https://youtu.be/eBGCYiToNEY

THE TRICK | AJR 

we'll get out of this

'cause i love you, it's true

but if you're doubting this

if you're doubting that i do

then oh my god, we're screwed 

hello hello my loves i'm back with our longest chapter so far! 

i did notice as i was putting this together that in mid april of 2020 i published the first alternate chaos. so, happy three year (holy shit) anniversary alternate chaos and the invention of zenjago! it has become so much more than any of us could possibly expected! 

a little note! at the very beginning of this chapter i describe the physical sensation of being disconnected from your realm as an elemental master who possesses an intrinsic link to it. essentially i'm just saying 'they're uncomfortable in prolonged periods outside of zenjago!' but i do it with all my fancy writer words.
obviously i'm just making up how it would feel, but i kind of subconsciously based the description on how my anxiety and body dysmorphia feels like (something i only realised after writing it). just a heads up in case that might be triggering for you! i've left a little (!) at the beginning of the paragraph, in case you want to skip it. 

ok that's it see you later bye 

It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that every single one of the Ninja from both realms had one hell of a big day. By the end of it, they were falling asleep over their home-delivered puffy pot stickers (which did keep their immaculate taste across realms, thank the First Master). That evening, the Z!Ninja were shown quarters they could use for as long as they needed.

"Preferably, not long at all," Skylar had said.

And soon, everyone was settled. Well, as settled as one could be with the unease of completely abandoning your ill-prone city as the main and only protectors of it.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

Because the police are apparently useless and haven't adapted to the clearly new-normal of constant elemental, magic or otherwise induced peril.

Hello again, it's me, the omniscient narrator I introduced in the first two chapters then immediately forgot about. I remembered I exist.

Anyway, carry on.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

(!) The night passed slowly, too slowly, those from Zenjago couldn't help but find. Despite the visual similarities of their world, it wasn't right. They could feel it. Perhaps even those who weren't gifted (cursed) with an innate connection to the realms could feel it, but those with it? The elemental energy that usually grounded them had never felt so uncomfortable. Like an item of clothing that was just that bit too tight, the ninja truly felt their displacement. The powers that ran through their veins pulsed as they normally did, but it was no longer invigorating, instead, it was claustrophobia-inducing. Their skin crawled from the internal sensation of constriction. The feeling resulted in not only a persistent anxiety that hung over them all, but a hyper-awareness (on top of their already superhuman awareness) of themselves, this world, even the realms beyond, and how they did not belong.

Ninjago was not their home, and as much as their minds and souls knew it, their bodies and powers did too.

They slept in unease that evening. Well in need of a rest, but never quite able to achieve it. Even in unconsciousness, the prickle of this ill fitting realm persisted. Many a time did someone awake to the darkness and, for the first time in a long time, they were uncertain of their place.

It was similar to the experience of having a nightmare in your youth at a sleepover, too scared to move in case your little feet creak the wrong floorboard and wake up these foreign parents, so you just sit, and stare and wait till morning, frozen in your discomfort. The ninja had never felt so little, so wrongfully there, so scared of creaking the wrong floorboard.

The next morning they awoke as exhausted as the day before, but there was work to be done. Hope was thin, but their determination was less so, and strong enough to raise them from their beds and set them to early study. This wasn't their first hopeless situation, and it wouldn't be the last. They would find a way home. They had to, and so they would. That was just how it had to work, how it always did work.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

By the middle of the morning Zane had brought in muffins, made with time only the First Master themself could know of. Jay, last night, had also done as he promised and whipped up charging cables for their phones and various other electronic Borgtech devices, not to mention jailbroke them from their Zenjago-connected state. While there was still no way to make contact across the realms (they lost a solid hour trying that one at midday), Morro was able to now play Roblox and Ally had recovered her 100 Day Duolingo Streak.

It wasn't a lot, but it was something.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

By midday the entirety of the two teams had gathered around their massive table, the one that still bore the paper with 'DEPARTED REALM' printed in Harper's handwriting after their mini-lesson yesterday. Littering the room were numerous books from a number of libraries in Ninjago (courtesy of PIXAL), and scrolls from 'Master Wu', the same Wu as Zenjago's just Ninjago-ified. From brief mention, he seemed to be similarly cryptic and elusive. The Z!Ninja were told he was currently out on a separate mission.

"Typical," Ally had replied. She gave no additional context. 

