in the very small (but surprisingly comfortable) backseat.
Cole looked down at all the odd controls and felt beads of sweat begin to form on his forehead.
"What's the matter? Don't you have your driver's license?" Jay asked.
"I do, it's just," Cole stammered, grabbing hold of the hourglass-shaped steering wheel. "I've never driven a skull-mobile before."
"Well you'd better hurry up real fast, because Jack Skellington is coming down the hallway right now!" Jay shrieked, and when they paused to listen, the sound of clinking armour and disgruntled voices came to their ears. "Drive, man, drive!"
Cole began to panic and scanned the dashboard for anything that looked like an ignition key, or a button, or really anything that would start the buggy up. Finally he just started mashing every button and lever he could find.
"Hurry!" Jay pressed.
"Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious!" Cole snapped. "I wasn't gonna hurry, but since you said I should—!"
"If I said 'drop the sarcasm' would you do that too?!"
"Jay!" Cole yelled, pushing as hard as he could on one of the levers, and suddenly the engine roared and the headlights flashed on. "Hold on!"
They lurched directly toward the wall of the room and Cole had to make a very sudden u-turn that nearly sent Keaton flying out of her seat. Then it was an obstacle course through the field of car debris until they finally entered the hallway where they crashed right into the Skulken soldiers. Jay closed his eyes and brace himself for the end, but the buggy was so strong and fast that no matter how many skeletons they hit, it kept going. There were bones flying overhead, going underneath them, the windshield was cracked, one of the lights was smashed, and one of the wheels kept making a very odd noise, but Cole didn't stop for anything.
Jay turned around in his seat once they had exited the hallway, seeing all the soldiers collapsed on the ground. "So... we all agree that those guys are just unconscious, right?" Keaton and Cole both gave a slightly uncomfortable "Mmmhmm" and nodded.
Then Keaton cleared her throat. "Where are we going?"
"Back to the field we came in from," said Cole.
"Yeah, where is that exactly?" Jay asked when they reached a fork in the road. Cole slammed the breaks and they all crashed forward in their seats.
As Jay rubbed his head, he looked around the unfamiliar landscape. There were five different paths in front of them, and he couldn't even begin to guess which one they had used earlier.
"Skulkens! Skulkens!" Keaton cried, pointing down one of the pathways. A hundred or more skeletons were charging at them, and then the other hallways were suddenly flooded with more of them.
Cole frantically started up the engine and they bolted down the only hallway that wasn't filled with bloodthirsty soldiers. This path was very dark and long, but then again, every room in this place seemed that way; it was like a terrible maze that they might never escape from.
No matter what, they didn't stop moving; around every corner and bend, over more soldiers, uphill, downhill, constantly trying not to get caught.
"If there wasn't a chance we could be trapped here forever, this would be so cool!" Jay yelled as they sped down another hallway and then launched into the air off of some sort of ramp.
"Yes, but where's the big cave?" Keaton asked. "I don't remember any of this."
An uncomfortable silence fell over them, that is, until a siren suddenly began to scream up and down the tunnel.
"Well, it's been fun," said Jay, accepting their fate. "I enjoyed shouting at you guys the most."
Then, off in the distance, there seemed to be a little bit of light. They were going so fast that it suddenly shot right towards them and as it turned out, that light was the large cavern they were looking for. The tunnel disappeared in a sudden WOOSH and they were now speeding through the open, foggy field. Then, something moved in the mist below them. It had looked like a person—a person they were about to run over. None of them had any time to react, however, because one second later something had crushed the hood of the car, sending them flying forward several yards and leaving the buggy crashing just a few feet behind them.
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE FIRST SPINJITSU MASTER ARE YOU THREE DOING HERE!?"
"Wait a minute..." Jay groaned as he tried to recover his breath. "That sounds like..."
"It can't be," said Keaton as she got up and looked around. "Ann?"
Ann was standing right where she had been when their buggy had almost run her over, and she did not look happy. At. All. In fact, her glare could probably scare off a great white shark. Then Kai, Nya, and Zane appeared out of the fog beside her.
"Guys?" Cole asked, bewildered. "How did you get here?"
"If I'm not going completely insane, I think... the fire dragon brought us?" Kai said, glancing around at his peers for support in his hypothesis.
