Legend of the Brown Ninja

by Meredith Rusu

  Their old favorite restaurant was Master Chen’s Noodle House. But once fans realized that Master Chen’s was their favorite hangout, their admirers started stalking the ninja there. So they had to switch to Master Soba’s Soup Shop.

  Then, after the Live at Five blowup, the paparazzi had started harassing the ninja like never before. Apparently, the only thing more intriguing to fans than a group of masked heroes was a group of masked heroes with drama.

  So now the ninja were forced to go to Biker Barry’s Buffalo Wings Bar. It was the only place in town with food so lousy, there were no regulars. Even still, the ninja had taken to wearing hats and glasses to avoid being spotted.

  “Man, what I wouldn’t give for some puffy potstickers.” Cole sighed as he tossed a hot wing back into the basket. “Not gonna lie, Biker Barry needs to work on his recipe.”

  “This is all Dareth’s fault,” Nya complained. “If it weren’t for him, we could still be going for noodles like normal.”

  “At least he hasn’t been bothering us,” Lloyd pointed out. “Have any of you heard from him since the talk show?”

  Cole, Jay, Kai, Nya, and Zane all shook their heads. It did indeed seem like Dareth had dropped off the face of Ninjago City. Not one voice mail, text — not even a Chirp.

  “Maybe he really didn’t realize things were going to go that way on Fred Finley’s show,” said Kai. “Maybe it was all a big misunderstanding.”

  Cole, Jay, Lloyd, Nya, and Zane shot Kai a look.

  Kai sighed. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

  “On the bright side,” said Zane, “social science does indicate that without the continued stimuli, the public will, in time, lose interest in our status.”

  “In English, Zane?” asked Jay.

  “He means ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ ” said Cole. “And Zane’s right. As long as there’s no big bad attacking Ninjago City, we just need to sit back, relax, and wait for this all to blow over —”

  Kai’s phone suddenly started buzzing.

  “You have GOT to be kidding me,” said Kai. “It’s Dareth.”

  Nya grabbed Kai’s phone. “Whatever you want, Dareth, we’re not interested.”

  “Ninja! Nin … iz … that … you?” Dareth’s voice came through the speaker. But it sounded garbled.

  “Of course it is,” said Nya. “You called us.”

  “Trouble … need help … downtowzzzzzz … Dr …”

  Dareth’s voice buzzed out.

  “Did he say trouble?” asked Lloyd.

  “Yeah, downtown,” said Kai.

  “Do you think it’s a trick?” asked Cole.

  The ninja looked at one another, uncertain.

  “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” said Lloyd. “Ninja-GO!”

  The ninja whirled downtown in a flurry of Airjitzu. What they saw when they arrived made their jaws drop.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Zane.

  “It’s not possible,” breathed Kai.

  Circling Cyrus Borg Industries, with moonlight glinting off their shiny scales, were …

  “Dragons!” exclaimed Nya. “But — how?”

  “Oh, thank GOODNESS!” a voice cried out behind them. Dareth raced up to the ninja. “I wasn’t sure if you would come. But you’re here! And we’re saved!”

  “What’s going on, Dareth?” asked Lloyd. “How are there dragons downtown?”

  “I don’t know!” cried Dareth. “One minute, everything is peaceful, and then BAM! Dragons! You’re the only ones who can stop them, ninja.”

  Cole looked up. There were one, two, three. Three dragons. Each a different color and crying out in high-pitched screeches.

  “Maybe they’re friendly?” Cole suggested tentatively.

  BOOM!

  One of the dragons smashed its tail into the side of Borg Industries. It shattered a part of the building!

  “I’m guessing not,” said Kai.

  “What do we do?” asked Jay.

  “First we stop them from destroying downtown,” said Lloyd. “Then we figure out where they came from.”

  “Right,” the ninja agreed. They each powered up their own Elemental Dragons and rose into the sky.

  “Ninja-GO!”

  Nya swooped up toward one of the dragons. It looked like a fiery red serpent with clawed wings and a long, whiskered snout. It screeched at her angrily.

  “How about you just chill out,” Nya shouted at the dragon. With an effort, she powered up a huge water ball.

