Morning came aboard the Destiny's Bounty with considerably less mercy than any of the ninja would have preferred. The old ship creaked softly in the desert breeze, its battered hull still bearing every sign of the years it had spent abandoned beneath the sun, while somewhere below deck five young Elemental Masters slept wherever they had managed to find enough space the previous night. The Bounty might have been a legendary flying vessel once, but after so long sitting unused it was currently closer to a very large wooden ruin with beds. Dust covered nearly every surface, several floorboards sagged suspiciously under even moderate weight, old ropes hung in tangled bundles from the walls, and enough sand had worked its way inside that Jay had complained before falling asleep that they were technically camping with a roof.
None of that prevented them from sleeping deeply. They had stayed awake far too late the previous night, mostly because rediscovering the Destiny's Bounty had given the four ninja something they had been missing since the Serpentine destroyed the monastery: a place that could actually become theirs again. Even Jinx, who had only officially agreed to join them the night before after considerably more discussion than he wanted to admit, had eventually been dragged into their increasingly ridiculous conversation about everything they planned to do with the ship once it was repaired. By the time everyone finally collapsed, the moon had been high overhead and even Zane had decided continuing the conversation was statistically detrimental to their training performance the next morning.
The next morning arrived anyway.
A tremendous metallic **BANG** tore through the lower deck.
Kai shot halfway upright before his sleep-addled mind understood where he was. Jay rolled directly off whatever piece of furniture he had claimed as a bed and disappeared beneath his blanket with a muffled curse. Cole jerked awake so violently that his head struck the wooden beam above him, while Zane's eyes opened immediately even though the rest of his body remained perfectly still for another second. Jinx, meanwhile, pulled his blanket over his head and made the deliberate decision that whatever catastrophe was occurring could probably survive without him.
The gong sounded again.
Wu stood in the middle of the corridor with the offending instrument hanging from one hand and its mallet held firmly in the other. He looked entirely too awake for the hour, and the peaceful smile beneath his mustache only made the collective resentment directed toward him worse. "Evil does not sleep," he announced as though this explained everything, before striking the gong a third time, "and neither should you."
A chorus of groans answered him from every direction. Kai dragged himself upright, his hair somehow pointing in several directions at once, and stared at his teacher with the hollow expression of someone reconsidering his commitment to heroism. "Okay, okay, we're awake," he muttered, though the enormous yawn that interrupted him suggested his body disagreed. He rubbed both hands down his face before adding, "But if you want us to reach our full potential, shouldn't we at least get a full night of rest first?"
Cole rose more carefully and immediately pressed one hand into the middle of his back. Something cracked loudly enough to make Jay wince from across the room. "You call that rest?" Cole grumbled as he twisted experimentally from side to side. "I think my back has more lumps than the mattress."
Jay finally escaped from beneath his blanket, hair flattened on one side of his head, and shuffled toward a cracked mirror while searching through his things. "That's because we stayed up half the night talking about how cool it was to finally have headquarters again," he reminded them, although there was considerably more happiness than complaint beneath his exhaustion. The destruction of the monastery still hung over all of them more heavily than any wanted to admit, and even this battered ship had already begun feeling like an improvement over having nowhere at all. Jay found his toothbrush, squeezed something onto it without looking closely, and continued around the brush, "Since the Serpentine burned down our monastery, I'm just glad we have a roof over our heads."
He brushed twice.
His expression changed.
Jay slowly removed the toothbrush from his mouth, stared at it, and spat a mouthful of dirt into a nearby bucket. For several seconds he looked between the toothbrush and the little container he had mistaken for toothpaste before whispering something deeply offended under his breath about this ship trying to poison him. Cole began laughing, which only became worse when Jay furiously wiped dirt from his tongue.
Zane had already risen and straightened his clothing, apparently deciding that if they were awake then they might as well begin whatever Wu intended. He stepped over a loose plank and approached their master with considerably more enthusiasm than anyone else could currently manufacture. "What is our lesson today, Sensei?" he asked. "Will we practice mastering the Strike of the Scorpion, or perhaps the grace of—"
The floorboard beneath him snapped.
Zane dropped nearly to his knee as a cloud of dust burst upward from the rotten wood. He caught himself before falling completely through, but the dust went directly into his face, leaving him coughing while everyone stared.
Wu regarded the broken floor for a moment, then calmly looked around at the rest of the ship. "I believe today's lesson," he decided, "will be chores."
The reaction was immediate enough to almost qualify as a synchronized technique. Kai, Jay, Cole, and Zane all stared at him before the word "Chores?!" came from several directions at once, while beneath his blanket Jinx finally lowered the fabric just enough for one dark eye to become visible.
Cole looked particularly betrayed. He gestured toward himself and the others as if their uniforms alone should settle the matter. "Ninja fight, Sensei," he protested. "They don't clean."
Jinx sat up at last, his black hair disheveled from sleep, and looked between Wu and the enormous amount of dust surrounding them. He had only been a ninja for several hours and already felt as if some important contractual information had been withheld. "Just asking before this becomes my problem too," he said, lifting one hand lazily, "do I actually have to do this?"
Wu turned toward him without the slightest hesitation. "Yes, Jinx. You joined this team last night, and therefore the responsibilities of the team are now your responsibilities as well." Jinx stared at him for several seconds before slowly lowering his hand, his expression suggesting that joining an ancient order of elemental warriors had somehow become less impressive. Wu ignored the look and continued, his gaze moving over all five of them. "In order to respect ourselves, we must respect our home and remember where we came from. The Destiny's Bounty may once again become a headquarters worthy of ninja, but at present it is a long way from one. I expect this ship to be spotless when I return, and I expect all of you to put your backs into it."
He struck the gong again.
Everyone except Zane flinched.
Then Wu turned and walked away.
For several moments the five Elemental Masters remained exactly where they were, listening to his footsteps disappear toward the upper deck. Kai eventually looked around at the rotten boards, dust-coated walls, broken equipment, hanging ropes, torn sails, cracked furniture, and enough accumulated junk to suggest that several generations of travelers had used the ship as storage and simply forgotten to return. His shoulders sagged. "This place is going to take forever to clean, let alone fix."
Jay, who had finally managed to remove most of the dirt from his mouth, looked thoughtful rather than defeated. His eyes moved from the mess to the Nunchucks of Lightning resting among his belongings, and slowly the beginnings of a grin appeared. "Unless," he said, raising his eyebrows toward the others, "we put a little more than our backs into it."
Cole understood first.
A few minutes later he stood alone in one of the most cluttered rooms aboard the Bounty, surrounded by broken crates, old rope, rotting pieces of cloth, abandoned tools, shattered pottery, and a collection of objects whose original purposes had been lost to history. He surveyed the mess, rolled his shoulders once, then let a grin spread across his face. "Ninja, go!" he shouted as he launched himself into Spinjitzu. The dark tornado tore through the room, though instead of attacking enemies, Cole used the rotation with surprising precision. Loose trash lifted from the floor and was caught inside the vortex while heavier objects were knocked into organized piles. Broken crates flew toward the doorway one after another, bundles of useless rope followed them, and within seconds Cole burst out onto the deck carrying half the room's garbage within his tornado before releasing it into a growing pile beside the ship.
Elsewhere, Kai and Zane approached repairs with a considerably more destructive interpretation of cleaning. A damaged section of the interior wall had warped so badly that several boards no longer fit properly together. Zane examined it for only a moment before throwing one Shuriken of Ice. Frost spread across the wood, sealing the warped boards beneath a hard layer and holding everything temporarily in place. Kai understood immediately and brought up the Sword of Fire, its blade glowing brighter as heat rolled from it. They exchanged one quick look before both called, "Ninja, go!" within the same rush of movement, their Spinjitzu techniques circling together without colliding. Zane's cold fixed and compressed damaged sections into position while Kai's controlled heat thawed and dried them, allowing the wood to settle more naturally than either could have managed alone. Steam filled the room until neither ninja could see farther than a few feet, but judging from the increasingly pleased sounds coming from inside, they considered this a success.
