skylor

She was loath to let her training standards slip.

Skylor had learned quickly that the longer she sat out, the longer she was benched and stuck on the sidelines, the harder it would be for her to claw her way back up to everyone else's prowess. The punching bag flew back three metres as the element of ice froze it to the opposite wall. Red hair fell in her eyes as Skylor quickly followed the attack with rocks and a final, incinerating fire blast.

"Are you gonna just burn every training bag we own to a crisp?"

"Your input is very much welcome, damsel in distress." Skylor let a smile appear as she swept the ashes of the punching bag into a neat pile. "It's your power, after all."

Skylor dragged a new blue bag and hooked it up to the metal rods attached to the ceiling. Rolling her neck, she re-taped the amber coloured wraps around her hands and began to spar against her shadow and the punching bag again. Her baggy top and exercise leggings were drenched in sweat, but she didn't really want to change in front of him. Or anyone. Liam's disgusted face appeared before her eyes, making a snarky comment that she ignored.

No, Skylor thought, slamming her shoulder into the bag. I don't take criticism from you.

"I brought you food."

Skylor hesitated for a beat in her punch combo. "I don't need to eat, thanks."

The gnawing in her stomach said otherwise, but she pushed it aside and jumped into a roundhouse kick. She fell short, the bottom of her foot barely brushing against the new punching bag.

"You've eaten two apples in two days, Sky. Just take the food." Kai's voice sounded weary but his stubbornness shone through.

"I don't need to eat." Skylor repeated firmly, spinning around to finally face him. "Stop watching me do it as well, damsel."

Kai was nothing like Liam. Kai was here, Kai was holding a tray of food which made her want to puke, Kai was giving her a roguish smile that Liam could never replicate. He was nothing like Liam, but everytime she saw his face, it just reminded her that they'd been friends. That even if he'd stood up for her, she still wondered if he'd known. What Liam did. What he made her do. What, she'd found out, he'd made countless other girls do.

There were reports, about Liam. Filed by a lot of girls - not necessarily from their school, yet enough to give Skylor a strange sense of comfort but disgust. The temptation to reach out to some of them was strong, but what could she say? 'Hi, I'm Skylor Chen. Please ignore my face all over the city because our insane Emperor wants me dead.' She'd figure it out at some point. Maybe pull a Kai and get some cold sweet revenge, not just for her, but for all of them.

"Misako wants to call us to talk about the dragon eggs."

"What time?" Skylor stripped off her wraps and began stretching to cool down. Kai's eyes flicked up to her own and he wrung his hands anxiously.

"Fifteen minutes. I can wait for you if you want."

"No, go ahead. You probably have lots of questions on how to adopt your little baby dragon." Skylor smiled at the thought of Kai in a blacksmith's apron with a small red dragon latched on his shoulders.

"I'll see you later then, knight in shining armour." Kai winked on his way out, and Skylor rolled her eyes. She locked up one of many training rooms and left an apology note about the sizzled training equipment. It was less than thirty hours since they'd been back, but it had felt like forever. Time stuck underground either inched along or sped past. It made life a strange experience.

Skylor showered quickly and then headed straight for the egg room, where she could see most of the elementals were pushing each other to get through the door. There were so many of them there Skylor was beginning to lose count. Now they had Amber, Earth, Ice, Fire, Lightning, Energy, Death, Metal, Smoke, Water, and Healing amongst the others.

Maybe they did stand a chance against Wu.

Her heart warmed at the thought of seeing her father again, but the feeling was quickly snatched away when the few memories of his insane behaviour seized her. Everything about him felt off, everything about him was wrong. He should be back at home on their street, getting coffee and brainstorming more out of the world ideas for Chen's.

Skylor had learnt that you could still feel alone and be shoved into a room of chatterboxes. He shouldn't be alone. She shouldn't be alone, even though she was surrounded by people. Mama. Skylor pressed a two fingered salute to her heart and turned her attention towards Misako, whose excitement was rivalling Kai's.