  The dragon opened its gaping jaws and FWOOM! It shot out a blazing streak of flame directly at Nya. She dodged out of the way just in time.

  “Holy smokes! They can breathe fire?” Nya exclaimed.

  “Looks like it,” shouted Kai. “But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the only way to fight fire is with fire!”

  Kai shot a whirling ball of flame toward the blue dragon in the center of the trio. It looked like it would be a direct hit, until:

  Fzzzzt!

  The fireball hit an invisible shield surrounding the dragon and was extinguished.

  Kai’s jaw dropped. “Uh, okay, I’ve heard of dragons breathing fire. But dragons with shields?”

  “This is like something out of one of Fritz Donegon’s sci-fi movies!” Jay exclaimed. “And not in a good way!”

  The ninja watched dumbfounded as the dragons continued to circle Borg Industries.

  “Why aren’t they leaving the tower?” Nya asked. “What do they want?”

  “An interesting observation,” said Zane thoughtfully. “Pixal, please scan the source of the dragons’ shields.”

  “Scanning …” Pixal replied. “Data incomplete. I need to be closer to generate a full bioscan.”

  Zane nodded. “Understood.” He shot up toward the dragons.

  “Zane, be careful!” cried Lloyd. “And watch out for the —”

  But before Lloyd could finish, the third yellow dragon dipped out of formation. It snaked around the building and came up … right behind Zane!

  “LOOK OUT!” cried Lloyd.

  But it was too late. The dragon unleashed an enormous burst of yellow-green flame, engulfing the Titanium Ninja!

  ZANE” cried the ninja.

  Zane’s friends watched in shock as the unearthly flames surrounded their friend, blocking him from view.

  “Nya, quick!” yelled Jay. “You’re the only one who can stop it!”

  Snapping out of it, Nya summoned all the water strength she had. With a gigantic wave, she sent a wall of water hurling toward the flames. The water impacted! And then …

  … it continued straight through the fire, arcing back down toward the ground as if it hadn’t hit anything at all. It didn’t even evaporate.

  The ninja stared, completely confused.

  “What’s happening?” Nya asked.

  Suddenly, the dragon stopped breathing its fire. The blaze subsided, and Zane was visible again, hovering on his Elemental Dragon.

  “Zane! Are you okay?” cried Cole.

  The Nindroid looked down at himself. He was completely unharmed.

  “I am,” Zane said, equally stunned. He looked up at the yellow dragon as it returned to formation. “A hologram?” he asked.

  “Cut, cut, cut!” cried Dareth from somewhere below.

  The ninja looked down to see Dareth wheeling up with a camera crew behind him.

  “Dareth!” shouted Kai. “What is going on?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” exclaimed Dareth. “I’m restoring your image as the heroes of Ninjago!”

  The six ninja flew down to the ground and dematerialized their Elemental Dragons. Up above, Dareth’s “dragons” resumed circling Borg Industries.

  “They are holograms,” Zane announced. “Digital representations giving the illusion of —”

  “The actual thing!” exclaimed Cyrus Borg. He wheeled up excitedly toward the group. “So good to see you all again, ninja. I trust you’re well. Very exciting, isn’t i
t? Holographic creatures real enough to pass as the actual things. This will revolutionize the film industry!”

  “But we saw one of the dragons hit the building,” insisted Nya. “It caused damage.”

  Cyrus Borg nodded happily. “Computerized frequencies set to cause predetermined sections of the building to fall off. Look — my Repair-o-bots are fixing the building as we speak!”

  Everyone looked upward to see dozens of tiny robots with multiple legs and long claw arms replacing the broken pieces of the building.

  “Ingenious, no?” Cyrus smiled. “Think of what this means. Entire action sequences — like the one you six were kind enough to just run through — will be entirely possible without digital editing. Incredible!”

  Lloyd shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint you, Cyrus. But we didn’t know this was a trial run. In fact, we didn’t know this was staged at all.”

  Cyrus seemed genuinely confused. “But Dareth said you were all excited to test out my new holographic dragon program?”

  Everyone turned to look at Dareth.

