Okay, I'm back with another chapter! I am happy to report that my Mandalorian fanfic is complete, meaning that I will be updating this story on the regular!

Updates will after every Bad Batch update, going every other.

Enough of me. On with the show!!

~~~~~

Charlie did her best not to trip as she walked through the halls of Kryptarium with the other Ninja. Walk was an overstatement. Rather, the Master of Darkness shuffled since her ankles were bound with chains as well as her wrists. On either side of them were cells with angry prisoners, rattled against the bars.

Jay whimpered nervously, tripping over his bound feet.

"Don't look scared, look mean!" Cole told him as he helped him up. "You gotta look hard in a place like this."

"Meat, fresh meat." The prisoners cried angrily.

Their resentment made Charlie uneasy. But what unsettled her more was the fact she couldn't feel it. The prisoners began to chant their cry, as if demanding to be let free to attack the Ninja.

"Don't mind them," the warden leading them away said. "They all get a little grouchy when they don't get their meat."

Just then, a woman dressed in lunch attire came running down the hall with a food cart. She handed out meat to the prisoners. Charlie released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

Jay chuckled nervously as they shuffled along faster, eager to get out of there. Lloyd grunted in struggle as he tried to get his chains off.

"Kryptarium Prison," Zane said thoughtfully. "we've been here before, but as guests, never inmates."

Lloyd growled, the cuffs digging into his patchy skin.

"You can try, but those shackles are made of Vengestone." The warden said. "Pretty good for shutting down your powers, and makin' sure you don't ghost out of here." His last words were directed at Cole.

The Master of Earth took that as a challenge. "Oh, yeah? But how good are they against my super strength?" He grunted as he struggled to break them off, but the chains didn't even move. "Just wait, almost got them." He tried one more time before giving up.

"They aren't gonna break." Charlie told him. She was still a little upset that Cole had left her and Jay to fend for themselves. Logically, she knew that her lover was trying to do the right thing, but it still hurt that he left her like that.

As they walked through the prisoner, a skeleton recognized them. He broke off his arm and swung it at them through the bars.

"We're shuffling, we're shuffling." Cole said nervously as they moved as fast as they could with their chained ankles.

They came to a door and the warden stopped in front of it. "Since you're celebrities, I took the liberty of taking you out of the general population..."

Kai smirked. "Ha! Who doesn't love special treatment."

The warden opened the door. "...and placing you in the super mean and dangerous population."

Charlie's eyes widened as she looked on at the inner of the holdings. This was the part of the prison she was most familiar with. The large, round room was lined floor to ceiling with cells, all filled with angry prisoners the Ninja had put in there. In the center was a single watchtower, overlooking the prisoners with hawk-eyed guards.

"You're real special, all right." Nya said with a pointed look at her brother.

"It's non problem, Warden." Lloyd said as they were led to a higher level. "We'll do our time until all of this is straightened out. Like I said before, we were framed."

"That's what they all say." The grey haired man said with a chuckle. "Now, get in your cell, inmates!" He patted himself down as they stood outside a large cell. "Gosh, darn it, I forgot my keys again. Well," he turned back to them. "Stay here while I go find them."

Charlie frowned as the prisoners rattled the bars of their cells. Even without her powers, it didn't take much to see that these people had an evil in them, in one form or another.

"A-at least they're locked up." Jay said with a nervous laugh.

As he spoke, a man with a mechanical arm opened the cells with his technology. All the prisoners surrounded them, and they weren't cuffed with Vengestone. The man with the mechanical arm came closer to Lloyd. His good arm had the sleeve ripped off, and his face was twisted into a nasty scowl that his thin mustache did not compliment. But other than his mechanical arm, his only recognizable feature was his patched, black bowler hat that shadowed his mechanical eye.

"Nifty gadget." Lloyd said with a sheepish smile. "Did you make that?"

"They call me The Mechanic." He said through a growl. "And I got a bone to pick with you."

Lloyd's friendly demeanor dropped. "Well, that's one more bone than you've got in your entire arm. Let me guess, you don't have much of a spine either."

"I used to repair noodle trucks for Master Chen and his underground organization." Said the Mechanic, ignoring Lloyd's comment about his arm. "When you put him out of business, you put me out of business!"

Zane stepped forward. "Then by my observations, that was your own error. Working for a crime boss isn't a very reliable career choice."

The Mechanic's good eye twitched. "By my observation, actions have consequences. And you have to pay! This Nindroid here, it's got spare parts. I could use a few in a place like this."

The prisoners cheered in agreement, but that didn't dampen Lloyd's resolve. Nobody threatened his team. "And I could use a spare arm!" He stepped forward, his green eyes flashed with a held back power. "These chains won't stop us."

Before a fight could break out, the warden returned. "Got my keys!" He said cheerfully. His smile faded when he saw the rising tensions. "Oh, come on, knuckleheads. Shade hands and be friends."

Lloyd and the Mechanic stared each other down for a moment before grasping hands. The Mechanic's grip was hard, and when Lloyd tried to pull away, he didn't let him.

"Just wait until I get my hands on your Nindroid." He said before letting go.

Another guard came down and took everyone back to their cells. Lloyd rubbed his knuckles, still sore from the Mechanic's grip.

"Let's hope Dareth gets us out of here soon." Kai said as the door to their cell closed. "I don't know how much longer we can last in this place."

Charlie let out a sigh. "If Dareth's getting us out, we better expect to be here for awhile."