He was sprawled by the fire egg's containment box on his stomach, nose pressed against the glass. Cole was at the opposite end of the room, as far away from any of the eggs as possible. On the other hand, Zane was doing the thing - where his eyes glazed over slightly when he took in information and data - as he stared down the white egg.

Jay was sitting on top of his boxed egg, staring face down at the whorls of blue decorating the shell.

"You can all choose someone to help you before we start," Misako said with a large beam. "Astra, could you help me with something?"

The brunette looked to Lloyd and nudged him forwards without even stepping forwards herself. Lloyd retaliated by shoving her forwards, and then she pushed him back, so Lloyd stepped on her foot and then Kade had to intervene before they knocked each other out.

Astra cursed under her breath, stepping to her mother's side as Pixal went to Zane's, Nya to Jay's (he stuttered out his request and Nya stuttered out a yes), and Lloyd to Cole's. Kai beckoned her over, so Skylor kept a healthy metre between them and lay on her stomach as well.

"Wait—why is Lloyd wearing a beanie?" Kai looked over the boxes to the other side of the room. "He never wears beanies."

"New fashion choice?" Skylor mused, pressing her fingers to the glass of the box.

"No...something's up. Lloyd doesn't have style." Kai put down his hand. On hers. By accident. He yanked his fingers away from hers like a wild animal, clearing his throat nervously as he raised his hand. His lips were moving in a silent chant (not that Skylor was looking at them or anything) that looked like 'don't look, don't look'.

"Right, erm, Misako. When is Flame Junior going to hatch?"

"I don't know."

"What?"

"I don't know!" she said, practically bubbling with excitement. "Today, we're all going to be writing essays—"

Everyone groaned at that and Misako grinned with a laugh. "Sorry, I'm still in teacher-historian mode. What I meant to say is, I have no idea. There is so much that we don't know about dragons, but it's because all of the texts are contradictory! I nearly had a mental breakdown over it myself."

Misako gave them all a nervous laugh, her right eye twitching. When she snapped her fingers, black-clothed agents filed in the door and began dumping laptops, books, scrolls, tomes, and coffee around the room. "Please help me."

"Just to give you all a quick run down, what we know about dragon history is not scarce, in fact, the abundance of information is what makes it so hard to discern what is truth and what is lies. What we do know is that dragons are strange creatures. Whilst portals like the one Wu wishes to create is a way to travel through realms and dimensions, history books claim that dragons can do so of their own accord."

Skylor arched a brow and leaned in a little closer as Misako continued, "I believe, however, the dragons here are—were, too unstable to do such travel. Having these eggs is good for us, but we must read up more on them and make sure they grow up strong and healthy.'' Misako looked at the egg with such interest, her love for history and all things around it reminding Skylor of her mother's love for gardening. Flowers seemed to bloom everywhere she went, and now she wondered if she'd always kept the element of nature on hand.

"So, if you haven't got a partner already, find someone and start working!" Misako collapsed in the nearest chair and reached for a cup of coffee. "This is nearly as bad as museum rush hour."

Skylor picked up a dusty volume from the pile that was deposited in between Kai and Skylor, where they were sitting on the floor in a corner full of cushions a few metres away from the fire egg. Kai was already burying his nose in a book, his face scrunched up in a way that was a bit dorky. Must be the first time he's voluntarily read in a while.

The Valuable Assets of Dragons was a thin book with lots of pages falling out. Skylor had to prop it up at an odd angle to make sure the aged pages didn't all crumble to nothing.

Chapter One: Scales.

Abercrombie the Fourth once said that a dragon's scales were useless. In a time when dragons were as plentiful as my crops, the scales were one of the most widely hunted materials. Dragon scales were once the most sought after for one sole reason: a blade shall not harm the rounded scales, the strongest warrior would merely leave a faint scratch reminiscent of a cat upon a strong stone. Scales of these mighty beasts were used as armour. Collection would occur upon the death of the dragon, as there is a certain time period within which the scales may be hardened to provide a suit of armour's full extent. I myself am not privy to the details in which...