  “Ah, well,” Dareth stammered. He cast a furtive glance at the film crew behind him. “Quick! Take the footage to the editing room and get it prepped!”

  “Dareth!” yelled Cole. “This is not cool!”

  “I know, I know,” whined Dareth. “But you guys left me no choice. After the Fred Finley fiasco, someone had to restore your public image. I knew the only way to get you back in the game was with some action! And boy, was that some action! All that Live at Five drama will be old news when your fans see this. Ninja versus dragons? It’s perfect! I’m thinking a viral web movie. A fan poll voting which one of you should face off against what creature next. We’re heading back to the top, baby!”

  “If you pull a stunt like this again, you just might find yourself heading to the hospital,” Nya muttered.

  Dareth arched an eyebrow. “To the hospital … because you’ll be doing a promotional meet-and-greet with the patients?” he asked hopefully.

  “NO!” the ninja yelled back.

  “Don’t call us again unless there are REAL bad guys to fight,” said Lloyd.

  “In fact, don’t call us at all,” added Jay. “Consider your number permanently blocked.”

  Later, Dareth sat at Master Chen’s Noodle House, sulking over a glass of ginger ale.

  “ ‘Don’t call us at all,’ ” he mimicked Jay’s voice. “ ‘Consider yourself permanently blocked.’ ”

  “Something got you down, friend?” The hostess walked up behind the counter. It was Skylor.

  Skylor was a friend of the ninja. In fact, she was an Elemental Master with the power of Amber. That meant she could absorb other fighters’ strengths and use them as her own. These days, however, she’d retired from fighting to run her father’s old noodle shop. The only “absorbing” she did was listening to customers’ stories. But she enjoyed the company, and people appreciated her advice.

  “I’ve seen that look before,” she told Dareth. “Having an argument with a friend?”

  Dareth scoffed. “Six of them. And they’d be the biggest names in Ninjago, too, if they’d just listen to my advice!”

  Skylor looked more closely at Dareth. “Say, I know you. I remember seeing you with the ninja. What’s your name again? Darren?”

  Dareth puffed out his chest. “Dareth. Legendary Brown Ninja and Public Relations Guru.” He sighed. “At least, I was.”

  “Yeah, I remember now,” Skylor said. “You’re the one in the background of all the ninjas’ television interviews, running around and giving orders.” Skylor chuckled. “Well, if you’re arguing with the ninja, I can tell you this much. They’re stubborn. It’s going to be hard to get them to do something they don’t want to do.”

  Dareth shook his head forlornly. “Tell me about it. I can’t believe this is happening. All that time spent scheduling interviews. Begging for corporate sponsors. Chasing down producers as they left their offices. All for nothing. Everything is just slipping away.”

  As Dareth spoke, there was a small commotion by the noodle bar’s television.

  “Hey, you mind turning it up?” A patron across the restaurant pointed to the TV.

  Skylor raised the volume, and everyone watched as a breaking news alert flashed across the screen.

  “This just in,” the announcer said. “Another inmate has broken out of Kryptorium Prison and made it all the way to the streets of Ninjago City.”

  The program showed security camera footage of an escaped prisoner sneaking down an alley. It was Wyplash — one of the skeleton warriors the ninja had captured and sent to jail long ago.

  “Luckily,” the announcer said, “security footage from Cyrus Borg’s new Street-Safe Technology led to the convict’s recapture by Ninjago Police. But the question remains, how are so many inmates breaking out of jail?”

  The footage switched to a shot of police officers cornering the surprised Wyplash and handcuffing him. In the background was Warden Noble, the head guard at Kryptorium Prison.

  “We’re launching a full investigation,” Warden Noble promised. “We won’t rest until we figure out how and why this is happening.”

  Skylor shook her head. “If I were you, that’s the ‘slipping away’ I’d be worried about. Not interviews or sponsors. Kryptorium Prison holds some real baddies, and most of them are in there thanks to the ninja. I’m sure a lot of those thugs would just love to sneak out and settle a score or two.”

  Skylor waited for Dareth to respond. But he had grown quiet, lost in thought.