~~~~~

Dareth walked up to the glass divider. The Ninja were on the other side, all cramped together as Lloyd held the phone to talk. Dareth took a seat on the other side and grabbed the phone.

"What are you doing to get us out of here!?" Cole screamed instantly.

"This is no place for a Nindroid!" Zane cried.

"I don't look good in stripes!" Kai said.

"They're all so mean!" Jay shrieked. "Help us! You have to help us!"

Lloyd shushed them before speaking into the phone. "While we're stuck in here, the djinn is out there."

Dareth nodded. "I know, I'm doing everything I can. Borg wanted me to let you know that the djinn broke into Hiroshi's Labyrinth Stronghold and took the Realm Crystal. The good news is everything else is accounted for. The bad news is the djinn may now have his old crew back."

"You have to get us out of here, Dareth." Kai said, hazel eyes wide. "You're our manager. What are you doing to manage this?"

Dareth glanced over his shoulder to the warden before raised his hand to the phone. "Did you get the cake?" He whispered. "I baked some tools in it for you to cut through the bars."

"Cake?" Jay asked. "We didn't get any cake."

Cole stiffened. "Uh, how was I supposed to know there was something in it?! I thought it was just crunchy!"

Charlie turned to him. "You ate our only way out!?"

Dareth put his hand on the glass. "Well, sounds like you're on your own. Be strong, little ninja." He put the phone down and walked away.

"What so so you mean on our own?!" Charlie practically yelled.

"You're not leaving us in here!" Jay cried.

"Wait, Dareth!" Kai called. But it was too late.