Jinx had gone above deck.
He stood near the center of the Bounty with his arms folded, staring at an impressive layer of dust coating nearly everything from the railing to the mast. A broom rested against the wall behind him. He had already decided he was not using it.
Instead, he thought back to something he remembered from Avatar.
An Air Dome.
The technique itself had originally been defensive, gathering a shell of compressed moving air around the user, but Jinx saw no reason a defensive technique couldn't become a cleaning technique if enough questionable judgment was applied. He planted his feet apart and slowly raised both hands. The air surrounding the deck answered immediately. At first it was only a breeze, barely strong enough to disturb his clothes, but as his hands gradually moved outward, more and more wind flowed toward him. Dust began trembling across the boards. Loose scraps of paper slid several inches. The sails above shifted despite there being almost no natural breeze.
Jinx kept gathering.
Air compressed around the center of the deck until a faint dome could be seen only through the dust beginning to swirl along its curved surface. He narrowed his eyes, concentrating on keeping the pressure even instead of allowing the wind to escape prematurely. The technique felt somewhat different from the more direct blasts he preferred; rather than throwing air outward immediately, he had to gather it, contain it, and maintain enough circulation that the dome didn't collapse.
Once he decided there was enough, he smiled.
Then he released it.
The compressed wind expanded across the deck in a single enormous pulse.
Every speck of dust vanished.
Unfortunately, so did approximately half the loose sand surrounding the Bounty.
Jinx's expression changed as a wall of airborne grit rose over the railing. The expanding Air Dome had struck the desert with considerably more force than he intended, and the result was a rapidly growing sandstorm that curled around the entire ship. Kai appeared through one of the doors just in time to receive a face full of sand and immediately disappeared again, shouting something furious that was lost beneath the wind. Cole's neatly arranged garbage pile scattered across several yards of desert. Jay's voice rose somewhere below deck as sand began pouring through an open window.
Jinx stood frozen in the center of the beautifully dust-free deck.
The sandstorm circled the ship.
He sighed.
With considerably less enthusiasm, he raised both hands again and carefully began unraveling his mistake. Instead of one large current, he divided his control into dozens of smaller streams, guiding sand away from the Bounty in narrow ribbons and allowing it to settle farther into the desert. He had to reduce the strength repeatedly to prevent the currents from kicking up even more sand, turning what should have been one easy technique into several minutes of tedious elemental precision. By the time he finished, the deck was clean again and the desert had stopped trying to invade their new headquarters, although Jinx could already hear Kai somewhere inside loudly demanding to know who had just filled the room with sand.
Jinx pretended not to hear him.
The repairs continued through the morning with increasingly questionable applications of elemental power. Cole and Kai eventually disappeared into the lower machinery compartments where many of the Bounty's old mechanisms had rusted or fallen apart. Cole used his strength to hold bent pieces of metal steady while Kai carefully heated seized joints until they could move again, though their interpretation of "carefully" resulted in enough banging to shake dust from the ceiling several rooms away. Zane moved between sections of the ship identifying structural weaknesses, occasionally freezing cracked wood long enough for proper repairs to be made, while Jinx followed behind using narrow streams of air to blast debris from machinery and clean places nobody could reach by hand.
Jay discovered something considerably more interesting.
Hidden beneath a canvas sheet and several years' worth of dust was an enormous computer system built directly into one of the Bounty's interior walls. He ripped the cover away, immediately forgetting every chore he had been assigned as his eyes widened at the collection of screens, switches, wires, and controls. Most of it was completely dead. Jay leaned closer, wiped grime from one of the displays, then looked down at the Nunchucks of Lightning in his hand.
Several rooms away, Nya heard the first electrical crack.
She stopped what she was doing.
A second crack followed, then Jay shouted something excitedly.
Nya slowly closed her eyes.
The lights aboard the Destiny's Bounty suddenly flashed on for the first time in years.
Half of them immediately exploded.
Jay's delighted cheering echoed through the ship anyway.
By midday, the Bounty looked less like an abandoned wreck and more like an extremely dangerous construction site. Broken boards had been replaced or reinforced, several rooms had actually become livable, and most of the accumulated garbage had been removed. The ninja eventually gathered around the main deck to address one of the largest remaining problems: the ship's canvas. The old material had torn in several places, and portions of the sail hung uselessly from the rigging. Cole climbed the mast to pull damaged sections into place while Kai and Jay worked below, arguing over whether one of them had tied the rope incorrectly. Zane calmly untangled another line beside them, occasionally correcting both without being asked, while Jinx floated several feet above the deck on a controlled current of air so he could hold one corner of the canvas without needing another ladder.
For all their complaining that morning, the work had gradually stopped feeling like punishment. The Bounty was changing beneath their hands. Every repaired board, cleaned room, restrung rope, and functioning machine made the ship feel less like something they had found in the desert and more like somewhere they belonged. Their monastery was gone, and nothing they did would change that, but as the five Elemental Masters worked beneath the desert sun—arguing, laughing, occasionally setting things on fire, and creating considerably more problems than any normal cleaning crew could have managed—the Destiny's Bounty slowly began becoming a home again.
By the time Nya and Sensei Wu returned to the Destiny's Bounty, the ship had changed enough that Nya actually stopped in the doorway. The dust that had once coated every visible surface was gone, broken furniture had been stacked or repaired, the walls no longer looked like they might collapse if somebody leaned against them too hard, and the massive computer system Jay had uncovered earlier was glowing with life. The surprising part was that the people responsible for all that work were no longer working. Kai, Cole, and Zane were gathered around the restored computer system playing some kind of video game, Kai leaning forward with enough concentration that one would think Ninjago itself depended on the outcome while Cole wore the smug expression of someone who had already beaten him at least once. Zane sat between them with his controller held neatly in both hands, studying the game with the same calm focus he normally reserved for actual combat. Jay and Jinx were the only two missing from the room, having gone up to the deck after Jinx admitted that despite being an Elemental Master, he had never learned Spinjitzu. Jay had immediately volunteered to teach him, and judging by the occasional crash and burst of wind drifting down from above, the lesson had not been entirely peaceful.
Kai heard the door slide open and glanced over his shoulder without pausing the game. "What took you so long?" he asked, only to look back at the screen when Cole immediately tried to take advantage of the distraction. Nya ignored the complaint and stepped farther into the room, slowly taking in everything they had accomplished. She had seen the Bounty that morning, when it had been filled with dust, broken boards, discarded junk, and enough sand to make the inside barely distinguishable from the desert outside. Now the floors were clear, the furniture had been arranged into something resembling an actual living space, and several of the old systems were functioning again. "Wow, this place looks amazing! You guys did all this?" she asked, genuinely impressed, while Cole leaned back just far enough to answer with exaggerated dignity. "Ninja don't just fight, Nya. We clean."
Kai immediately glanced toward him. Cole had spent most of the morning insisting almost the exact opposite, but before he could call him out, Wu stepped inside behind Nya and surveyed the room himself. His gaze moved over the repaired walls, cleared floor, restored systems, and finally the three students who had apparently decided their reward for completing the chores was doing absolutely nothing productive. Still, the faint smile beneath his mustache showed that he was pleased. "Oh, you have exceeded my expectations..." Wu admitted, and Kai's posture straightened slightly at the rare praise.
A horn suddenly blasted somewhere outside.
