"Are you serious?!" Kai asked the exhaustion leaving his body.

"I'm in," Nya repeated.

"Well, that's awesome! Why don't you come over to the apartment tomorrow and I'll explain everything!" Before Nya could say anything else, Kai hung up the phone and went to explain everything to Cole. After he had explained the two of them made plans to recruit Zane and Jay.

******

Two weeks later everyone was sitting on the old couch in the apartment. "So I know everyone is wondering what you're all doing here," Kai started.

"Not really. No," Jay interrupted. Kai sighed before continuing.

"I was thinking that if we all came together, we could form a gang."

"A gang?" Zane asked.

"Yeah. It'd help the city-"

"If you want to help the city, you get a job at the police station," Jay remarked.

"That's what I said!" Cole exclaimed giving Jay a high-five.

"How exactly is a gang going to help the city?" Zane asked leaning forward.

"Well, uh...if there are no more gangs, the city is safer."

"Again, police station." Jay cut in. Kai sighed once more. Recruiting was proving to be more difficult than he thought. "Besides, what's in it for us?" Kai thought about the question for a second.

"Money." He started, "I'll pay you for a bit and if you decide it's not for you, you can leave." Nya and Cole both looked at each other before standing up.

"If you'll give us a minute," Cole said before grabbing Kai's arm and dragging him into the kitchen.

"Are you sure about this?" Nya asked, her voice hushed.

"Yes, why wouldn't I be?" Kai asked.

"How do you plan on paying them?" Cole asked, crossing his arms.

"I have some money saved up."

"From what?" Nya asked, leaning on the counter.

"From working as an entertainer."

"What happens when the money runs out?" Cole asked. Kai stopped. He hadn't really thought about it.

"I'll think of something," he explained. Before they could say anything else, Kai returned to the living room.

"This is not going to end well..." Cole stated. 

"Sorry about that. Where were we?" Kai asked.

"We'll try it," Zane said.

"What?"

"We'll try it." He repeated.

"Don't expect us to stay for long though!" Jay exclaimed pointing a finger.

"Perfect!"

After a long conversation with everyone, the group decided on calling themselves "The Ninjas". Kai was hoping he could even convince them to get matching tattoos of the Japanese symbol for ninja.

*****

Two years later, the gang had become well known amongst the citizens of Ninjago City and neither Jay nor Zane quit. Jay had even gone as far as saying, "Some of you are okay." And in those two years, there had been a lot of progress. Cole and Kai had traded in their small apartment and had gotten an abandoned warehouse by the pier. It was barren at first but after a little renovating it was starting to look like an actual hideout.

The outside of the warehouse had a small court which they used for playing basketball and the garage for their cars. The first floor of the warehouse had the living room, kitchen, dining room, and the weapons room. Upstairs was everyone's individual bedrooms and the planning room.

At the moment, Kai was in the planning room going over the latest mission. The planning room had a long oval table in the middle of the room and it was surrounded by several executive chairs. At the front of the room was a whiteboard that was covered in lots of words and pictures. The plan so far had been going pretty well. First, they had located the Scarlet Skulls hideout. It was in the old sewage pipes, which was a perfect location for the Scarlet Skulls to make drugs. Second, Jay had snuck in and placed cameras all over for Cole to use. Now all they had to do was sneak in, take the Scarlet Skull's belongings, and then hand them over to the police. If anything were to go wrong it could easily jeopardize the mission or worse. A knock on the door startled Kai out of his thoughts. "Come in." The door opened and Cole walked in shutting the door behind him.

"You okay?" He asked, "You've been in here a while."

"I'm fine. Just going over the mission."

"Again? We've gone over it like ten times!" Kai just shrugged.

"If anything goes wrong-"

"Nothing will go wrong. Look, you've been stressing out about this for a while. Why don't you take a break and come play Mariokart with me and Jay?" Cole offered. Kai looked at the whiteboard once more. Maybe they were prepared. Maybe he was stressing over nothing...

"Alright."

As they were walking down the stairs, Kai looked around. The place was cleaner than he remembered. The kitchen floor had been mopped, the counters and tables had been wiped down, and the rug had been vacuumed. How long was he in the planning room? Taking another look, he noticed that Nya and Zane were sitting at the dining room table chatting about something and Jay was sitting on the couch checking something on his phone. On the tv was a paused game of Mariokart that Kai assumed they had stopped to go check on him.

"Guess who I found!" Cole chimed. Jay turned to face them.

"No way. You actually got him to play?!" He exclaimed.

