Chapter Text
Zane opens another drawer. Inside he finds a sword but not the one they're looking for, he closes the drawer with a sigh and moves on to the next. Behind him he can hear Red pacing back and forth when he should be helping check the wall-full of drawers.
Another drawer, more weapons, still not the sword of sanctuary.
He hears Red mutter something indistinguishable even to his audio enhancing software. This anxiety isn’t helping either of them. “Green is a competent fighter, if he does need help Teal can be there in approximately 2 minutes.”
Red whips around like a homing missile that just found its target. “It only takes one minute to die if you get a blast of strong acid to the eyes." He grids out. “Which I hope I don't need to remind you, is what Clouse is throwing around willy-nilly!”
Zane wonders why Red would know that off the top of his head but quickly archives the thought to focus on forming an argument while not faltering in his drawer searching.
“And spontaneous human combustion can happen at any time yet you don’t follow Green everywhere to make sure it doesn’t happen,—” another drawer, this one is filled with throwing stars, Zane pockets a couple, the ninja are always running low on those. “—trust in our leader's ability to keep himself alive just like you trust in his plans.”
The ice ninja glances over his shoulder in time to see Red start looking through the drawers on his side of the room again.
“Yeah well, with his luck maybe I should start.” He bites back, seemingly ignoring the second half of Zane's sentence. Although, the tension in his form has visibly lessened and the fear masked by anger from moments ago has disappeared from his tone.
Zane continues methodically opening, inspecting and closing drawers until a whispered shout of “White!” makes its way across the room. Immediately he comes over and looks into the drawer Red is holding open, his eyes catch on the golden blade sitting inside and more importantly on the impossible way it reflects the closed doors of the room while it faces the ceiling.
Even without its physics defying qualities the sword of sanctuary's distinctive hilt would be impossible to miss. Zane picks it up as Red shuts the drawer and they both watch in fascination and then fright as the doors in the reflection are thrown open by a handful of Chen’s guards.
They both quickly dart to the corner of the room next to the closed doors, the fire ninja mumbles a swear and Zane quietly shushes him. Not a moment later the doors slam open obscuring the ninja from view as the sounds of footsteps make their way into the room.
What Zane assumes is a guard, calls out— “They're not here! Move to the next!” —before the sound of footsteps fades back into the hall which, now that the thick doors are open, is a cacophony of noise and half shouted orders.
The guards didn't bother to shut the doors on their way out so the two ninja are still squeezed into the small triangle of space. Not even 4.46 seconds after the guards exit does Red decide that it would be a good idea to leave said hiding space, Zane grabs his arm and tries to shift the other towards the wall without bumping the door. “We need a plan, and to update Black and Blue.”
Apparently the 2 minutes and 3 seconds of not worrying are over because Red spits out— “What we need is to get out of here with the sword before those guards get to Teal or Green, since they're both, you know, alone!” Red’s voice climbs in volume at the end of the sentence, Zane shushes him again but doesn’t really know how to reassure his team-mate a second time.
Yes Zane is also worried about their family teammates, mostly their leader since Teal is factually safer than any of them right now. Clouse is a dangerous opponent to face alone, but the nindroid has the comfort of statistics running in the back of his mind to quell some of those worries. He doesn’t think Kai would appreciate statistics right now, no matter how positive they may be.
“Teal is by our boat at the moment. If she is found, however unlikely that is to happen in the next fifteen minutes, she will have the entire ocean at her side.” Zane explains calmly, in the background of his mind however he’s considering the effectiveness of a smoke screen, or more accurately a steam screen.
It might be their best chance at getting out unharmed, as powerful as the sword of sanctuary may be one can not stop in the middle of combat to consult its reflection. However their enemies are more familiar with the environment than they are but if they can sneak through the chaos—
Zane snaps back to reality, from where he was briefly lost in plans and calculations, when Red bites a reply— “Yeah but what about Lloy— Green!” The nindroid is about to chide the other but frankly there would be no point, judging by what little he can see of his face he can tell Kai is already beating himself up over it.