"They used dragon scales for armour. After they killed the dragons, they used their scales for armour." Skylor whispered to Kai with horrified eyes, running her finger underneath the faded ink. Kai stopped abruptly in his reading to stare at her, gobsmack.

"Let me see that." Kai yanked the book from her grasp and his eyes scanned the pages, widening with every word. "That's fucking disgusting. That's—why would they do that?"

"Money," Skylor scowled, "Protection. Power."

Once upon a time, she thought, Kai might have wanted the dragon scale armour for himself. But the war had changed him. The war had changed everyone, and it would be stupid not to assume so. It made things spiral out of their control. It was a strange feeling - knowing that in the end, everything had to be okay, but the suffering now - was it worth it?

Her skin shivered every time she touched someone. Her stomach was always empty - one thing, one thing, she had control over. She couldn't make sure everyone stayed alive. She couldn't rescue her own father without dying herself. No stupid inspirational posters in Wu's old office could help, because this was war.

War hurts. War kills. So why shouldn't she do the same?

Playing fair was just going to get more people killed, so if Skylor had to play dirty, she'd play dirty.

"Look what I found," Kai leaned into her space a little, smelling like sugar and spice all at the same time. Skylor glanced around the room, seeing everyone chattering away between sips of hot drinks and arguing over authors. "Markswell says that..."

o o o

There was a significant lack of windows underground to judge the time, but by Skylor's SOG watch, it was nearly time for dinner. They'd been served lunch (sandwiches and chips) to fill the grumbling stomachs, but Misako had insisted that they all ate outside because 'crumbs and ancient history do not belong together!'

"Sky. Sky, come here," Kai jerked his head back to their corner. He'd disappeared for five minutes and returned holding a book that looked a bit like the Amber Archive, hair mussed. He flipped frantically the pages he wanted and jabbed at the writing and hastily-sketched images. "Look!"

"Those aren't normal dragons," Skylor said, nearly laughing at her own words. Normal and dragons had never been in the same sentence over a year ago, but now it was less of a surprise than what was on the pages of the Fire Archive.

"They're drawn right from our power," Kai agreed excitedly, pulling her into a hug without a second thought. Skylor squeaked and dropped the Fire Archive, when he backed off with wide eyes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Who are you and what did you do with Kai Smith?" Skylor teased, forcing them back into their light hearted banter with an awkward smile.

"Kai Smith," he said, with a grin that was almost as big as his ego, "Just rediscovered the Legend of the Power Dragons."

Skylor matched his bubbling energy with a smile of her own that felt strange but good at the same time, "Which could be our ticket to destroying Wu."

Hours later, Skylor's eyes had grown watery and sore from staring at the screens and books for too long. Her document had nearly twenty pages of notes, rivalling Kai's twenty five (really, was this his first time actually doing work he liked?), and they'd managed to sort through nearly all of the books. There was only one left, the biggest, and the ugliest. Whoever had chosen to decorate this book clearly did not have a marketing team like Chen's since they'd chosen clashing colours.

Bright green and purple had faded and been covered in brown grime, the symbols on the cover all in a rotation around the title. All of the characters were in a different language, and the book was possibly the oldest of them all. Skylor and Kai both pulled on gloves and tried to begin deciphering the language.

"This doesn't make any sense," Kai whined, pushing his laptop aside. The chatter in the room was quieter now as the exhaustion began seeping into the room. "They're not Ninjagen or Common."

"Way to point out the obvious," Skylor muttered, and Kai sent a burst of flames towards her coffee in retaliation. She froze his coffee, he unfroze his own, and Skylor froze hers to cool it down. From the otherside of the room, she caught Cassie's stern eyes watching Kai's display of fire. Troya had talked to Kai and Skylor the least - outright avoiding Kai, and if Skylor had to guess, it had to do with the little incident of Kai nearly frying her to a crisp.

"She's dangerous," Kai said, following her concerned gaze with blazing eyes. "Just because she wasn't the one who hurt my parents doesn't mean she hasn't done bad things before."

As far as Skylor had known, he hadn't apologised. Neither party had, so they just carried on hating each other silently.