The sound was loud enough to carry through the hull and make all three ninja look toward the nearest window. Wu's smile changed almost imperceptibly as another honk followed the first, this one accompanied by the distant rattle of an approaching vehicle. "...but can you keep it up?" he finished, turning his attention toward the sound.
Nya crossed toward the window and looked out over the desert. An old vehicle was making its way toward the Bounty, bouncing unevenly across the sand while an impressive amount of scrap rattled from every available surface. "Looks like we're about to have some visitors, and loud ones at that," she observed, just as Jay and Jinx came down from the upper deck. Jinx had apparently survived his first Spinjitzu lesson, although his hair was more disheveled than before and Jay was gesturing animatedly behind him about the difference between actually performing Spinjitzu and using Wind to cheat whenever he lost balance.
The moment Jay heard the horn, he stopped talking.
His shoulders sagged.
He knew that sound.
With a long sigh, he rubbed one hand over his face and said, "Ugh...It's my parents. Please, if they start yapping, just don't let them going, okay? They don't know when to quit. And if you start talking, then they'll start talking. And suddenly, half the day is gone before you know it ends..." His warning became progressively faster the longer he spoke, as though he were personally demonstrating the exact trait he was complaining about, until Kai finally raised a hand and cut across him with an exasperated, "We get it! They talk a lot!" As Jay hurried toward the deck, Kai leaned toward Zane and muttered, "The cherry doesn't fall far from its blossom."
Zane turned his head slightly, clearly considering whether he should correct the expression, but the vehicle outside reached them before he had the chance. It rolled to a stop beside the Bounty in the loosest possible sense of the word, continuing several feet after Ed pressed the brakes before the front bumper bumped into a discarded pile of scrap. Ed stared at the impact for a moment, then gave a small laugh as if this were simply another successful experiment. "Oh, heh. Take a note, Edna: either better brakes or a better bumper..." he said before climbing out and immediately becoming distracted by the piles of discarded material the ninja had cleared from the ship. His eyes widened with delight. "Oh, will you look at all this great stuff? They can't just get rid of it. We should have brought the trailer, Edna."
Edna climbed out from the other side and gave the scrap barely a glance. "This ain't a flea market, Ed. We're here for Jay!" she reminded him, raising her voice enough to ensure there was no chance he could pretend he had not heard her. Ed nevertheless leaned around the vehicle and called, "What was that? Did you take a note?" Edna sighed with the practiced patience of someone who had been answering questions like that for years and replied, "I'm writing it down, Ed."
Jay appeared at the bottom of the boarding ramp with a smile that was so immediate and exaggerated that everyone who had heard him complaining moments earlier knew exactly how forced it was. "Mom! Dad! What are you doing here?" he asked, opening his arms before Edna could reach him. That turned out to be a mistake, because she immediately wrapped him in a crushing embrace and pulled him against her chest. "Oh, look! It's my baby boy! It's been so long since we heard from you!" she exclaimed, squeezing him hard enough that Jay's expression briefly suggested he could no longer breathe. When she finally released him, Jay smoothed down his clothes and reminded her, "Ma, I called you two days ago."
Ed gave an amused little giggle and clapped Jay on the shoulder. "Oh well... It's not soon enough, son. When are you coming out to the junkyard? You say you are coming an..an..and you don't." The mention of the junkyard made Jay immediately glance toward his friends, and the embarrassment on his face deepened when he realized every one of them was listening. "Dad...do we have to talk about the junkyard in front of my friends?" he asked, only for Edna to make the situation considerably worse by cheerfully explaining, "He hates it when we tell people he was born in a junkyard."
Jay closed his eyes.
He already knew where this was going.
Unfortunately, Edna had just noticed Nya.
Her expression brightened instantly as she moved closer and looked the girl over with unmistakable interest. "Oh... and who are you?" she asked before giving a delighted gasp. "You are so cute! You are just my son's type." Jay's eyes flew open and his face immediately reddened as he protested, "Mom!" Nya managed to maintain her composure, though the amusement in her eyes made it obvious she was enjoying this far more than Jay would have preferred. "It's a pleasure of meeting you. I'm sure if you want, Jay can give you a tour. He worked very hard on it," she offered politely, and Jay slowly turned toward her with the expression of someone who had just realized he had been betrayed.
Ed and Edna responded at the same time with an enthusiastic, "We'd love a tour!"
Jay lowered his head and lightly knocked his forehead against one of the nearby wooden supports before releasing another long sigh. Nobody rescued him. Cole was openly smiling, Kai had already begun laughing, Zane merely watched with quiet curiosity, and Jinx leaned against the railing with his arms folded, looking far too entertained by Jay's suffering to intervene. With no escape remaining, Jay reluctantly began leading his parents through the Destiny's Bounty.
The tour eventually brought them to the bridge, where Jay's embarrassment faded somewhat beneath his natural excitement for machinery. He moved from one device to another, pointing toward a large mechanism near the center console as he explained, "And this the bridge. This extends into a periscope. This tells what's going on of Ninjago. And this...if a Serpentine's not giving us the answer we want, and we're late up night..." He paused dramatically beside a complicated-looking machine, giving his parents enough time to stare at it before Edna leaned closer and guessed, "A neuro apparatus to read their minds?" Ed immediately offered his own theory from the opposite side. "An audio appliance to make them talk?"
Jay grinned and opened a compartment in the machine.
"No, a cappuccino machine."
Ed and Edna stared at it.
Jinx, who had followed the tour while carrying a large cup, calmly took another drink through his straw before raising the milkshake slightly and adding, "That also serves milkshakes and hot chocolate, my personal input." He looked entirely too pleased with the modification, especially considering it was probably the only part of the ship's internal systems he had personally demanded. Ed laughed loudly and slapped Jay on the shoulder. "Haha. Amazing, son! We're so proud of you."
Jay actually smiled at that.
Then Cole ruined the moment.
He had been leaning against one of the consoles listening to the tour when a familiar thought occurred to him, and his grin immediately told Jay something bad was about to happen. "Why don't you tell them about the button?" Cole suggested.
Jay's smile disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. He turned toward Cole and gave him a warning look before replying, "Heh heh it's not ready yet." That answer naturally made Edna even more interested, and she immediately asked, "Oh, what's the button?" Before Jay could invent a distraction, Zane answered with complete innocence. "He's working on a special defense system." Kai nodded as if this were the most obvious thing in the world and added, "Something every ninja headquarters needs."
Jinx took another sip of his milkshake and corrected him with, "Well every ship HQ needs anyway."
Ed's eyes lit up. He stepped toward the controls and began looking over them with immediate enthusiasm. "Oh, really? What does it do? Can I help?" he asked, already sounding ready to pull the entire machine apart if Jay gave him permission. Jay reacted much faster than he intended. "No, it's okay. I don't need your help, dad. Let's just leave it alone. Hey, look at the time. Don't you need to get back before it gets dark? I told you, there's dangerous Serpentine out there."
The enthusiasm in Ed's expression dimmed slightly, though he nodded after looking toward the windows. "Uh, I suppose we could get back," he admitted, and Jay visibly relaxed as the group began making its way toward the deck.
That relief lasted only a few seconds.
Cole walked beside Edna with an expression that was far too innocent and told her, "Edna, it was a pleasure hearing about Jay's first potty time." Jay stopped walking.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
He turned around.
Jinx saw the opportunity immediately and, rather than helping Jay escape, made everything worse. Still drinking his milkshake, he added, "Or maybe any embarrassing love stories of his childhood."
Jay stared at him with pure betrayal.
Edna's eyes lit up.
"Oh, wait until you hear the story about the time I caught him kissing his pillow!" she announced.