His protectiveness of those he sees as family is a little obsessive but expected of someone who had to raise themselves, Zane is sure that if he wasn’t practically trapped underground and in the company of another teammate he would have already—
Oh no—
Nya!
OOOooo-----------oooOOO
When Cole tells them to listen to their leader, Nya considers it for a solid 10 seconds and then decides that the one row boat around the side of the island half hidden in the foliage is not at a high enough risk of getting discovered and destroyed to warrant not helping her younger brother fight the guy that throws literal acid around.
So, Nya makes her way back through the moonlit foliage she basically just came through, jumps the high wall surrounding the estate and immediately regrets having wasted 10 seconds debating with herself.
The ‘palace’ grounds are swarming with guards, some of them clearly just having woken up. Most of them are rushing towards the main building but a good chunk seem to be heading towards Chen’s house, where Lloyd is currently battling Clouse on top of the roof. With the lack of light on the rooftops and the distance between her and the fight she can barely recognize them; much less figure out what's going on.
The lantern lit paths below are a no go, even if no guards are near this area the closer she gets to her friend the more likely it is she’ll be held up. The gaps between the buildings are easily 10 meters or more, Nya can safely jump 4 meters and a maximum of maybe 6.
Luckily for her, stealth seems to have gone out the window. The ninja takes as much of a running start as she can manage from the narrow wall and proceeds to jump towards the closest available roof, her momentum carries her half of the way there and just as she's about to start losing altitude she angles her hands towards the ground, arms locked and slightly behind her.
Her element is refreshing and barely controllable, like trying to stand still against rushing waves. Nya doesn't fight it, she moves with it and redirects its momentum towards what she wants. The jets of water rushing from her palms carry her the rest of the way to the roof even as they try to turn her palms in any direction but the ground. Unfortunately for physics, handstands are Nya’s favorite exercise.
As she jumps from rooftop to rooftop more and more guards notice her, those that try to follow quickly learn why one should not get too close to what are basically pressurized water jets.
The ninja couldn't care less about that since the closer she gets the more she can tell Lloyd is not doing well; he keeps running circles around Clouse and trying his best not to get hit by acid instead of getting in close to the long-mid range fighter. She can’t see exactly what's wrong since he’s with his back to her— keeping his eyes on the mage —but he's holding his right arm close to his chest.
Nya comes to an abrupt stop, gardens decorate the front of Chen’s house and make the space between her and the fight that much bigger. Neither Clouse nor Lloyd seem to have noticed her yet but she bets the sound of pressurized water won't escape their notice if she gets any closer.
Clouse has just ignited(?) another handful of herbs, the balls of toxic lime green float slightly above his hands. Nya raises her own hand, closes an eye, steels her aim and shoots a stream of water right in Clouse's face. The wizard loses his balance and falls over the edge of the flat middle roof, and hopefully off the tiled roof as well; Nya takes the opportunity to water-jump the gap to the taller building, her landing is shabby at best— the water streams are harder to control the longer the distance she uses them for is —but she makes it.
Lloyd meets her halfway and she goes to defend her decision of coming to help as she looks him in the ey– FSM, DAGGER THROUGH ARM, DAGGER THROUGH ARM!!!
"WHAT HAPPENED?!" The words are out of her mouth before she can think it.
"I'm fine,—" "Like curses you are!" "—didn't I tell you not to leave the boat unguarded?" Is that seriously his top priority?! Nya finally takes a second to look over her brother. He's holding his right arm to his chest, a dagger(!) going straight through it and thankfully blocking the bleeding like a cork, there's a cut on his left arm— heavy bleeding staining his sleeve dark red, making blood gather and drip from his glove's fingertips —and a bit of his pant leg is burnt away and sizzling, no doubt from acid that is surely giving him a horrid burn.
If he wasn't already so hurt Nya would hit him over the head. "Are you serious?! You have a dagger sticking out of your arm and you're worried about the boat!"