They really were on their own.

~~~~~

At lunch, the Ninja all followed the flow of the crowd and got their meals. Meal was an overstatement, it was a pile of slop.

Kai groaned as the lunch lady poured a heap ton onto his tray.

"A little extra since your my favorite." She said.

Nya smirked at him. "You said you wanted special treatment."

As they walked floor to find a place to sit, Jay addressed their dilemma. "So the bad guys are out there, while the good guys are in here. It's not fair."

"What is it your favorite movie character would say?" Charlie asked. "Fair isn't a word where I come from."

Jay scoffed. "The word was 'fear'. And if intergalactic space hero Fritz Donnegan was there, we'd already be out!"

Cole groaned as he bit into a muffin, but his teeth wouldn't penetrate. He tapped it against his head. "Ugh. Is this a muffin or a fossilized rock?"

A lunch server walked by and spat at the Master of Earth's feet. "Earth Ninja, no one likes you. What's Earth anyway?"

"He's a Jay fan." The Lunch lady explained, earning a chuckle out of the Blue Ninja.

They came to a table half full of criminals and sat down.

"Hi, guys, care for some ninja company?" Lloyd asked.

They all got up and left.

"Guess they can't all be fans." Charlie said with a shrug.

"We may be out of the action, but that doesn't mean we can't take action." Lloyd said. "So what do we know about this djinn?"

"Did someone say djinn?" A new voice asked. Captain Soto, in place of his peg leg was a fork. "You best not be speaking about Nadakhan the Djinn."

"His name is Nadakhan the Djinn?" Kai asked.

"Hey, it's Captain Soto." Jay pointed out. "The first captain of the Destiny's Bounty."

"And it's Jay, the whiny sniveling blue pajama man who says everything obvious." Soto snapped back.

"Why can't anyone here be nice?" Jay asked as Nya chuckled.

Soto got off the table. "But who be you?" He asked Nya. "I don't know you. Are you a...uh...a pajama woman?"

Nya smiled. "Yes, you can say that."

Soto squinted. "No. You look really familiar for some reason."

"Let's cut the small talk." Charlie said from where she sat next to her brother. "You know him?"

"Know him? I was the one who caught him."

"So you were the one who trapped him in the teapot?" Kai asked. "But how?"

Soto looked at all of them. "Catching a djinn is harder than steering a galleon upstream in a storm with a leaky hull. But let me try to articulate me words so that you can visualize it. Long ago, me crew aboard the Destiny's Bounty, ​​​​​​the finest ship ever built. Save one other: Misfortune's Keep. Nadakhan the Djinn was the most feared pirate of the high seas. Since he was from another realm, his powers were unmatched. He and his crew were always one step ahead.

"The trick to catching a djinn ain't be getting him into the vessel. It's making sure he don't poof away when you try to do it."

"Ha!" Kai laughed. "Easy. Just with him into it."

"Easy?!" Soto cried. "Everyone knows you can't wish for more wishes, you can't with for love, and you can't wish to harm others. Wishing a djinn into a teapot would most certainly fall into that category."

"What do you mean you can't wish for love?!" Jay asked suddenly.

Charlie looked across the table at him, raising a suspicious brow.

The Blue Ninja glanced at Nya, his ears turning a familiar red. "What? I'm asking for a friend. Heh."

"Don't let us stop you." Cole said to Soto. "You were just about to tell us how to catch a djinn."

Soto nodded. "Certainly. To stop a djinn, you must–"

"Well, well, well!" Said the Mechanic. "Looks like you saved us some seats." He sat down at their table, a few other prisoners behind him. "Now let's talk about those spare parts."

"Not now, Sprocket Arm!" Cole snapped. "We're dealing with first tier bag guys here. You're fifth tier! Maybe fourth tier, tops."

"Fourth tier?!" The Mechanic cried. His buddies raised their lunch utensils as weapons.

Soto grinned maliciously. "Look at that, pajama people, they have all the weapons. And you are chained." He let out a laugh.

Cole smirked, and Charlie's heart fluttered slightly. She tried to fight that feeling. She was supposed to be mad at him!

"Yeah. Sounds like it's almost a fair fight." Cole said.

They charged, using their lunch trays as shields. Charlie ducked, swung, and fought the best she could with her chains. She stood back to back with Lloyd, their sibling minds syncing as they locked eyes. Lloyd nodded to her, signaling for her to grab his hands. Charlie locked hands and kicked her feet off the ground. She vaulted over Lloyd's head and kicked at several prisoners.

When she landed, she noticed every Ninja but one fighting. "Where's Zane?" She asked. "I don't see him." She gasped. "Where's the Mechanic?!"

On the other side of the room, an arc of electricity shot out. Charlie turned to see Zane emerge, buttoning his shirt and putting some wires back in place.

With their friend in view, Lloyd and Charlie fought their way over to Soto. "Finish what you were gonna say." Lloyd demanded. "You said you knew how to catch Nadakhan."

Soto threw a man over his shoulder. "The only way to slow a djinn long enough to catch one is with the venom of a Tiger Widow. One drop is strong enough to kill a man or tire a djinn, so he don't be poofing around."

"Tiger Widow?" Charlie asked. She had read every book in her uncle's monastery and she'd never heard of that. "I've never heard of one of those. Where do we find one?"

"You don't! They be the rarest of creatures, indigenous to only one island that's found on no map, but me own."

That's when the guards came and escorted the prisoners away to their cells.

"Not the Ninja!" Cried the warden. "They go to the Hole for starting this mess."

Lloyd grunted in struggle as he tried to talk to Soto. "Wait! Tell us where the map is, Soto!"

Soto was being taken away to his cell. "Break me pit of this place and I'll tell you! You want the map? I want me freedom."

The Ninja were all being escorted away. Kai let out a groan. "I guess we could try and find this Tiger Widow on our own. In eight to ten years!"

Lloyd's smirk didn't go unnoticed by Charlie. "Lloyd? What are you thinking?" She asked.

Lloyd's eyes flashed excitedly. "Or we could just outta here tonight and take Soto with us." A glint of metal flashed in his sleeve, earning Charlie's curiosity. What did her brother have planned now?