They sat and they read and pitched idea after idea. None seemed to hold up under what little reliable knowledge (albeit, as reliable as hypotheses could be) they did have.

Hours passed, but all that changed was the position of the sun. No new ideas. Nothing.

Zane eyed Kai, who had fallen asleep in his chair some fifteen minutes ago. "Maybe it is best we call our efforts here for the evening."

"Surely we're missing something." Realm clenched her fist. "We have to be missing something."

Ally rested herself face-first on her corner of the table. "Maybe this is it. We're stuck here forever," she mumbled with some difficulty, considering her face was rather smushed on the wood.

"Don't say that. Don't even joke about it," Zap responded quickly.

Harper rocked back and forth in their chair. They had the Realm Blade back in their hands, turning it around as though there was some angle she couldn't have seen in the past five, six, seven, eight hours (they had lost count many ago).

Morro, seated beside them, enjoyed poking it at random intervals to see if it would spark a reaction, either from the Realm Blade or his sister. The latter responded far more frequently, and violently.

"Maybe we're overthinking it."

Cole glanced up, clearly exhausted as well. "What?"

"Maybe we're overthinking it," Skylar repeated, standing and stretching slowly after hours of being hunched over the table.

"Probably," mused Zap. "That's like, our whole thing."

"How could we be overthinking it?" Morro asked. "We know nothing about all of this. There's nothing to overthink."

"Maybe you know nothing about it," countered Harper. "But if you listened to any of what I've said ever, you'd know we actually know quite a bit about all the Realm Theories and how this ties in."

"Aren't they just theories, though?" Jay cocked his head to the side. "No one has actually gotten this far with practical research and understanding."

"I guess we'll have to be the first, then," Zap pulled a tugged on a strand of their hair over and over. "Why not?"

"Add it to the resume then!" Ally exclaimed. "'Breakthrough Scientists', right under 'saviour of the world a million times', because you know that looks awful on a resume."

"'Get an actual job when you grow up,' was what my mom used to say..." Morro added. "L to her, she's fuckin' dead now. Who's got the actual job now mom?"

Harper's forehead creased. "When did mum ever say that? Do you even remember her?"

"That's not the point right now."

"You're right. It isn't," Sky diverted the immediately distracted turn of conversation. He looked at the blonde fire elemental.

They raised an eyebrow, curious as to what the ice elemental's serious expression might warrant.

"Remember our Dungeons and Dragons campaign, the one where we fought the god?"

"That's the point right now?!" Morro exclaimed incredulously.

The others ignored him.

"Uh, yes," said Harper.

"And the crystals. Those goddamn crystals you home-brewed that fucked us over a million times?"

Zap couldn't help but sigh at the memory of the group being overwhelmed by a swarm of rats when Morro had attempted to harness the power of one of those crystals. Sessions worth of chaos from such a simple item.

"Where are you going with this?" Harper leant forward.

"When we finally figured out how to use them, we had to put them together, right? They were too unstable on their own but if you put two of them together the energy of each crystal stabilised the other, right?"

Harper hummed in affirmation. "Yeah." They smirked. "It took you idiots so long to figure that one out."

"Also not the point!" Ally defended.

Zap's head snapped up. "Are you saying we need to find another Realm Blade to stabilise the one we already have?!"

Sky shrugged. "I mean, it's worth a shot."

"If I recall correctly," Ally held up her finger, "didn't we also almost die trying to put those crystals together? They were so unstable the energy of two would either cancel out and stabilise or they would multiply and worsen."

"She's not wrong. What if that happens with the Realm Blades and suddenly we're in another new realm?" Zap said.

"Or, we get split up in different realms," added Realm.

Jay glanced around at the table. "If I may interrupt. What I'm hearing is that you're all formulating a plan based on a Dungeons and Dragons campaign?!"

"But you don't know Harper like we do. Whatever crystal bullshit she made up was probably based on some completely abstract unknown theory in real life."

"Actually! It's based on the Theory of-"

Morro rolled his eyes. "For the love of the First Master, one dumbass theory is enough for me today. And ever." He kicked his feet up on the table once again.

"These 'dumbass theories' have saved your dumbass a million times."

"That is also not the point," he dismissed once more. "Anyway, what I'm saying is that this isn't the first time we've used our D&D experience on a mission."

"Really?" Zane raised his eyebrows.

"You'd be surprised," said Skylar.

Nya furrowed her brow. "Even if all of this did work, we'd need another Realm Blade. We don't have one of them."