"Yep!"

"Good!" Jay turned back to the tv picking up a controller. "You ready to taste defeat?" He tossed Kai the controller before picking up another controller.

"Oh please." Kai started sitting on the couch. "You're going to be eating my dust!" Cole rolled his eyes sitting down on the couch.

"You guys forget. I'm the Mariokart King!" Now it was Jay's turn to roll his eyes.

"The last time I checked, I was the Mariokart King!" As they continued their bickering the three of them were unaware of the close eye Nya and Zane were keeping on them.

"I think this is the first time I've seen Kai relax in a while," Nya stated.

"It has been some time, hasn't it?" Zane asked.

"Yeah. Do you think-"

"No. I don't think he'll fully get over what happened."

Before anything else could be said, Jay jumped up from the couch.

"YOSHI IS THE KING!" He shouted.

"Yeah. Yeah. Just you wait, I'm going to make a comeback!" Kai remarked. Half an hour later the game was finished with Jay doing a victory dance chanting, "Yoshi is the winner!". With a roll of his eyes, Kai headed upstairs ready to get some sleep.

The next morning Kai woke up at eight am. He reluctantly pulled himself out of bed and got changed. When he entered the hallway all the other doors were closed. He was debating letting the others sleep in until he remembered that the final part of their mission was today. Which left no time to dilly-dally.

With a smile, Kai cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed. Several different thuds made his smile grow even wider. Kai then headed downstairs before someone could yell at him.

While he was finishing his cereal, Nya walked into the kitchen rubbing her head. "You know we have alarm clocks for a reason right?"

"Yes. But there is no time to waste today." Kai stated putting his now empty bowl into the sink. After doing that, Kai rushed into the weapons room.

The weapons room was fairly large and held all kinds of guns from AK-47's to Sniper Rifles on the walls. On the opposite wall fro the door was a table that held all the ammo for their desired weapons. Kai looked around before picking up an M16 assault rifle. He slung it over his shoulder before picking up a 39 caliber pistol. When Kai left the room, he noticed everyone was at the dining room table eating.

"You have your comm?" Cole asked.

"Yep. You got the footage up?" Kai asked.

"Always do." Kai laughed.

"You know, you could come with us..."

"And get my arm shot off?! Thanks, but no thanks." Cole turned his attention back to his bowl of cereal.

"Alright. Just know that one day I'm going to convince you to come on a mission." Cole scoffed.

"Maybe one day. But today is not that day." Kai rolled his eyes.

"We leave in five!!!" He shouted over his shoulder heading to his car.

*****

When Kai pulled up beside the ditch that led to the Scarlet Skulls hideout, something felt off. He stepped out of the car and began looking around. Nothing looked off, it was just an empty ditch with dead grass. Kai decided that he was just being paranoid before he began looking for the entrance.

"Over here!" Zane shouted when he found it.

"Everybody be careful," Kai advised turning on his flashlight and stepping into the pipe.

The pipe was made out of metal and was dark and damp. The only visible light source being Kai's flashlight.

"Is anybody else's comm producing static?" Zane asked after a while.

"Mine is," Jay said putting his hand to his ear.

"So is mine," Nya replied. Kai stopped and listened for a second. Faintly in the background, he could hear static coming from his comm.

"Mine is too." They continued on into the pipe, the paranoid feeling returning.

"Guys!" Cole's voice filled their ears for a split second. "footage...off...can't....careful!"

"What?" Kai asked putting his hand to the comm. There was no answer. "Did anybody pick anything up?"

"Just something about his footage," Jay replied. Slowly they continued on. They took a right and the sight was downright shocking. They were standing in the Scarlett Skulls main room. It wasn't made out of metal like the pipe was but instead was made out of stone. The walls and floor were covered in blood and the only other thing in the room was a table with a single note. As for the members of the Scarlett Skulls, they were lying face-down on the ground bloody and dead.

Kai heaved a sigh then picked up the note. Written in cursive were the words, "You're too late. S.C."

"S.C.? Who's S.C.?" Nya asked taking the note.

"It could be an acronym or someone's initials," Zane answered.

As their conversation went on, Kai took the note and re-read it. He had seen that handwriting before. But from where? Was it the barista at the coffee shop he went to last week? Or was it the handwriting of someone in a gang they'd taken down? They could've easily missed someone and maybe they wanted revenge. As Kai re-read the note again, it hit him.

"I know who wrote this..." Everyone stopped talking as he turned to face them. "It's her."