Lloyd at least has the decency to look sufficiently shamed, she can see him open his mouth —probably to deny his pain and chide her some more— before he snaps his head around to the side of the roof that Clouse fell off of. A second later Nya hears the shifting click of tiles and a moment after that the wizard is back on the same roof level as the ninja.
His hair is dripping wet, his nose broken and dripping blood, his water drenched scowl would be funny if he didn't also somehow look smug.
Lloyd steps behind her —for a second she thinks he's going to let her fight Clouse alone and she's about to praise him for his common sense— and speaks quietly near her ear so that their opponent won't hear. "I want you to rush him, don't push him off the roof again, blast him in the eyes while I get behind him." She tilts her head down, eyes still locked on Clouse, a clear nod to her team-mate and a challenge to her enemy all in one.
Nya rushes forward, her trident catching the bladed tip of Clouse's woldo as they meet. She twists her weapon, it's prongs locking onto the flat blade of the woldo and pulling the whole weapon to the left in an effort to take it out of the mage's hands.
Clouse moves with the sweep, pulling his weapon back as he twists to her left, the sharp spike at the end of the woldo comes around as he moves, he tries to stab her in the side with it but Nya ducks under at the last minute. The ninja hits him in the ribs with the staff part of her weapon— tridents, like woldos, aren't great for close range fighting but unless she wants this to turn into a bō fight with extra sharp bits she has to keep closing the distance.
Clouse staggers back and she catches a glimpse— something she's wasn't able to see from a distance in this darkness— of his right arm, its sleeve and glove seems to be discolored in a splotchy pattern almost as if he'd poured bleach on it… In that second between seconds, it clicks, the reason why Clouse hadn't thrown acid at them as soon as he got back on the roof. He's not immune to it, the only reason his arm isn't in immense pain is the fact it was diluted, still even diluted acid is dangerous and if she blasted one of his acid globs back into his face it wouldn't end well for him.
As soon as the mage recovers his footing he's back towards her, Nya cedes ground so as to get them both away from the ledge, in the corner of her eye she sees a figure move around. Apparently Clouse sees it too because as he moves to eat up the space between them his head snaps towards the figure, which gives her the opportunity to form a glob of water that she immediately directs into Clouse's face with as much speed as the distance between them allows. Clouse sputters and the ninja presses her advantage, forming and throwing orbs of water at her enemy's face.
Before long a wave of bright green energy knocks into Clouse from behind lighting up the darkness of night and throwing him off his feet and to the wooden roof, Nya instantly moves on top of him tying his hands together with the zip ties all the ninja keep on them; next to her Lloyd moves to search Clouse for something, as efficiently as a guy with one arm indisposed can search someone. The glow of his powers still lingers in his eyes giving them a radioactive look as they bathe their small area of previously dark roof in soft green light.
Clouse grunts, the sound made thick and stuffy by his broken nose, even with his face pressed against the rooftop he manages to glare at them with superiority.
Fsm, Nya is seriously considering blasting him again but she settles for pressing her weight into him a bit more.
"Foolish children. Do you really believe you can best me, on my own turf?" Clouse spits the words with the surety of someone whose already won.
That might just be the corniest thing Nya has ever hear, and she's listened to Lloyd and Jay quote starferer at eachother before.
Lloyd looks at Clouse from where he'd started rummaging through the mage's pockets. "I don't think Chen or any of the guards are going to climb up here to untie you anytime soon." Instead of grumbling about his defeat or giving them the silent treatment Clouse laughs.
The sound makes the alarm bells in Nya's head start ringing and not just because he sounds like 3 sunday morning cartoon villains layered on top of each other. "What's so funny?!" She tries to keep her tone calm but her nerves make her voice rough with anger.
Clouse only smirks, his face and hair dripping water onto the wood, then he whistles; a sharp sound that makes Lloyd flinch violently, Nya is about to punch him in the hope of knocking him out.
But then, the ground starts shaking.
OOOooo-----------oooOOO
Blue is frankly very bored and very anxious, one would think that those would cancel each other out but no.