"It's almost like they're impossible to attain because they're so dangerous and unreliable it would be stupid to have and use one." Harper crossed their arms, unflinching.

"You will never give this up," Morro sighed.

"Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna turn around and desert you," hummed Ally.

"We'll give it up when we're not stuck in a foreign realm anymore," said Zap. Morro sighed again.

"Nya's right," Skylar interjected. "We don't have another Realm Blade anyway. Never mind. We'll have to think of something else tomorro-"

"Hold on," Harper's eyes flicked from Sky, who had begun to sit back down dejectedly, to Realm. "Who says we need a Blade to achieve the stabilising agent we need?"

Realm's eyes widened. "I basically have the same power as the Realm Blade."

"Even after yesterday's little show?" Skylar asked.

Realm shrugged. "I could probably do it."

"Don't like the sound of that 'probably'," Lloyd noted.

"Probably is better than nothing!" Ally countered. "We've got a shot!"

"We do?!" Jay glanced up from trying to fit a pencil in Kai's ear.

Zane nodded as he followed with the conversation. "The Equilibrated Realm Theory relies on the balance of realm energy maintained across realms, so it would make sense the same could be applied at a smaller scale to ensure the stability of portals opened within and across them."

The group––save for Kai, who had missed the entire conversation for he was still asleep––looked around as they drew some kind of (albeit, flimsy) conclusion.

"So that's the plan for tomorrow? Try and stabilise the Realm Blade with Realm's powers?" Zap asked. They knew the answer, but she couldn't help but ask for confirmation as though it would instil some kind of confidence.

"That's the plan... I guess," Cole nodded slowly, somewhat uncertain.

"And we might be home by tomorrow," Skylar added, sounding more hopeful than they were.

"Fuck, would that be nice," Harper sat back in their chair.

Ally narrowed her eyes. "Wouldn't it Morro?"

"You make one mistake! One time! And suddenly I'm the villain!"

"Yes," everyone said at once.

"First Master, I'm going to bed."

Zap raised their eyebrows. "That's a first."

"Leave me alone!" Morro shouted over his shoulder as he left the room.

Kai jumped up from the table suddenly, woken up by Morro's shout. "Huh? What?"

"You dozed off for a sec there, bud," Cole mused.

"Did I miss anything important?" He glanced around with wide eyes, adjusting to his conscious state once more. "It was only a second, right?"

"Something like that," Cole patted him on the shoulder. "I would explain but all I really got from that was that our plan is based on a Dungeons and Dragons campaign."

"I can explain," said Zane. "Based on the Theory of-"

Kai was already asleep again by the end of his first sentence.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

Zap readjusted their grip on the Realm Blade. The team had maturely, as always, decided who would be controlling the Realm Blade with an incredibly mature game of Rock, Paper, Clamp (Morro was obviously excluded from any decision-making or possible choices). Zap had been the winner? Loser? No one was entirely sure, herself included. She looked up at Realm, who stood directly across from her and wore a similar look of oscillation. "Ready?"

Realm took a deep breath, scrunching her shoulders high on her inhale and dropping them when she exhaled. "Not really."

"That's promising," said Jay, who stood at the edge of the monastery's steps with the other N!Ninja. They were there should they be needed - whatever that meant.

The rest of the Zenjago team had positioned themselves in various positions across the training space, some ready to help Realm, others Zap.

Skylar had the most certain job of any of them: "If shit gets way fucked, freeze the Blade."

For everybody else? No one was quite sure what exactly was going to happen, so the mental (and physical) preparation was more along the lines of: "Be ready for fucking anything, I fucking guess," as Harper had put delicately.

"Well, go team," said Zap with a shrug. She couldn't decide if she was feeling encouraged or hopeless at that moment. Perhaps both.

"Go team," Sky repeated blankly.

"It's okay guys, according to the Theory of Girlbossing, if we believe in ourselves and manifest it to the realms, it has to work." Ally performatively snapped her fingers. The smile stretched across her face was clearly forced. It dropped quickly as she took the moment to mutter a prayer. "First Master, do not fuck me. I know it happens a lot, honestly you seem to have it out for me most of the time. But just this once, please, I beg; do not fuck me over."

Harper listened with bemusement. "Well, that was encouraging."

"I guess let's just send it," said Morro. "Now or never."

"Now or never." Realm rolled her shoulders for what must have been the fifth time that minute. "Guys, let's do this shit."