"You should try to apologise." Skylor suggested.

"Apologise? To her? Are you crazy? No way I'm doing that." Kai crossed his arms across his chest and sank into the darkness of their corner.

Skylor shrugged and continued trying to decipher the words. Kai and Cassie's spat was between them, and it would be on them if their fighting made them lose. If it got to the point where even their current tense civility wasn't an option, she'd step in. Skylor wasn't Kai's mother, and he could make the choices he wanted. He'd made that very clear during their school times.

"Kai. About the Power Dragons, should we tell everyone else?" With the discovery of Power Dragons, they'd accidentally stumbled upon something that could help them defeat Wu. A mode of transport that couldn't be hacked, that was another source of energy and power, that could turn the tides of a battle. If, they achieved their True Potential.

"I dunno," he said, back hunched. His mood was already dampened just by mentioning the assassin, but he begrudgingly let both of them peer over the pages of the Fire Archive. "This isn't one of Calla's entries, which is why I didn't think of it immediately. It's from a younger Master of Fire, someone called Keegan."

"Upon achieving my True Potential, I had one more step. I believe previous Masters never got past this stage, for facing and conquering your fears is the key. I faced my fear of heights mid-battle, which allowed me to fall and conjure my Power Dragon at the same time. It was a long and arduous process, but I find that it is worth it. Upon unlocking my True Potential, then my Elemental Dragon, I don't believe I've ever been stronger." Skylor read aloud, her voice softening with the last words. This was what they needed, but they hadn't even achieved their True Potential yet.

The Power Dragons were pretty much a lost cause.

"We wait, then." Kai agreed with her silent disappointment. "Until we can actually do something about them."

"Yeah, we should probably get back to it." Skylor sighed, tying her hair back up with a pencil stuck in the bun. Misako walked over with a kind smile and refills. She looked a little different to normal - her sort of beige clothes were gone and replaced with a jacket and pants, keeping her green scarf wound around her neck. It gave her the air of a modernised aviator.

"Have you found anything?"

Skylor shook her head, chewing on her bottom lip out of habit. "No, it's in a different language, but I don't think it's in reference to anything about dragons. There aren't any drawings of dragons, a lot of snake ones, but they don't look like ours. Blocky, sort of."

Misako gently took the book from Skylor's lap and scanned the pages quickly. "You're right, it hasn't got anything to do with dragons. In fact, I don't even know where this came from. As far as I know, it's not from our central library or Ninjago's central one either. This language...it's not ours."

The historian ran a hand over the cover and her eyes narrowed slightly. Skylor followed her line of sight to the details she hadn't noticed before, the ones that were faint and smudged with dirt. "This book is written in the language of the Serpentine—"

"Where are they?" The door to the room burst open and a stream of fighters filled the room. "The elementals." demanded the leader of the squadron, throwing down his mask to the floor. His face had been beaten black and blue and his nose was set at a crooked angle as blood trickled down into the collar of his suit.

"We're right here, Scynth. What do you want?" Astra was standing in front of the very pissed off guy in a flash.

"There's a rumour going around on the streets," Scynth hissed, "That there's a new Quiet One. We just got ambushed on one of our regular supply routes that no one but the Sons of Garmadon know about. We lost Koll in the battle. We've never lost someone on a mission like this. It's routine. It's safe. A civilian died too."

Astra didn't back down from his spiteful scowl. The elementals pushed their way through the lake of agents until they were in a cluster with each other. Nya and Pixal's comforting smiles reassured Skylor when Scynth spoke next.

"That means someone in HQ has betrayed us. So who is it, Rea? Who's the new fucking Quiet One?"

—

A/N: my laptop is heting up gtg byeeeee (short very information packed chapter but kailor for yall i guess) also next chapter we're doing snakes and i'm not going to add three extra sss to every s there is unless i want to so pls just deal with it

This chapter's song is 'traitor' by olivia rodrigo (*cue laughing from me)

This chapter's Q is: favourite elemental master?

My A: lloyd astra skylor or kai (can't choose won't choose :) )

-dommie out