  “Real baddies,” he said slowly. “Settle a score. Of course! That’s brilliant. I wish I’d thought of it myself. Oh, wait, I did!”

  “Thought of what?” Skylor asked.

  “No time to explain.” Dareth jumped off his bar stool. “The Brown Ninja has work to do!”

  Skylor watched Dareth race out through the restaurant’s double doors. Then she shook her head. She knew the ninjas’ powers pretty well. But she had a feeling the Brown Ninja’s “powers” were in a league of their own.

  Are you sure about this?” Jay looked down uneasily from his Elemental Dragon. Below, the Sea of Sand stretched for miles. And ahead on the horizon, Kryptorium Prison loomed.

  “Yes,” replied Lloyd. “The message was definitely from the warden. He said he needed help, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “What exactly did the warden say again?” Jay asked.

  “He needs us to figure out how the prisoners have been escaping from their cells,” said Zane. “Since we have prior experience breaking out inmates, the warden thought we would be the perfect candidates to solve the mystery.”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess we do have that expertise,” Kai said. He sighed, reminiscing. “Breaking out Pythor. Stopping Chen’s legion of fake Anacondrai. Ah, those were the good old days.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Jay. “I, for one, never wanted to see Kryptorium Prison again. Being locked up there once was enough for me.”

  Lloyd looked at Jay, confused. “What are you talking about? When were you locked up in Kryptorium?”

  “Oh, uh,” Jay stammered. “It’s a figure of speech. I meant, I’ve seen enough of it to last me a lifetime. Heh, heh.”

  Jay and Nya shared a look. Sometimes they forgot the other ninja didn’t remember their adventure against Nadakhan. The truth was, all six of them had been imprisoned in the Kryptorium for a while as they were battling the djinn. But only Jay and Nya remembered that.

  “Well, we won’t stay long,” said Lloyd. “We’ll see what we can do to help Warden Noble and then head back.”

  The ninja swooped down toward the entrance of the Kryptorium. It was eerily quiet.

  “I thought the warden was going to meet us at the front door?” Nya said.

  “Me, too,” said Lloyd. “Something’s fishy. Keep your guard up.”

  Cole, Jay, Kai, Lloyd, Nya, and Zane carefully made their way into the massive building. One by one, the metal door
s leading deeper into the prison opened for them.

  As they passed through the last set of doors, they reached a wide, darkened hallway.

  “This is really creeping me out …” said Jay.

  “Warden Noble?” Lloyd called. “Are you here? It’s us — the ninja.”

  “The niiiiiiinjaaaaaaa.”

  Voices suddenly echoed from the walls around them.

  Instantly, the previous set of metal doors they’d just stepped through slammed shut.

  Jay raced up to them and pounded. “We’re locked in!” he cried.

  The lights suddenly snapped on brighter. Sinister laughter filled the hallway.

  The ninja turned to see all of Kryptorium’s inmates staring out at them from their cells.

  They were locked in with the prisoners!

  Up in the warden’s office, Dareth and Warden Noble watched the action on surveillance camera screens.

  “Now, you’re sure the ninja will be able to figure out how the prisoners keep secretly escaping?” Warden Noble asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

  Dareth slurped an iced frappé through a straw. “Of course, Warden. You can count on my ninja to solve the problem.”

  The warden watched the screen closely. “Tell me again why we can’t be there while the ninja are talking to the prisoners? Seems a bit dramatic for my taste.”

  Dareth grinned. “Trust me. My ninja are at their best when they’re in action.” He produced a movie camera. “And we’re going to catch it all on tape!”

  Down below, the ninja looked around nervously as the inmates heckled them from behind bars.

  “Well, I’ll be charmed. Who do we have here?” said Captain Soto. “It be the pajama men, come to visit us.”

  “Guys, now I’m really freaking out!” said Jay.

  It was hard not to be intimidated. All the ninjas’ old foes were there. Captain Soto and his pirate crew. The skeleton warriors, Nuckal, Kruncha, and Wyplash. There were even a Stone Warrior and a few Nindroids left over from the Digital Overlord days.

  Lloyd frowned, unfazed. “Where’s the warden?” he demanded. “What have you done with him?”