The mouths of the Z!team fell open in unison — all save for Harper, whose smirking expression resembled something like pride.

"Did mom just swear?!" Skylar exclaimed, turning their head from side to side in search of some confirmation he didn't just imagine it.

Before 'mom', or anybody else, could respond, Realm squeezed her eyes tight and fists even tighter. As she did so, those — familiar to some and new to others — streaks of orange light saturated her veins. The room filled, as though to burst, with an innately drawn power that sent the Realm Blade in Zap's hands mad with energy. It crackled with unstable energy that manifested into what appeared as fluorescent orange lighting. The lightning leapt from blade to blade, growing faster and brighter with every second as Realm essentially charged both herself and it.

Zap cried out in surprise at first. Then, she tightened her grasp and furrowed her brows with newfound confidence and determination. Lightning, huh? She thought. If there was anything Zap knew, it was lightning.

"Now Realm!" She shouted.

Enacting the plan they had organised earlier that morning, Realm grunted as she drew her arms up and out to her front, directing the immense flow of energy at the Realm Blade. Her muscles flexed hard, for it was as though she was trying to punch through thick molasses. Her hands, glowing with spheres of welling power, shook more and more until from them, streams of now-blinding energy suddenly burst and hit the Blade. With a massive 'crack!' the lightning that danced across the blades sprung from them and outward, stretching the fabric of reality so thin it snapped. Thus, forcing a portal into existence.

As the portal grew, deep copper energy swirled around and around, deepening from the initial brilliant light into an abyss of inky black. It was soon over two metres in diameter, fizzing and crackling and snapping and expanding like a hungry wildfire. Eventually, it began to stabilise at two and half metres wide.

There, fuelled by Realm, spun the doorway to Zenjago. Home was mere steps away.

Everybody stared, 'like stunned mullets' as Kai and Harper may have said. It felt impossible to draw their gaze away from the hypnotising spinning pool that was quite literally severing the fabric of their reality right in front of them.

"Di- did it work?!" Ally shouted over the noise of the vortex. "Does it go to Zenjago?!"

"It's home! I can feel it!" Realm growled from between her gritted teeth and clenched jaw.

"Now what?" Morro asked. "Did we actually think we'd get this far?"

Skylar stared blankly between the portal and Morro. "Uh, I'm now realising we only came up with a 'everything goes to shit' plan, and we don't actually have a 'hey, this worked somehow' plan.'

"Go! GO!" The earth elemental master roared.

Morro glanced around briefly for anyone to contradict the instruction. No one did. "Sounds like a plan to me," he shrugged, turning toward the Ninjago Ninja. "Sayonara, losers, thanks for the muffins!" Before they could get out so much as a 'goodbye!' the boy sprinted full-speed at the vortex.

However, just as he began to leap through, another 'snap!' that was louder than ever rang out. The Blade immediately spurred out of control. It took all of Zap's strength to maintain her grip.

"What happened?!" Zap called.

"I don't know but it's no longer stable! I can't keep it!" Realm responded, kicking her feet into the ground (until they were literally in the ground).

"Fuck!" Harper cursed. "Morro, get out of there!"

The boy currently found himself in the unfortunate position of half between realms, his right leg and arm already through. "I'm trying!" He screamed, tugging his limbs back to no avail. "It's pulling me in!"

The edges of the portal began to strike outward in lightning-esque tendrils of crackling elemental energy. It was expanding, and not with the same (or any) stability this time.

"Realm! Stop it!" Ally shouted, already at Morro's side. Together, they pulled. He wouldn't budge.

Realm's eyes squeezed tighter as she did her best to reign in the energy. "I'm trying here!"

"This is bad, this is very bad," Jay hummed from the doorway.

"How do we even help?!" Cole called.

"Sky, freeze the blade, QUICK!" Zap cried. The Realm Blade jumped more sporadically from side to side in her hands, increasingly dangerous with every new bit of energy that fed it. Now it really was a hungry wildfire.

"Morro!" Ally shouted. The two were still pulling him from the portal as hard as they could but they were simply no match for the vortex. The rest of the boy's body was seconds away from consumption into abyssal nothingness.

Then, it all happened at once.

Realm made another, last heave of energy more powerful than she had ever achieved. She screamed in exertion as she wretched the streams of energy to her sides. The blazing flow of orange fractured with an almighty 'crack!', splitting the power away from the out-of-control vortex.