Kai nearly folded in half laughing. Cole's grin widened. Nya immediately raised one hand to her mouth, though that did very little to hide her amusement, while even Zane's eyebrows lifted with genuine interest. Jay's entire face turned red as he stepped in front of his mother and began urgently pointing toward the desert. "Snakes, Ma. Snakes!" he reminded her, trying desperately to steer the conversation away before the story could actually begin.
Jinx walked up behind him and smacked him lightly across the back of the head.
Jay stumbled half a step before spinning around with one hand immediately rising toward the place Jinx had hit him, but Jinx leaned closer before he could complain. Keeping his voice low enough that it was more for Jay than everyone else, Jinx whispered that he should show some respect. They were still his parents, and embarrassing him in front of his friends was hardly the worst crime a mother and father could commit.
Jay opened his mouth, clearly ready to defend himself, but the words never quite came. He glanced toward Ed and Edna instead. His father had already been distracted by another piece of discarded machinery, while his mother was laughing and trying to remember exactly which pillow the story involved. They were loud, embarrassing, intrusive, and almost completely incapable of understanding when a conversation had gone on long enough.
They had also crossed the desert simply because hearing from him two days ago apparently did not count as recently enough.
Some of the fight left Jay's shoulders.
Jinx noticed it immediately, took another drink from his milkshake, and gave him a small approving nod.
Then he looked back toward Edna.
He was still absolutely planning to hear the pillow story.
Edna finally seemed to accept that Jay was not going to relax until she and Ed were safely on their way home. She raised both hands in surrender as she started toward their vehicle, telling him, "Okay, we're going. We're going." Jay visibly relaxed, though the relief lasted only until his mother turned around halfway down the ramp with that particular look parents seemed to develop whenever they knew their child was trying to escape a promise. "So you promise to come to the junkyard to visit your mother and father?" she asked, planting her hands on her hips and waiting for an answer while Ed continued inspecting one of the discarded pieces of machinery nearby as though he was already calculating how to fit it into the car.
Jay barely hesitated. "Yes, I promise! But only if you leave. I don't want you to get hurt. It's getting dark. Uh, your headlights are working, right?" His voice sped up again toward the end, and Jinx, standing just behind him with the last of his milkshake in one hand, slowly lowered the cup. He had already warned Jay once about the way he was speaking to his parents. Apparently the lesson had not survived longer than a few minutes. Before Jay could continue trying to hurry them away, Jinx stepped forward and brought an open hand across the back of his head. This time a small burst of Wind accompanied the slap. The impact produced a sharp smack, and Jay's feet actually left the deck for an instant before he pitched forward and caught himself on both hands, staring at the floorboards in stunned silence.
Kai's mouth dropped open while Cole immediately turned away to hide a laugh. Nya gave Jinx a look somewhere between disbelief and amusement, and even Zane's eyes followed Jay's short flight with analytical interest. Jinx merely took another drink through his straw and looked down at him as if nothing unusual had happened, the message from earlier apparently still standing: respect your parents. Jay slowly turned his head with murder in his eyes, but before he could say anything Ed climbed into the driver's seat and flicked on the headlights.
The world became white.
Everyone on the Bounty recoiled at once, raising their arms over their faces as two absurdly powerful beams blasted across the desert. Kai stumbled backward into Cole, Nya turned her head away with a groan, and Jay, who had only just pushed himself upright, nearly fell over again while shouting something unintelligible beneath the collective complaints. Jinx shut his eyes and let Wind swirl sand upward in front of his face, only to discover that even the improvised screen did very little against lights apparently designed to signal aircraft from another continent. Ed leaned cheerfully out of the window, completely unaware that he had temporarily blinded nearly every Elemental Master on the ship, and asked, "Heh, like 'em? I used a little extra juice." He switched them off a moment later, plunging everyone back into the much gentler evening light, then smiled toward his son and added with simple sincerity, "Yep. Bye, son. I couldn't be more proud."
The irritation disappeared from Jay's face almost immediately. He rubbed the back of his head where Jinx had slapped him and gave his father a smaller, more genuine smile. Edna climbed into the passenger seat, but apparently she had saved one final attack for the road. Leaning out through the window, she called toward Jay, "And bring Nya with you, will ya? I can see why you like her." Jay's face went red so quickly that even the fading sunset had trouble competing with it. He threw both hands up and cried, "Mom…!" while Nya covered her mouth, very deliberately refusing to look directly at him because she knew doing so would probably make it worse.
Ed laughed as the vehicle started rolling away, Edna waving enthusiastically until they had put several yards between themselves and the Bounty. Jay stood rooted to the deck, watching them leave with the exhausted expression of someone who had survived a battle no one else would ever properly appreciate. Behind him, Wu stroked his beard thoughtfully before the faintest mischievous curve appeared beneath his mustache. "Now that they have left," he said with perfect seriousness, waiting until Jay finally looked toward him, "perhaps Jay can teach us the Art of… Kissing Pillows." The old master failed to keep the amusement from his voice and snickered at his own joke.
For one second there was complete silence.
Then everyone broke.
Kai doubled over first, laughing so hard that he had to grab Cole's shoulder for support. Cole followed immediately, while Nya turned away and finally gave up pretending she wasn't amused. Even Zane produced the small, quiet laugh that always sounded somehow more devastating because of how rarely it appeared. Jinx leaned against the railing with his empty cup dangling from two fingers, laughing openly while Jay stared at his teacher in absolute betrayal. "Argh!" was the only response Jay could manage before throwing his hands into the air and storming back inside the Bounty, his humiliation worsening when another burst of laughter followed him through the doorway.
The amusement slowly faded as evening settled around the ship. None of them noticed the old vehicle growing smaller across the desert, its engine rattling steadily as Ed and Edna began the long drive back toward their junkyard. Behind them, the newly repaired Destiny's Bounty became little more than a dark shape against the sunset, and Ed glanced into the rearview mirror several times before finally letting out a quieter breath. For all his cheerful pride aboard the ship, something had clearly been bothering him since Jay hurried them away. "I don't think he's coming, dear," he admitted after a while, keeping his eyes on the uneven trail ahead.
Edna immediately looked across at him. "Stop it, Ed. He's coming," she told him with the confidence of someone who considered the matter settled merely because her son had promised. Ed gave a small shrug, but his smile had become more uncertain. He had watched Jay surrounded by friends, weapons, machines, and a new home that seemed to offer everything the junkyard never could, and an old fear had begun creeping into the spaces between his pride. "No, he doesn't need us anymore. I just have to remember that," he said, then glanced toward Edna with the familiar absent-minded expression that usually followed whenever he wanted something preserved for later. "Uh, write it down for me, would ya?"
Edna's face softened. She knew Ed well enough to hear everything he had not said, but before she could answer, the fading sunlight revealed a much more immediate problem. Their road ahead had become increasingly difficult to see. "Oh, dear. Lights, dear. It's getting dark," she reminded him, pointing toward the controls. Ed blinked, then immediately brightened as though he had forgotten the concern entirely. "Right, heh. Thanks, sugarplum," he said before reaching down and switching on the same overpowered headlights that had nearly blinded the entire ninja team. Two brilliant beams exploded across the darkening landscape as the vehicle continued toward home.
Far away from the warmth of the Destiny's Bounty, another traveler was considerably less comfortable with the approaching darkness.
The Cemetery of Souls had never been a welcoming place. Twisted trees clawed upward from cracked earth, their branches stripped bare and warped into crooked shapes that seemed to reach for anything foolish enough to walk beneath them. Old stones jutted from the ground at strange angles, some carrying symbols worn almost smooth by age, while pale fog crept between them despite the dry night air. Moonlight struggled through the gathering clouds overhead, and every distant scrape, rustle, and crack seemed louder than it should have been.