~~~~~

The Hole was literally that. A metal pit with a barred hatch above. Each Ninja was chained to the wall.

Jay let out a sigh. "This has to be our lowest point. We're in a hole. Rock bottom!"

"On the bright side, if we were never arrested, we never would've talked to Captain Soto." Nya reminded him with a smile.

Zane looked up at the door, at least 20 feet above them. "If only we could use our powers again."

"First things first." Said Lloyd. He shimmied and out from his sleeve fell a fork.

"A fork?!" Cole asked incredulously. "What are we gonna do? Eat our way out?!"

Charlie's mismatched eyes lit up. "From Soto's leg. Lloyd, you're a genius!"

Lloyd chuckled as he picked the locks on his chains. Once he was free, he used his powers to break everyone else's chains.

Charlie summoned her Darkness. The smoke billowed in her fingers, lapping against her hand with a cold touch. "Great, we got our powers back. Now, how do we get out of this hole?"

Lloyd smirked. "Cole will escape through the bars, then he'll figure out a way to free the rest of us."

Cole used Airjitzu to fly up and phase through the bars before breaking the lock. He offered a hand to Charlie as she flew up, smiling kindly. The Master of Darkness knew she couldn't stay mad at him for such a petty reason and reflected his smile.

"Once we escape the hole, we find Soto." Lloyd said as they ran through the empty halls. "Jay, make sure we're not seen."

The Master of Lighting summoned his power to zap the security cameras. Once that was taken care of, Kai ran and got Soto, using a Fire ball to melt the bars of his cell. Unfortunately, Soto replaced his fork leg with a horn leg that sounded with every step.

"Once we have Soto, Zane and Charlie will make sure we're not followed." Said Lloyd.

As he spoke, the Masters of Ice and Darkness used their powers to create an ice slick on the floor and a murky fog that stopped the guards.

"Since they'll have the main doors well guarded, we'll need to make our exit through the sewer pipes." Lloyd said, much to Jay's dismay.

They used their powers to blast a hole in the wall before slipping behind it and climbing into the sewer. Kai put up a poster on the damaged wall to disguise it from the guards.

"If we're spotted, Nya, help us make a quick getaway." Lloyd ordered.

The Master of Water nodded. She used her powers to create a waterslide through the tunnel. Kai held up Cole, making sure he wouldn't hit the water. Finally, they blasted outside, far away from the prison.

"We made it!" Jay said through a collective cheer.

Soto laughed and kissed the ground. "Thank you, pajama people."

Kai nodded. "Alright, Soto. We held up our part of the bargain, now you hold up yours. Where's the map?"

"The map's hidden within a lantern." The pirate said. "Light its candle and it'll show you the way."

"Then where's the lantern?" Jay asked. "Gosh, all you pirates are so long-winded."

"Ah, it'd be our nature. We can't refuse a good treasure hunt."

"Where's the lantern, Soto." Charlie asked.

"That's the tricky part. It's aboard his ship, Misfortune's Keep."

Cole groaned. "Ugh, Nadakhan's ship? I thought we said we were trying to avoid that guy."

Soto shrugged. "I never said it was going to be easy. Good luck, and may the winds always be in your sails." He paused, looking at Nya. "Wait, I suddenly remember why you looks so familiar." He let out a hearty laugh. "Oh, my, that be a charm! By word, you're a spitting image of her!"

"Of who?" Nya asked.

Soto waved his hand away before walking off, leaving the Ninja on their own.