Harper leapt and dove for their brother, tackling him at the waist and shoving him hard into the ground - she dragged Ally with them, instinctively pressing herself atop her younger siblings as a shield.

From Skylar's already outstretched hands ruptured freezing cold ice particles. They curled themselves around the tips of the Realm Blade, sprawling up and over the blades until it was encased in ice in mere moments.

A final, massive 'clap!' struck the air so loud it was cringe-worthy. With it, the portal folded into itself and disappeared. Incandescent lightning struck into the air one last time, resulting in a vibrant wave of energy that dispersed in rings. In seconds, it was gone as quickly as it had been conjured.

Zap dropped the now-icy Realm Blade, letting it clatter to the stone. With each hit on the ground, little puffs of energy spread in pale orange ripples into the floor. The rattling only added to the reverberation of the portal's loud exit.

"Well, that was something," Realm commented. She promptly proceeded to faint, collapsing backward to be caught just in time by Skylar.

The rest of the team heaved breaths, seemingly unable to get enough air into their lungs.

"Hey! Get the fuck off us!" Morro cried, punching at Harper's shoulder, which was digging into his face.

"You're welcome, I love you too," Harper replied sarcastically. They rolled off him and released Ally from her other hand which was wrapped around her protectively.

Morro leapt up, dusting himself off with a scowl. "I didn't need your help-"

"Shut up, Morro," Skylar hissed, eyes fixated over his shoulder. The group followed her gaze.

"No, fuck you. Don't silence me, just because I'm a trans man. I was saying that Harper didn't-"

"Morro for the love of the First Master, shut up and look," Harper said firmly, seriously. So serious even Morro snapped his mouth shut and looked behind him. What little colour remained in his cheeks drained.

He looked to the centre of the room, where everyone stared, suspended in terse silence.

There sat the Realm Blade in a growing puddle of water. Its usual hum of power flickered once, twice, three times, then not again. Remnants of electrical sparks of energy danced around the tips of the blades before fizzling out, extinguishing entirely. An artefact that had intrinsically possessed such great elemental capability - so much so, its presence was consistently felt by the other elemental masters - no longer contained such ability. A powerful item no longer, all they stared at now was an intricately carved lump of metal.

The absence of its immense power was immediately felt. Like a cavity carved into the room in the blade's place, there was something missing. Something big. They had become used to its hum over the last two days of staring and holding and hating the Realm Blade.

Little did they realise - until, as irony often goes, that very moment - as much as the Realm Blade was the bane of their existence, it was their hope as well. It was their ticket back to Zenjago, back home.

"It's fucking... it... I..." Skylar stared at the blade with furrowed brows. "What the fuck?"

"You can restart it, Realm, right?" Zap's eyes flicked from the blade to Realm, still unconscious in Skylar's arms, to the blade again. "She can restart it, right?!"

Harper sighed. "I don't think that's how it works."

"So what does that mean?!" Zap cried. "How do we get home now?!"

"Good question," said Harper in a blunt, but not unkind tone. They didn't say anything more, there was nothing more to say. How were they going to get home now?

Ally slowly sat up from the ground. "That was so not a slay." 

Morro scratched the back of his neck with a vague expression. "Well, shit."

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

That afternoon, and into the evening, the ninja sat around in dejected silence. The morning's events left them especially exhausted, not to mention, feeling incredibly hopeless. As one can imagine, such a combination doesn't make for great conversation partners, nor planners.

They spent their time on various tasks, none of which were particularly fulfilling.

Realm, of course, slept for the rest of the afternoon. That girl could not seem to catch a break from extreme elemental exertion in times of late.

Harper holed herself up with the scrolls and books, determined to find a new solution. Morro sat beside her, silently playing Roblox. He continued to wear the same, vague expression and for the first time, he wasn't able to invest himself in the simulator's awful graphics.

Ally was uncharacteristically quiet. With a pair of borrowed headphones from Cole, she sat and listened to her music. Not a single 'what the fuck' comment was made in a number of hours.

Sky and Zap tried a number of different things to fill the time; cards, video games, training drills. Nothing held their attention enough to become distracting.

The N!Ninja did what they could to accommodate, including housing the now dead Realm Blade somewhere out of sight. That was of course after Jay had run significant tests to see if he could possibly revive it (he couldn't).