Lloyd Garmadon walked through it alone.
He tried very hard not to look like a child who regretted walking through a haunted graveyard alone.
"It's not scary," Lloyd told himself, though his eyes were already darting toward every dark shape between the graves. A branch scraped across another somewhere behind him, and his shoulders immediately tensed. He swallowed before quickly correcting himself, "Um, maybe just a little, but I like scary. Yeah, that's it." He straightened his back, forcing a confidence he did not entirely feel as he marched farther into the cemetery. "I'm the son of the Dark Lord. I love the dark. I eat this stuff for breakfast."
Something moved in the bushes.
Lloyd screamed.
He spun around so quickly that his cape nearly wrapped around his face, but there was nothing behind him except a crooked tree moving gently in the wind. He stared at it for several seconds before clearing his throat and pretending the scream had never happened. His embarrassment quickly gave way to anger as he remembered why he was there in the first place. The Hypnobrai had betrayed him, abandoned him, and chosen Skales over the person who had freed them. That humiliation burned considerably hotter than his fear. "I'm gonna make those Hypnobrai pay for betraying me," he muttered, gripping the old map in his hands more tightly. "I have to find the Fangpyres. If there's anything a snake doesn't like, it's another snake."
He continued deeper into the cemetery, comparing the strange landmarks around him with the markings on the map. Several times he took the wrong turn and had to circle back, growing increasingly annoyed each time some ordinary shadow managed to make him jump. Eventually he reached a particularly warped tree whose trunk had mutated into several intertwined shapes, and recognition immediately lit his face. Lloyd hurried around it, kicking aside dead leaves until his boot struck stone. "Here, by the mutated tree. I found it!" he exclaimed, dropping to his knees and digging furiously around the buried entrance. The stone resisted him at first, forcing him to grunt as he shoved and pulled until ancient mechanisms finally groaned somewhere beneath the earth.
A massive stone doorway slowly became visible.
Lloyd stepped backward as dust poured from its edges. His earlier fear disappeared beneath triumph, and he spread his arms dramatically toward the sealed tomb. "Soon, the Serpentine will know who their master is, and it will be I, Lloyd Garmadon!" he declared before throwing his head back and laughing as evilly as he could manage.
Lightning cracked across the sky at exactly that moment.
Lloyd's evil laugh became a terrified "Ahhh!" as he jumped several feet sideways.
Thunder rolled across the cemetery.
He glared upward as though the weather had deliberately ruined his entrance, then quickly looked around to make sure nobody had witnessed it. Recovering what remained of his dignity, Lloyd returned to the tomb and forced the ancient mechanism open. Stone scraped against stone with a deep groan, and cold air spilled from the darkness beyond. Lloyd leaned forward cautiously.
Two pairs of glowing eyes appeared.
He screamed again.
A massive serpent rose from the tomb, its body covered in the markings of the Fangpyre tribe, but the most striking feature was the pair of heads emerging from the same broad shoulders. Both turned independently toward Lloyd as the creature climbed into the moonlight. One head leaned closer and began, "And who..." before the second continued seamlessly, "...may I say released us..." and the first completed the question with a narrowing of its eyes, "...from our captivity?"
Lloyd took a cautious step backward before remembering that he was supposed to be the terrifying villain in this situation. He puffed out his chest and tried to recover his earlier authority. "Uh, Lloyd. I released you to make the Hypnobrai pay for betraying me," he explained, hoping the slight crack in his voice had gone unnoticed.
Both heads reacted instantly. The second recoiled with open disgust and hissed, "The Hypnobrai?!" while the first twisted its features into an offended sneer. "Those hypnotizing deceivers!" it spat. The second head's anger slowly transformed into a predatory grin as it began, "It'll be..." and the first finished the thought with obvious satisfaction, "...our pleasure."
Lloyd's confidence returned almost immediately. This was going considerably better than his first attempt at commanding the Serpentine. He turned toward the cemetery entrance and announced, "Oh, good. I'll lead the way. Then after that, there's some ninja I want dealt with." He had already begun imagining the look on the ninja's faces when he arrived at the head of an entirely new Serpentine tribe.
The Fangpyre general did not follow immediately.
The first head watched Lloyd with growing amusement and observed, "Sounds like..." while the second head leaned closer and added, "...you know..." before the first completed the sentence, "...what you want." Lloyd turned back with a pleased smile, only for the second head's expression to become more serious. "But the Hypnobrai are strong," it warned. The first head glanced toward the darkness of the tomb behind them and added, "And we are few in numbers."
Lloyd frowned. The single two-headed Serpentine in front of him certainly did not look like enough to defeat an entire tribe, especially one that already had an established army. Before he could ask what they planned to do about that problem, the second Fangtom head smiled and began, "We need..." while the first slowly turned toward the sealed darkness beneath the cemetery and completed the thought with a hiss of anticipation, "...reinforcements!"
Lloyd's eyes followed theirs toward the tomb. "What did you have in mind?" he asked.
Fangtom answered with a long hiss.
Something moved beneath the earth.
Then something else.
The darkness inside the Fangpyre Tomb came alive with dozens of glowing eyes.
Lloyd's uncertainty vanished.
Serpents began climbing from the ancient prison one after another, their scales glinting beneath the intermittent flashes of lightning above. Some crawled over the stone entrance while others rose from hidden passages surrounding the tomb, Fangpyre warriors awakening after years of imprisonment and gathering around their general. Hissing spread through the Cemetery of Souls until it seemed as though the entire graveyard had begun breathing.
Standing at the center of it all, Lloyd slowly raised his arms.
His grin widened.
Then the son of Lord Garmadon threw his head back and laughed once more, this time loudly enough that when thunder answered him from above, he did not scream.
By the time Ed and Edna finally reached the junkyard, the last of the daylight had almost disappeared behind the horizon. Their overpowered headlights swept across towering stacks of scrap, half-finished machines, rusted cars, old refrigerators, twisted pipes, and the countless strange inventions Ed had accumulated over the years, throwing long shadows across the yard as the vehicle rattled toward the house. The place might have looked like a mountain of discarded metal to anybody else, but to Ed it was home, workshop, storage room, laboratory, and treasure chest all at once. He eased the vehicle into its usual spot, shut off the engine, and looked around with the same pleased expression he always wore whenever he returned. "Home, sweet home. And back to the grind," he said, already reaching behind the seat for his toolbox before Edna had even finished climbing out.
Edna watched him head directly toward the large unfinished machine sitting beneath one of the covered work areas, and her expression softened with familiar concern. Ed had been working on the strange mechanical construct for days, adding pieces, removing others, welding on plates, and leaving sketches scattered over nearly every flat surface in the house. She followed him a few steps and rested one hand against her hip before telling him, "Oh, sweetie. You've been working on that thing day and night." Ed barely looked up as he set the toolbox beside the machine and began searching for the right wrench, but there was something quietly hopeful beneath his usual absent-minded smile when he answered, "Well, you never know when Jay may show up."
The words lingered between them for a moment longer than either expected. Edna glanced back toward the road they had just traveled, remembering Jay standing on the Destiny's Bounty surrounded by his friends, then looked at the half-finished machine Ed had been pretending was merely another project. She knew him well enough to understand that half the reason he kept improving the junkyard was because he wanted their son to have something new to see whenever he finally came home. "Oh, you're right. You never know," she agreed warmly, and Ed gave a small satisfied nod before returning to his work.
A shadow passed between two piles of scrap.
Ed stopped moving.
The shape had been there for less than a second, little more than a dark silhouette sliding across one of the gaps between stacked vehicles, but he was certain he had seen something. His wrench remained suspended halfway toward the machine while he leaned slightly to one side and peered into the darkness. "Uh, Edna? Was that you?" he asked, sounding uncertain enough that Edna looked back from where she had been sorting through several bags they had brought home.