Since they snuck onto the island all him and Cole have done is sit in a bush and panic anytime a guard came near— well… Jay had panicked while Cole did his best to keep him from blowing their cover— but besides that they just had to listen to all the things going wrong.
Okay so only one thing has gone wrong so far but still! Kai and Zane haven't given them any news besides the 'one more vault' thing, which given it was said while they were making their case for going to help Lloyd, isn't the most trustworthy piece of information.
Oh yeah there's also the fact their leader is currently fighting Clouse by himself. The acid guy, the evil wizard with mind control, the terrifying fighter who's been doing this for longer than any of them have been alive!
Not that Blue doesn't trust his leader's abilities, Lloyd is equally terrifying when he gets into the groove of a fight. Jay just can't help but worry.
Luckily —or more like unluckily— the ninja gets snapped out of his thoughts by the ground trembling. Thankfully him and Cole are crouching so the worst it does is shake them a little.
Or so he thought because instead of stopping or getting less intense the trembling only gets stronger. His eyes snap to his friend, panic already flooding his veins.
"S-Since when does Ninjago get earth-h-quakes?!" His voice is only slightly below whisper yelling but with the way the ground shakes Jay would bet Cole is barely hearing him.
Cole's eyes look more confused than distraught, his palms are pressed flat against the ground and his gaze is fixed on it. "It's not an earthquake, can't you feel the difference? Something is moving underground in… tunnels…?" Well if that's not the most ominous thing Jay has ever heard.
Through his panic he recognizes that Cole is right, the vibrations coming from the earth are eerily similar to a metro passing below. Before he even has the chance to fully process that, the ground gives one last hardy shake as something bursts out of it near Chen's mansion. A plume of dust and debris is sent into the air as the long form of… something shoots up into the open sky.
For a second he almost thinks its a train, what with how long and devoid of characteristics it is —as impossible as the thought feels it wouldn't be the weirdest thing Jay's ever seen— but it's too organic, too alive. As the dust clears and the being moves to lunge at something on the roofs below purple scales flash in the moonlight and— OH FSM IT'S A GIANT SNAKE!!!
Jay grabs onto Cole's shoulder without looking and beings to shake the other while his other hand is pointing at the building long snake.
Blue tries to gather his thoughts enough to say something, anything but because bad things always come in threes white smoke starts pouring out the window him and Cole are hiding near, in fact the smoke— no, steam he realizes as it pours over him— seems to be coming out of every first floor window. Oh joy… not!
A moment later two figures —just Kai and Zane, thank FSM— vault the window. Jay yelps as he dodges out of the way of Kai's aggressive landing.
Immediately Kai is yelling into his com, not paying any of them any mind. "Green?! Teal?! Answer me! What was that?!"
In contrast Zane observes the plume of dust still in the air and the sound of something big being dragged coming from where that thing landed, Blue just now realizes that the snake can't be seen anymore over the structures' height so he decides to calmly tell Zane what he saw.
"Ther-re's a G-GIANT snake!" Everyone's eyes snap to him, Kai looks like he's about to set him on fire for seemingly joking in a situation like this, Zane seems to be actively calculating the odds of a giant non-water snake being real.
Thankfully before either can call him crazy Cole steps in. "It's true! It burst out of the ground like a geyser and now it's slithering between the buildings."
Kai's face, what part of it is visible, has this look of complete horror and concern at the existence of a giant snake while Zane's face is doing that thing it does when he's recalibrating his logic parameters.
Suddenly Nya's voice cuts into the silence. "Hey Red, I'm with Green and he's not letting me give him first aid for the dagger sticking though his arm."
Wow Jay never knew a person's eyes could so clearly depict hysteria. He preemptively silences his com and puts his hands over his ears.
"WHAT?!" Kai screams with all the air in his lungs and then some.
OOOooo-----------oooOOO
Green's ears hadn't even recovered from the sharp sound Clouse had let out when a faint trembling started coming from below. It shook the very foundations of Chen's home and made the roof shingle clatter against eachother like the world's worst xylophone.