By early evening they all gathered in the massive living room to eat. Despite Zane's excellent cooking, no one could find it in themselves to eat much. To fill the quiet, Cole switched on the TV. They spent a while flicking through channels, eventually landing on some (children's) show about underwater sea-creature rescuers. Cole had originally made to skip it, but was met with shouting from a number of the ninja. It turns out, if there was one consistency across realms, it was children's shows.

"I can't fucking believe it," Harper said suddenly as the credits of the episode began to roll.

"The genius of that show? I know right!" Ally nodded seriously.

"I- what? No. I'm talking about the Realm Blade."

"Ah... that makes more sense."

"I've looked it over for ages," Harper continued, "I can't find anything."

"We'll find another way, we always do," replied Zap, patting them on the head comfortingly.

Skylar tilted their head to the side. "What even happened to the Realm Blade today? It was stable then all of a sudden-" he mimicked an explosion with his hands, "not stable. I don't get it."

Zap shrugged. "It must have gotten overpowered by Realm. That much energy for anything or anyone, even herself, is a lot."

"So it just- gave up? The Blade was able to get all five of us across realms, and the Preeminent here, so smoothly we didn't even notice. It makes no sense." Sky bit her lip.

"You can say that again," said Harper, leaning their head back. Zap patted them atop the head a second time, this time for good luck.

Morro opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by the TV, which automatically switched to the Ninjago News Channel. They were left face to face with one pink-clad, microphone-holding Gayle Gossip.

"Fucking hell, that's never good," Kai cursed, sitting up straighter.

"I'm Gayle Gossip, coming to you live with Ninjago TV News with Ninjago's latest news updates. This afternoon," the television screen cut away from Gayle to an aerial shot of Ninjago City, which was almost identical to Zenjago City, "the city was infiltrated by a sudden influx of hundreds of serpentine."

"Huh?" Jay looked up from whatever he was scrolling through on his phone.

"After the resolved relationship between the people of Ninjago and Serpentine Tribes, as well as the recently signed Peace Settlement between Serpentine leaders and the Mayor of Ninjago City, Serpentine have often surfaced in Ninjago. While it is still uncommon, there are those that even live permanently as residents in the city and Serpentine populations in above-ground Ninjago are growing according to the latest census data. Despite this, the Serpentine tend to prefer to stay in their tombs under the city. For this reason, they are rarely seen en masse, especially in large gatherings." The TV shot did indeed show a large group of Serpentine. There were at least a couple hundred, blocking roads and city-goers on their various ways.

"What is going on?!" Nya's eyes widened at the sight. "Has anyone talked to Skales recently?"

The N!team shook their heads in response.

"I take it, this isn't a normal day in your city?" Zap asked.

"It sure isn't!" Jay exclaimed, pulling himself to his feet.

"The leader of the emerged gathering identified himself as Skales, the current King of the Serpentine. He claims they have been displaced from their tombs. We go to him now-"

At that moment, they heard the sounds of the front door to the monastery opening. Whoever was entering made no effort to conceal their presence. The N!Ninja glanced at each other, confused.

Cole looked up. "We weren't expecting anyone today, were we?"

"I'll go see who it is," Kai said, jumping up and jogging toward the front. "Turn it up so I can hear!"

The shot returned to one featuring Gayle, this time standing beside the Serpentine himself. "I am here, live with Skales, King of the Serpentine. Do you have anything you want to say to Ninjago?" Gayle held the microphone under the fanged mouth of the former-General. He glared at it disapprovingly.

"What the hell is going on?" Skylar breathed, completely bewildered.

"Our home, the tombsss where we built our ssssociety is filled with imposssterrsss! The Ssserpentine of Zenjago are under attack!" He declared, slithering closer and closer to the camera until his eyes filled the screen.

"Uh, you can move back, Sir," the voice of Vinnie behind the camera could be heard.

"I'm sorry," Gayle interrupted, tapping Skales on his back, "did you say 'Zenjago'?"

The tension in the room reached new heights as they all dropped their jaws.

"First Master," Harper muttered, eyes going wide.

Zap sat up swiftly. "You all heard that, right?!"

"Lloyd!" Kai shouted from the front of the house. "It's your mom!"

Lloyd's green eyes narrowed in confusion, then widened in sudden realisation as he focussed on the TV and picture of the Serpentine in Ninjago once again. "This isn't good. This isn't good at all," he sighed.

Ally, who was already lying on the ground, stood up quickly. She then proceeded to throw herself back onto the ground for optimal dramatic effect. "Fucking. Lovely. Because everything else was going grand today."