She stared at him. "What, Ed? Are you hearing things again?"
Ed didn't answer immediately. His eyes continued searching the spaces between the scrap piles while the smile slowly disappeared from his face, and the junkyard suddenly seemed much larger than it had a few minutes earlier. Metal shifted somewhere in the distance with a faint scraping sound. Ed swallowed and asked, "Uh, you uh, you turned on the security alarm before you left, didn't ya, hun?"
Edna frowned, but she crossed toward the small security panel mounted beside the workshop door anyway. She pressed the activation switch once, then again when nothing happened, before tapping the side of the unit with two fingers. No light came on. No familiar tone sounded. "Uh, must be broken," she muttered, leaning closer as if staring at it might somehow convince the system to start working.
Every light in the junkyard went out at once.
The workshop plunged into darkness so suddenly that Ed dropped the wrench. It struck the concrete with a sharp metallic clang that seemed impossibly loud now that the hum of machinery and buzzing lights had disappeared. Edna stiffened near the wall while Ed instinctively reached for the nearest heavy tool, even though he had absolutely no idea what he intended to do with it if something actually emerged from the dark. "Whoever's there, my son knows Spinjitzu!" he shouted toward the junkyard, trying to make his voice sound far more confident than he felt.
A hiss answered him.
Ed's grip tightened.
From somewhere behind him, Edna asked, "What is it, Ed? Oh, why are the lights out?" Her voice was sharper now, the earlier annoyance replaced by worry as she tried to make out her husband's silhouette. Ed turned toward her and immediately raised one hand, urging her to stay where she was while he kept watching the darkness beyond the workshop. "Call Jay, hun. Someone's broken in!"
Edna reached for the phone.
Before her hand touched it, a small figure stepped from the darkness holding the receiver by its severed cord.
Lloyd Garmadon wore the most triumphant grin he could manage as he lifted the useless phone in one hand. "How about we wait until he calls you?" he suggested before throwing his head back and adding a deliberately villainous, "Muahahaha!" The performance might have been ridiculous under different circumstances, but the glowing eyes beginning to appear behind him made it considerably harder to laugh at.
Edna moved immediately toward her husband. "Ed..." she whispered, gripping the sleeve of his shirt as several serpentine shapes emerged between the piles of scrap. Ed shifted himself between her and the approaching figures despite the fear clearly written across his face. He held the heavy tool in front of himself with both hands and told her, "Be strong, Edna. I won't let them hurt you."
Fangtom slithered forward behind Lloyd, his two heads turning independently as they surveyed the mountains of machinery surrounding them. To ordinary eyes, the junkyard was clutter. To the Fangpyre general, it was potential. The first head began, "If we plan..." while the second smoothly continued, "...to attack..." and the first finished the thought with growing hostility, "...the Hypnobrai..." before the second added, "...we'll need to grow..." and the first finally concluded, "...our army."
Lloyd's confidence faltered slightly as he looked around. He had been far more focused on revenge than the practical problem of actually building an army capable of taking on an entire Serpentine tribe, and Fangtom had apparently noticed what he had not. Scratching the side of his head, Lloyd asked, "And, uh, how do we do that?" His eyes moved from the snakes to the piles of useless machines around them, still failing to see what Fangtom found so interesting.
The second head gave him a wide, fanged grin and began, "Let's just say..." while the first head leaned forward and continued, "...we Fangpyre bite off more..." before the second completed the joke with obvious satisfaction, "...than we can chew." The first head then turned toward the gathered Fangpyres and barked, "Have at it, boys!"
The junkyard erupted with movement.
Fangpyres scattered in every direction, climbing over piles of scrap and surrounding whatever vehicles they could reach. One sank its fangs into the hood of an old truck while another bit directly into the side of a rusted motorcycle. For several seconds nothing seemed to happen, and Lloyd almost opened his mouth to ask whether that was seriously the plan. Then red energy began spreading outward from the bite marks.
Metal groaned.
Ed and Edna stared in horror as the old vehicles began changing.
Rust disappeared beneath darker plating. Headlights twisted into glowing eyes. Exhaust pipes reshaped themselves into fang-like protrusions while tires thickened and engines roared to life without anyone touching them. One battered vehicle lifted itself higher as its frame bent into an armored serpentine shape, while another grew mechanical jaws along the front grille. Pieces Ed had spent years salvaging and rebuilding transformed one after another into aggressive machines painted by the Fangpyre venom.
Ed's fear vanished beneath personal outrage. He stepped forward despite Edna trying to keep hold of him and cried, "My creations! They are turning them into—!"
The first Fangtom head looked toward him and finished with amused satisfaction, "An army?"
The second head immediately grinned wider. "You are correct!"
Lloyd stared around the junkyard with growing delight. Everywhere he looked, more discarded machinery was becoming something dangerous. The plan that had seemed ridiculous only moments earlier was suddenly giving him exactly what he wanted: soldiers that did not complain, vehicles that did not need to be built, and enough firepower to make the Hypnobrai regret ever betraying him. His evil smile returned as another transformed machine roared behind him.
Then Fangtom turned toward Ed and Edna again.
The first head's grin became much less playful as it began, "But we can also…" and the second completed the warning with a quiet hiss, "…turn people, too."
Edna froze.
Ed slowly looked toward her.
Several Fangpyres abandoned the vehicles and began slithering toward them.
The couple backed away together until Ed's shoulders struck the side of the unfinished machine he had been working on moments earlier. Edna clutched tightly at his arm while Ed wrapped one arm around her and kept the other raised in front of them, though the useless tool in his hand suddenly felt very small compared with the fangs surrounding them. The circle tightened one serpent at a time, hissing filling the darkness as glowing eyes watched them from every side.
Edna buried herself closer against him.
Ed swallowed hard.
Neither of them had anywhere left to run.
Morning came quietly over the Destiny's Bounty, with pale sunlight spilling across the deck and turning the endless desert around the ship into a field of gold. Inside, however, Jay had been awake for quite some time, hunched over the half-finished control panel connected to the Bounty's new defense system. Loose wires spread across the floor around him, screws and tools covered nearly every available surface, and streaks of grease marked his cheeks where he had absentmindedly wiped his face while working. He had become so absorbed in the mechanism that he barely noticed Kai and Zane approaching until their footsteps passed directly behind him.
Kai slowed beside the doorway and glanced at the collection of broken boards, damaged machinery, old ropes, and other junk that had accumulated during yesterday's repairs. An idea immediately occurred to him, and the deliberately casual way he spoke made it painfully obvious that subtlety was not his greatest strength. "Sure got a lot of junk piling up. If only there was a place we could get rid of it..." he remarked, letting his words trail off while giving Zane a meaningful look. Zane's expression remained perfectly neutral, but his eyes moved briefly toward Jay, making it clear he understood exactly what Kai was suggesting.
Jay didn't even turn around. He tightened a screw inside the control panel, narrowed his eyes at the mess of wiring in front of him, and replied, "If you don't mind, I'm trying to focus." His tone made it clear that whatever guilt Kai hoped to inspire was currently losing badly against Jay's determination to finish the button. Kai shrugged and continued walking with Zane, though the smirk on his face suggested that he considered the first attempt only the beginning.
Cole appeared a few moments later, but unlike Kai, he had apparently decided subtle guilt wasn't nearly entertaining enough. He walked through the room with one hand held against the side of his head like an imaginary telephone, putting on an exaggeratedly cheerful voice as he said, "Hi, Mom and Dad. Of course, I'd love to visit. What kind of son would I be if I didn't want to?" He continued walking as though involved in a perfectly ordinary conversation, but the sideways glance he gave Jay ruined the performance immediately.