"You were told to wait at the meet-up point!" Ann went on, as if she had never been interrupted. Her gaze was fixed on Keaton. "You were supposed to stay out of harm's way!" She closed the distance between her and her sister and everyone in the room began to feel very uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry, Ann," Keaton whimpered and seemed to shrink in Ann's presence. "But—"
"But nothing!" Ann raged. "You were given a direct order!"
"Hey, ease up, Ann!" Jay jumped in, attempting to defend Keaton from an unreasonable attack.
"And YOU TWO!" Ann snapped, turning toward Jay and Cole. "You were given the same orders! Just wait until we get back to Ninjago, because your disciplinary action will be so nightmarish that you'll regret the day you ever stepped foot into the monastery!!!" They were all silent and looked genuinely frightened as they watched Ann go back and forth between them, shouting. "And I assume you're the ones who set off the alarm? So now we've lost the element of surprise!"
"But we were trying to get out!" Cole argued.
"Well we're here to find Garmadon, apparently," said Ann with a side glance at Kai. "And retrieve the Golden Weapons while we're at it. A feat which is now completely IMPOSSIBLE!"
"Well we could have still escaped, if YOU hadn't totalled our getaway car!" Jay shouted, finding his voice. They all looked at the smoking hunk of metal and glass that was sitting in the middle of the clearing, leaking some sort of black liquid.
"Oh, I'm sorry, but I was trying NOT TO GET RUN OVER!!!" Ann belted.
"Well at least we were trying do something, not having playtime with a bunch of dragons!" Jay retorted, scrunching up his face and taking a step closer to Ann. "Ooh, look at me, I'm Ann, Queen of the DRAGONS!"
"YOU were supposed to wait at the MEET-UP POINT!" Ann cried again, going red in the face.
"WELL HOW WERE YOU GOING TO GET TO THE MEET-UP POINT, HUH?! ON YOUR MAGIC DRAGON?!" Jay screamed. "Oh yeah, where is that dragon anyway? CAUSE IT WOULD SURE COME IN HANDY RIGHT ABOUT NOW!!!"
"THE DRAGON HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING GOING ON RIGHT NOW!!" Ann shrieked. The two of them were right up in each other's faces now, raving so intently you could see spit flying. "YOU'RE JUST BEING ALL POUTY 'CAUSE YOUR SORRY BUTT GOT BUSTED FOR BEING SOMEWHERE IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE!!!"
"WELL AT LEAST I DON'T HAVE A BIG FAT BUTT LIKE YOURS!!!" With that final shout, Jay's expression seemed to freeze, as did the tension in the room.
"Choose your next words very carefully," said Ann in a deathly cold tone, dripping with the promise imminent murder.
"Ann, shouting at everyone won't help the situation," Zane said calmly, walking up behind her and placing a firm hand on her shoulder. Ann looked back at him in an angry sort of way, but when she looked into his unsettlingly stern face, her temper seemed to waver and she was silent. "We have greater matters to attend to," Zane continued.
"Like what?" asked Cole.
"Like that," Zane replied, pointing down the tunnels all around them where they could see swarms of Skulkens charging at them.
"Everyone, circle up around Nya, now!" Ann ordered. This time, nobody argued.
Since Nya had no powers and no fighting experience, she needed to be kept out of the way and protected, and since the tunnels were all around them, they'd need defences to match.
"Just try not to get killed," said Ann, summoning a large tendril of water.
"Gee, thanks for the motivational boost," Jay remarked.
"How about I 'boost' that 'motivation' right up your—"
"Oh, would you two just SHUT UP!" Kai yelled impatiently.
The Skulkens came quickly and they all braced themselves, summoning as much of their element as they could before the battle properly began. Ann, Keaton, and Zane were most effective, taking out large numbers of the enemy left and right, but their attacks were only so big, and there seemed to be no end to the skeletons. Cole also did well, but with all the stress and fast-paced action, his head wasn't quite in the game. Meanwhile Kai and Jay were just trying to get their powers to work half the time. Although Kai seemed to be having an easier time than Jay, who was hiding behind Cole a great deal.
"Kai!" Nya screamed as several soldiers began dog-piling on top of him.
Ann had to rush over and fling the Skulkens away with a water whip, while Cole was left to defend her spot in the circle. That left Jay a bit more vulnerable and he soon found himself surrounded. Cole came to his rescue just in time, pushing his friend out of harm's way and landing Jay at Nya's feet.