The trembling wasn't stopping— good thing him and Teal were sitting or else they'd have been knocked over by now— in fact it was getting more and more violent. Over the roaring sound of the world and his own still ringing ears he managed to hear Teal shouting something indistinguishable and angry at Clouse.
Green looked around trying to pin point what could possibly be causing this sort of shaking.
A spell? It was the most likely option given they were dealing with a sorcerer but magic needs a lot more than a single whistle to activate.
Some sort of mechanism? He couldn't see a lot from his vantage point sitting in the middle of the large roof but the far corners of the estate didn't seem to have any giant machinery revealing itself.
A mech maybe? But no, something large enough to cause this kind of reaction would be too big to keep above ground without anybody noticing and to keep it below ground there would need to be giant hatch doors leading into the storage space.
What did that leave? A natural earth-quake? It's too much of a coincidence not to mention—
The sound of snapping wood and crumpling buildings fills the night in a deafening boom. The ground shakes so bad he has to brace himself with a hand on the roof —his skin and scales twist painfully with the cut on his left arm, his right arm's elbow bumps against the roof and sends shards of agony to the dagger still in it.
The air fills with dust and in the newfound quiet Green can hear clay tiles and wood hit the ground like rain.
His eyes scan the dust storm and for maybe the first time in his life Lloyd is thankful for his inhuman eyesight as he sees the towering shape of a giant snake looming above them. It's head looks down from where it'd been pointed towards the sky after it had, presumadly, burst out of the ground. Green sees the exact moment it finds it's target.
He lunges towards Teal, grabs her arm and sprints for the side of the roof farthest from the serpent. She follows his lead without hesitation and that is the only reason they are out of it's sight when it lunges.
As the two ninja fall from nearly three stories up Green hears the giant jaws of the snake snap shut overhead.
The ground meets them quickly and Green rolls with the impact, he gasps in pain as the dagger is driven deeper into his flesh, his already hurt leg scarping against the ground as his left arm and shoulder take most of the impact. He pushes against the pain, fighting for clarity even as it begs to overtake his mind, he has a job to do.
Green is upright not even a moment later, his tail twitches as his balance is briefly thrown off by something incredibly heavy hitting the ground. The dust hasn't as much settled as it had cleared a bit from all the wind thrown around, the two ninja look around for any sign of the serpent but it's most likely going around Chen's home which gives them a bit of time.
Green starts leading Teal around some of the other structures, trying to keep a good balance between moving fast and without sound.
Red's voice shrills from both of their coms. "Green! What happened?!"
Next to him he can see Teal unmute her com to respond but he shushes her quickly, Green can hear the slithering sound of the snake searching. He glances behind them and sees it's bus sized head beginning to round the corner, he grabs Teal's arm and quickly pulls both of them inside the closest available structure.
He shuts the door harshly and for a second he's certain it heard them.
After a brief moment of silence Green finally relaxes, turning around and looking at what appears to be a storehouse of some kind. Crates of uniforms, unlit lanterns as well as barrels of spears and other weapons fill the small space.
His eyes snap to Teal as she gesture to a small overturned crate, "Sit down, I need to stabilize your wounds before you make them worse." She has that look in her eyes, the 'you can't argue with me so you might as well give up' look, which he is very familiar with.
Still they have bigger issue to worry about than his wounds, which aren't even bleeding a lot mind you. "Teal, it's fine we need to—"
"Green so help me Creation if you don't sit down right now that snake will be the least of your worries!" She snaps, voice a whisper that still somehow sounds much louder than anything happening outside.
Green looks between her and the makeshift chair before deciding that arguing about it is probably a bigger waste of time that just letting her treat him is. He sits down, Teal immediately takes out her first aid kit and begins cross stabilizing the dagger with some bandages to keep it from moving or getting pulled out.
Now that he has a moment to think his mind is reeling from what just happened. Actually, what did happen? Clouse has a… pet serpent that was hiding underground on the island. Said snake is big enough to swallow a person whole and not to mention fast.