Jay finally stopped working. He sat upright, stared after Cole, and gave a strained little laugh before saying, "Heheheheh. I know what you're trying to do! Okay, look, I might have promised to visit my parents, but there's a lot of stuff on my plate." He gestured at the open control panel and the scattered machinery as though the physical quantity of unfinished equipment should be enough to prove his point. Cole merely raised his eyebrows and kept walking, apparently satisfied that the message had been delivered.
Nya entered before Jay could return to work, and the change in his behavior was immediate enough that anyone watching would have noticed. Jay straightened quickly, wiped the grease and oil from his face with the nearest cloth, somehow managing to smear a little more across one cheek in the process, and gave her what he clearly believed was a smooth smile. "Hehe. Hi, Nya," he greeted her, while Nya's eyes moved from his face to the exposed wiring and then back again without commenting on the grease he had missed.
She leaned lightly against the doorway and asked him, "You gonna visit your parents, today?" There was nothing accusing in her tone, which somehow made Jay respond even faster. He immediately nodded and said, "Uh, sure am. Just about to leave," despite the fact that he was still holding a screwdriver and had made absolutely no effort to pack anything for the trip. Nya smiled and simply told him, "Tell them I say hi," before turning away.
The moment she left, Jay noticed Kai, Cole, and Zane all staring at him. Their expressions ranged from disbelief to disappointment, though Zane somehow managed to make silent judgment look almost clinical. Jay looked between them and defensively asked, "What? So my plate's not that full." He barely finished the sentence before a sudden gust of Wind tore through the room and slammed into him from the side, lifting him completely off his feet and throwing him into the nearest wall with a solid wooden thump.
Everyone turned toward the source.
Jinx stood several yards away with one hand still raised, somehow holding an Oreo milkshake in the other despite the fact that they were currently in the middle of a desert with no restaurant, kitchen stocked with cookies, or reasonable explanation for where he kept obtaining these things. His expression carried the same measured disgust as the others, though unlike them he had apparently decided words were insufficient. Jay slid down the wall and landed sitting on the floor, glaring at Jinx while rubbing the back of his head, but Jinx merely took another sip from his milkshake and looked away as though he had performed a public service.
Not long afterward, Jay found himself outside beside Wisp, tugging gently at the dragon and discovering that Wisp had absolutely no intention of cooperating. The dragon planted his feet firmly in the sand and resisted every attempt to get him moving, which only made Jay more frustrated as the morning grew warmer. "Come on, Wisp! It'll be a quick visit. Just in and out, nothing more," Jay pleaded, pulling again while Wisp responded with a low sound and refused to move even an inch.
Jay was still struggling when Sensei Wu emerged from behind the dragon carrying a thermometer so absurdly large that it was nearly as tall as he was. Nobody asked where he had found it, mostly because Wu carried it with such complete seriousness that questioning the situation somehow felt disrespectful. After inspecting Wisp for another moment, Wu drew the thermometer away and said, "Hm, it is as I suspected. The dragons are molting. They're shedding their scales." Jay immediately released Wisp and looked between the dragon and Wu before asking, "What does that mean?"
Wu rested the oversized thermometer against his shoulder and regarded the dragons with quiet understanding. "Every adolescent dragon goes through a transformation before it becomes an adult. We must allow them to migrate east to the Spirit Coves for their transformation," he explained, his voice carrying the calm certainty of someone who had witnessed the process before. Jay's earlier annoyance faded as he looked at Wisp, and after a moment he asked, "Will we see them again?" Wu's expression softened, but his answer offered no easy reassurance. "It is hard to say. But we need to allow them to follow their path."
The news quickly spread among the others, and the mood aboard the Bounty changed as each ninja gathered around their dragon. Cole rested one hand against Rocky's massive head and stroked the dragon's scales with unusual gentleness, the sadness in his voice unmistakable when he said, "Rocky's going east?" He rubbed the dragon affectionately and added, "Say it isn't so, Rocky," while Rocky leaned into the touch with a low rumble. Nearby, Zane quietly stroked Shard's neck, his expression restrained but thoughtful as the Ice Dragon responded with a soft sound of his own.
Jay's attention eventually drifted away from Wisp and toward Nya, who was standing beside Kai and Flame. The dragons preparing to leave had created an opportunity, and Jay immediately tried to make use of it. He walked over with an exaggerated sigh, looked toward the road leading through the desert, and said, "Well, I guess I gotta go on this long walk all by myself. Sure be nice to have company..." His eyes settled meaningfully on Nya, and to his delight she actually began nodding.
Kai ruined everything before she could answer.
"Of course we'll go, buddy," he declared, throwing an arm around Jay's shoulder with completely sincere enthusiasm. Cole, still recovering from the news about Rocky, nodded and added, "I could use a break," while Zane calmly assured Jay, "All you had to do was ask." Jay's hopeful expression collapsed as he realized that instead of getting a quiet walk with Nya, he had somehow volunteered himself for a group outing.
Then all three ninja looked toward Jinx.
Jinx was standing several feet away with his Oreo milkshake again, slowly drinking through the straw while watching them stare at him. How he still had one remained one of the larger mysteries aboard the ship. He looked from Kai to Cole to Zane, recognized exactly what they wanted, and released a long sigh before admitting, "I guess I can use a break from learning Spinjitzu." There was just enough resignation in his tone to suggest that his attempts at mastering the technique had been going considerably less smoothly than he wanted anyone to know.
Jay groaned under his breath as the situation became even less like the private walk he had imagined. Soon afterward, the group left the Bounty together while their dragons took to the sky above them, massive wings carrying Rocky, Flame, Wisp, and Shard eastward toward the distant Spirit Coves. Wu came along as well, walking at an unhurried pace with his staff in one hand while playing the Sacred Flute with the other. Its strange melody drifted across the desert as the dragons disappeared farther into the morning sky, and Jay looked after Wisp before letting out another tired sigh. "Of all the days to lose our ride…" he complained, already feeling the distance beneath his feet.
They had walked for some time before Zane's attention shifted from the path to the flute in Wu's hands. He had heard Sensei play it before, particularly when dealing with the Serpentine, but had never been given a proper explanation of where it came from. The question seemed to occur to him almost abruptly, and he turned toward Wu before saying, "That flute. You've never told us why it's so special." Wu lowered the instrument slightly, his gaze drifting toward the horizon as old memories surfaced, and the others gradually quieted enough to listen.
"Long ago there were many flutes, created to combat the powers of the Serpentine and drive them underground," Wu explained as they continued walking through the sand. His fingers moved lightly across the old instrument, lingering over marks worn into its surface by generations of use. "But over time, Ninjago's forgotten its ancestors' wisdom, and now this is the only one." When he finished, he lifted the Sacred Flute again and played another short melody, its notes carrying strangely far despite the open desert.
Jay listened for several seconds before the connection he thought everyone was trying to force upon him became impossible to ignore. He looked from Wu to Kai, Cole, Zane, and finally Jinx, clearly suspecting that the entire morning had somehow become a coordinated lesson about being a terrible son. With a weary expression he said, "I get the lesson: respect your elders or else suffer the consequences. Boy, you guys are laying it on thick." Jinx took another drink from his milkshake but wisely said nothing, though the slight movement at the corner of his mouth suggested he was enjoying this far too much.
Wu only chuckled. He lowered the flute once more and continued walking at the same steady pace, allowing Jay to stew in his own interpretation for another few steps before observing, "Perhaps you are only hearing what you need to hear." Jay stared at him suspiciously, unable to decide whether that answer meant Wu was denying the lesson or confirming it in the most irritating possible way, while the others continued across the desert beneath the fading shapes of their departing dragons.