"Hey," Jay said with a goofy grin. Nya looked down and gave an uneasy smile in return. "My name's—JAAAAAAAAAAY!"
Jay was caught by his ankle and dragged away into the horde of warriors by some sort of grapple hook, meanwhile Cole suddenly found his legs bound by a double steel ball bola and he fell right on top of Zane, crashing to the ground in a tangled heap of limbs and daggers. The Skulkens swooped in and pinned them to the ground, binding them tightly and keeping them at knife point.
Keaton was snagged by a skeleton hand and dragged down to the ground where she was bound with chains and gagged, leaving only Kai, Nya, and Ann still standing.
Seeing no other alternative, Ann decided to go on the defensive and created her water bubble again to protect them, but it couldn't last forever. With how many soldiers there were, constantly banging their fists and shoving their swords into the water, Ann's concentration began waver. With one final slash at her shield, it dissolved and fell to the ground.
Jay felt fear attack him as heavy chains were clapped around his neck, wrists, waist, and ankles. The Skulkens gripped and pulled him in every direction before finally one of them slung him over his shoulder and carried him with the flow of the crowd now moving down one of the tunnels. He tried not to make a sound, or move too much, he just hoped that they would toss them into their creepy jail or something, and not hurt them.
The floating orbs of light turned to a deep shade of maroon, casting an eerie redness all around them and making it impossible to see the others, chained and gagged behind him.
Suddenly, all the light went out, and in the darkness Jay thought the end was drawing near, but a sliver of hope was reignited with the purple light that now bombarded his retinas.
"King Samukai," said one of the Skulkens somewhere up ahead, and Jay felt his Skulken lower to one knee. "We found the intruders."
Then Jay suddenly found himself being lifted up and then thrown down to the ground hard. Kai was thrown down on his right, and Zane landed on his left, just as discombobulated and terrified as he was.
Standing in front of them, over seven feet tall, was the hideous figure of the Skulken king. His face had many scars and piercings, and huge, ugly teeth stuck out of his jaw, making him look far more animal than human. On his forehead two giant horns stuck out menacingly, and all around them his skull was embroidered with white tattoos and red jewels to match his beady red eyes which shown from within his deep, black eye sockets. His armour was very big and immaculate, with enormous gold pouldrens, gauntlets, boots, and chest plate. Over the armour, he wore a long, red cape to hide his four arms.
He was sitting in an enormous thrown made from what looked like elephant bones and tusks, while two giant, purple torches burned at his sides. His face deepened with a frown as he looked over the ninja who had entered his domain without his consent and had destroyed his property.
"So... this is it?" the king asked in a growl of a voice. He sounded so hoarse that one might have assumed he spent the entirety of his life screaming. "These... human children are what have been causing this calamity?"
Jay held his breath as he got out of his thrown and walked over to them very slowly, letting the chink of his armour bounce around the room.
"My Lord, these children posses the Keromine," said one general, bowing respectfully.
King Samukai's eyes grew wide with anger and he stared down at them again, as if they were some sort of vermin. Jay didn't know what a "Keromine" was, but he had a feeling that if it made the king this mad, he didn't want it anymore.
"How?!" the king cried, clearly ready to hurt someone.
"W-we do not know, My King," one Skulken said, somewhere in the crowd.
The king grumbled something under his breath, then whipped around and grabbed Kai by his throat and lifted him up until his feet weren't touching the ground anymore.
"Show me!" he demanded. "Show me your Keromine!" And he shook Kai intensely.
"I-I don't kn-know wha-at you're t-talking ab-out," Kai choked, trying to hold on to the king's arm.
"Your command over nature, idiot boy!" King Samukai was positively fuming.
Not knowing what else to do, Kai lifted one hand and summoned a small ball of fire. It licked his fingers and sent little sparks flying into the air before disappearing. King Samukai locked onto it and stared in disbelief.
"Impossible..." he breathed. "Impossible!" And he threw Kai to the ground, coughing and gasping. "How did you steal this power?!" King Samaukai demanded to know. But no one knew quite what to say. "ANSWER ME!!!"
"W-w-we didn't," Ann stammered. "We didn't steal these powers."
"LIES!!!" The king shouted, making the whole room shake. "Take them away and interrogate them, one by one! I have other matters to attend to..."
The king turned around and walked slowly back to his thrown while the rest of the Skulkens grabbed Jay and the others by their chains and dragged them back into the dark.