It could've gotten him and Teal if it had just crushed Chen's mansion so either it's trained to avoid damaging structures or Clouse directed it to go around. It's likely the former since the sorcerer wasn't in the best position to give signals. They can use that against it, hide among the buildings like they just did and get to the boat. Maybe they can—
Red's voice interrupts his thoughts, this time noticeably more panicked. "Green?! Teal?! Answer me! What was that?!" Right, probably shouldn't leave the others in the dark for too long. Hopefully White and Red found the sword.
He's about to respond to Red when Teal moves to pull the bandages around his left shoulder in a move he instantly recognizes as a sling. Green pulls his right arm —barely suppressing a growl of pain— out of the makeshift sling and grabs one of Teal's reaching hands with his left one. He leans away from her. "Leave it, please. I'll need both arms if we're going to deal with Clouse."
Teal looks at him— her eye twitching in that way it does when she's done with people's bullshit— and wordlessly unmutes her com. By the time Green realizes what her plan is, it's too late. "Hey Red, I'm with Green and he's not letting me give him first aid for the dagger sticking though his arm."
"WHAT?!" Kai's voice is so loud Green can clearly hear it not only from his own earpiece but from Teal's as well.
"She's lying! She already stabilized it, I'm just not letting her make me a sling." Green scrambles to explain.
Red sputters for a moment, at a loss for words or maybe he's just so worried his brain shut down. It's happened before, only when Nya got seriously hurt, Lloyd doesn't know why Kai is giving him the same treatment.
Red regains his voice and shouts in rapid succession. "Where are you?!" "How did Green get stabbed?!" "How are you with him?!?"
The questions are pointed towards Teal but Green answers before she can tell Red where they are since that's guaranteed to have him rush over despite the giant serpent roaming around. "Clouse had a hidden dagger that he pulled out while I was restraining him. Teal abandoned her position even after I told you all not to." He shoots her a chastising glare, she ignores him.
Teal takes out a cotton swap, wets it with elemental water and begins cleaning the gash on his left arm. "Yeah well if I hadn't shown up when I did you'd be even more banged up!"
White's voice interrupts the brewing argument. "We've found the sword of sanctuary—" Green lets of a small sigh, a weight he hadn't even noticed suddenly lifting off his chest. "—and are currently with Blue and Black outside the palace. Teal, did you make sure to fully hide our escape under the foliage before leaving?"
Green really hopes she had but judging by the way her hands still where they're cleaning away dark blood from his arm he wouldn't bet on it. The ninja sighs, wet cotton brushes over his wounded skin and scales—
Lloyd yanks his arm back like he's been burned. Teal startles as well before her eyes hardened like she's about to lecture him about first aid again.
He scrambles to find a normal reason for wanting to bandage his own arm. "He— um— got me, with the acid, in the leg— a bit. Can you clean that out please? It's still kind of burning." Her eyes widen slightly and she curses under her breath, Lloyd hates manipulating her like this but he couldn't think of anything else to say.
Three voices yell roughly the same thing, Red's 'You got hit by acid?!?' being the loudest. Shit, Green forgot about the coms, now everyone is even more worried about him when they seriously do not have the time for this.
"Okay, okay! Everyone calm down!" He picks up the bandage roll from where Teal set it down and begins tightly wrapping his left arm as the master of water uses her powers to clean out his acid burn. "I am fine, Teal is actively treating me. We need to figure out how we're all going to get to the boat—"
White's voice cuts him off. "I do not mean to interrupt but there is a large plume of smoke coming from the exact coordinates we left the boat at."
It's silent for a solid 5 seconds, Green's mind is painfully blank with that sort of quiet one feels when they just watched their plan crumble to dust; or burn to ash in this case.
Blue's voice comes over their coms, more a sound of utter despair than actual words, before he says. "W-what do w-we do n-now!?"
Everyone's waiting for him to speak, Green gives the bandages on his left arm one last tug to make sure they're tightened correctly, before saying what they were all surely hoping to hear.
"I have a plan."