Kai had been listening to the Sacred Flute for another few minutes when his attention drifted away from Wu and settled instead on Jinx. The question had probably been sitting in the back of his mind since the previous day, especially after watching Jay attempt to teach Jinx on the deck, and eventually his curiosity won out. Turning his head while they continued along the desert path, Kai asked, "So, Jinx, how goes the Spinjitzu training, though?" The question immediately drew the attention of the others as well, even Jay temporarily forgetting the increasingly obvious guilt campaign surrounding his parents. None of them expected Jinx to have mastered Spinjitzu after only two days with the team, but their expectations had changed considerably since their sparring match. They had learned very quickly that when it came to elemental control, Jinx was operating on a completely different level from them. Kai, Cole, Jay, and even Zane were still heavily reliant on their Golden Weapons to bring out the largest expressions of their powers, whereas Jinx could call Wind or Darkness whenever he wanted, with nothing more than a movement of his hand or sometimes barely that. More than raw strength, though, it had been the ease with which he manipulated his elements that bothered their pride. Wind seemed less like a weapon in his hands and more like another set of limbs, so a few of them had quietly wondered whether that control would let him learn Spinjitzu much faster than they had.
Jinx's face immediately soured at the question. He took another drink from the Oreo milkshake he had somehow managed to carry across several miles of desert without either melting it or explaining where he had gotten it, then released a long groan. "Ugh, don't remind me. I mean, I get the movements. They're so easy a baby can learn them," he complained, completely unaware—or perhaps perfectly aware—of the damage those words did to three of the people walking beside him. Kai visibly winced, Jay's face tightened, and Cole looked away with the quiet pain of someone remembering how many times he had crashed into a wall during his own early training. Zane alone showed no offense and merely continued listening. Jinx rolled one shoulder before finishing, "But Master says I'm missing something, or to be more accurate, something is blocking me from truly using the technique, so I'm pretty stagnant right now." That part frustrated him far more than learning the movements ever had. He could reproduce the footwork, turns, breathing rhythm, and rotational motion with almost insulting ease, but every time he reached the point where those movements should become actual Spinjitzu, something inside him simply refused to connect.
Nya walked a little closer and gave him a sympathetic look, perhaps appreciating the problem more than anyone else there. "Hey, at least you're doing better than me. I've been here for months and still haven't achieved Spinjitzu," she reminded him, attempting to take some of the sting out of his frustration. Jinx glanced toward her and answered without much thought, "No offense, Nya, but out of all of us, you're the only one without an element, so it's natural for you." He meant it as a simple observation about the differences in their training, but Kai immediately snapped into the role of protective older brother. He turned sharply toward Jinx and barked, "Hey! You don't have to be so rude," while moving half a step closer to Nya as though Jinx had actually insulted her.
Jinx stared at Kai for a second before sighing and lifting one hand in surrender. "Chill, hothead. I didn't say she's incapable," he replied, his gaze briefly shifting toward Nya to make sure she understood that distinction. "Since I'm pretty sure there were people who didn't have an elemental power that could use Spinjitzu. Right, Sensei?" Wu had been continuing to play the Sacred Flute through most of the conversation, apparently content to let his students argue their way toward the answer, but at Jinx's question he finally lowered the instrument from his lips. "Jinx is correct," Wu confirmed as the last note faded into the open desert. "There have been many who have used Spinjitzu without elemental powers." Nya's expression brightened slightly at that, while Kai relaxed enough to stop looking as though he intended to defend her honor with the Sword of Fire.
Their conversation might have continued if Jay had not suddenly stopped walking.
The change in him was immediate enough that everyone behind him noticed. The junkyard had finally come into view ahead, its familiar towers of scrap rising over the desert, but Jay wasn't looking relieved to have reached it. He was staring. Nya slowed beside him, following his gaze toward the silent collection of old vehicles and machinery before asking, "What is it?" Jay's expression tightened as he listened for something the rest of them didn't yet understand. No machinery clattered. No tools struck metal. No voices drifted from the house. Even the strange homemade devices that seemed to be running whenever Jay described the place were silent. After several seconds he answered, "It's quiet." He paused, and the unease in his face deepened before he added, "My family's never quiet."
Jay broke into a run before anyone could respond.
The others followed him into the junkyard, their earlier conversation forgotten as the unnatural silence became obvious. Signs of disturbance appeared almost immediately: overturned tools, scrap that had been scattered rather than stacked, marks cut into the ground, and several vehicles that were simply missing from places Jay clearly expected them to be. He called for his parents as he ran between piles of machinery, his voice becoming more desperate each time no answer came back. Then, from somewhere nearby, came a muffled series of grunts. Jay stopped so abruptly that Kai nearly ran into him, turned toward an old refrigerator lying on its side, and heard the sound again from inside.
He was at the door in an instant.
The refrigerator had been chained and jammed shut from the outside, but Jay barely seemed to notice. He kicked the latch hard enough to break it, ripped the door open, and recoiled when Ed and Edna tumbled partway out from inside. Both had their hands bound and tape covering their mouths, and something about their skin already looked wrong. "What happened? Who did this?" Jay demanded as he dropped beside them, immediately tearing the tape from Edna's mouth. Edna sucked in a deep breath, and when she looked at her son the relief on her face was almost painful. "Sssweetheart, you came!" she cried, the strange hiss threaded through the word making Wu's expression change before Jay even noticed it.
Jay hurriedly pulled the tape from his father's mouth next. Ed barely had time to breathe before panic overtook him, and he tried to push Jay away even while his hands remained tied. "Oh, you gotta get out of here. You shouldn't have come, it's the ssssnakes!" he warned, the same unnatural hiss slipping through his speech. Jay's eyes widened, and only then did he properly notice the faint changes beginning around his parents' faces and the strange serpentine tint spreading beneath their skin.
Wu stepped forward immediately.
One look was enough.
"The bite of the Fangpyre," he said gravely, kneeling near Ed and Edna while studying the marks on them. "Once they sink their teeth, their venom can turn anything into a serpent. It's only a matter of time before the full transformation is complete." Jay looked from his mother to his father in horror, every trace of irritation he had shown toward them the previous day now gone. Edna held tightly to Ed despite their bindings, while Ed tried to maintain a brave expression for her even as the Fangpyre venom continued working through them.
A hiss echoed through the junkyard.
Then another.
Everyone looked up.
Something enormous moved behind the towers of scrap.
Metal groaned, followed by the grinding of heavy wheels, and a huge wrecking-ball crane rolled into view from behind a stack of ruined vehicles. It had clearly once been an ordinary construction machine, but the Fangpyre bite had twisted it into something monstrous. Serpentine armor covered the frame, red eyes glowed from the machinery, and the wrecking ball hanging from its long arm had transformed into a huge, grotesque head resembling a jack-o'-lantern, complete with carved-looking eyes and a jagged mouth stretched across its metal surface. The ball slowly turned toward them as though actually looking.
Cole stared up at it.
For once, even he seemed uncertain whether what he was seeing made any sense. "Uh, is that wrecking ball staring at me?" he asked, his grip already moving toward the Scythe of Quakes as the enormous metal face swung slightly in their direction.
The crane answered for him.
Its arm snapped sideways.
"Duck!" Jay shouted.
The wrecking ball tore across the junkyard with enough force to smash through a pile of old appliances. Jay threw himself over his parents and dragged them down as the massive metal head passed above them, scattering scrap in every direction. Kai, Cole, Zane, Nya, Jinx, and Wu dropped or jumped clear as the wrecking ball completed its arc, the displaced air alone strong enough to whip their clothes around them. Ed hit the ground beneath Jay with a pained groan, then managed to rasp, "Thankssss, sssson."