"You took my bagel!" Kai yelled at Cole, pointing at the bread in the Black Ninja's hand accusingly. His sudden yelling grabbed some inmates' attention, as well as a few guards'.
"Well, I can't see your name on it." Cole flipped the bagel around and pretended like he was looking for Kai's name.
That only fueled Kai's anger. He reached for the bagel but Cole pulled it away just as quickly, tutting.
The Master of Fire suddenly stood up, making Lloyd and Jay, who were sitting next to him, look up at him with pleading expressions on their faces.
"Kai," Lloyd said, grabbing his elbow. "Kai, get down!" he hissed, trying to pull him back down.
Looking down at him, Lloyd could see the anger behind Kai's brown eyes, the flames contained beneath his skin desperately wanting to get out.
"Let go, Lloyd!" he yelled. Then he lunged forward and once again tried to snatch Cole's bagel.
And this time it worked.
"Hey!" Cole stood up as well.
The only thing between them was the table, creating a barrier and preventing the two from doing something stupid.
"Sit down, you two!" Lloyd only barely kept his tone at even-level, annoyed at the scene his friends were causing over a piece of bread.
"Yeah," Jay agreed, "maybe you should-"
"Shut up, Jay!" Kai yelled at him. He felt agitated by Jay's high-pitched voice. "Stop being annoying for once, okay?"
Cole banged his hands hard on the metal table, getting more pairs of eyes to watch them. "Don't talk to Jay like that!"
"I'll talk to him however I want to!"
"Both of you, enough!" Lloyd stood up as well, glaring at Kai and Cole. "Sit back down before I make you!"
"Oh yeah?" Kai mocked him. "And what are you going to do, Lloyd?" He put his hands on his hips and waited for a response, which never came since Lloyd was currently trying his best to stay unbothered by Kai's unnecessary behavior.
So Cole took it into his own hands as he grabbed the inedible slice of cake from his plate and threw it at Kai's head.
Kai winced and rubbed the sore spot on his forehead before coming back to his senses. He glanced down at the cake that was just falling off the side and then looked at Cole.
Without any warning, Kai jumped over the table and tackled the Earth Ninja to the floor where he tried to punch him in his face but, due to Cole's good dodging, missed.
Everyone let out a collective gasp. Lloyd, Jay and Zane quickly tried to get Kai off of Cole but he managed to accidentally land a hit on Zane's chest which caused him to stumble backwards. While Kai looked at Zane apologetically, Cole used that moment to turn them over.
Now that he was on top of Kai, he, too, tried to land some punches to his face but missed. What he didn't miss, however, was Jay's jaw.
Gasping, Cole stood up from Kai and tried to get closer to Jay to apologize. "Jay, I am so-" He was cut off by a punch to his own jaw that made him stagger backwards and into the table.
Kai then stood up from the floor and tried to get back to Cole but was cut off by Lloyd. While the Green Ninja tried to talk some sense into Kai's thick skull, the Red Ninja only saw red and ignored the younger by going around him, his eyes pinned to the Black Ninja.
But when Lloyd touched Kai's elbow to hold him back, he was unfortunate enough to see Kai's fist in his vision, about to punch him in the face. That was blocked by Zane who took the punch for Lloyd, knowing it wasn't nearly as painful to hurt his own titanium body than Lloyd's human body.
All hell broke loose after that. A tangled mass of five pairs of limbs were visible, but who punched who was barely noticeable. All five of the guys were trying to hit anyone in their close vicinity.
The other prisoners were standing off to the side and watching the spectacle, amused. Some were murmuring to the people standing next to them, others were loudly chanting "fight" over and over again, their fists in their air.
Several guards rushed to the ninja pile and tried their hardest to detangle them, which took many unsuccessful attempts. But once they managed to get one ninja out of the mess, the others came out more quickly as well.
"Let me go!" Cole yelled at two guards who were holding him back.
"Don't you dare touch me!" Kai yelled at two of his own guards.
The other three only physically tried to escape the guards' strong holds but couldn't do it without their powers.
As the five were dragged out of the large room, they kept yelling and thrashing until the very last second they were seen.
— — — —
"You guys are horrible actors," Kai said, tutting. He tried to scratch his itching eyelid but wasn't able to since his hands were shackled far away from his body.
"And you're better?" Cole asked sarcastically, scoffing.
Kai nodded. "Of course, I am. Without me, you'd all be nothing, I'm telling you."
"Please," Jay glared at the two, "you two can't say anything when Zane and I took your hits."
"I was hit too!" Kai yelled.
"Yeah," Lloyd shouted at him, "with a piece of cake!"
"I was hit too but I'm not going to complain since it was payback," Cole said, looking at Jay. "Sorry, man."
Jay waved it off. "It's fine, dude, I've had it worse."
Lloyd sighed and looked up. His vision was blocked by bars that were not in front of him but above. He was wondering if Nya actually knew what she was doing, because being chained to the wall by your wrists and ankles while being in a deep pit was more than a questionable choice of plan.
The pit was a squared space which had tall walls. It was dark, empty, and moist even. Only the five of them down there, and it didn't look like anyone had been down there for a long time.
"Are you sure what we did wasn't overboard?" Zane asked Lloyd. "When is she going to come to us?"
"I don't know," Lloyd answered, his forehead forming lines as he thought about what she had told him. She was supposed to be there a while ago, but they had been down there for more than two hours according to Zane's inner clock. "Soon, I'd suppose."
"You'd suppose?" Kai snorted. "You have no idea, do you?"
The second they heard footsteps approaching their pit from above, the ninja tensed up and stopped talking. They looked up and saw nothing but the ceiling.
That was until two guards stuck their faces over the bars and looked down.
"Howard! Steve!" Lloyd exclaimed, smiling. The others looked at him weirdly, questioning how he knew the guards' names. "It's a long story," he told them.
The familiar faces above looked around before moving over to the large lock and unlocking it. They didn't open the barred door, however.
"We've managed to disable all security cameras in this wing," Howard explained while Steve was busy unhooking two keys out of his key bundle. "It's only a matter of time until they find it out though, so you'll need to hurry. We don't want to get caught and fired over freeing you guys, so from here on out, you're on your own."
After getting the keys out, Steve slipped them through the bars and threw them close to where Lloyd was sitting.
"Thanks, guys," the Green Ninja told them. "We really appreciate it."
Steve took off his hat and waved it down at him. "You're welcome."
"Yeah," Howard agreed. "Now get out of here before we see you behind bars again."
The two then disappeared, and the ninja were sure that now was the time to make their grand escape.
Since the keys had landed a little bit away from his feet, Lloyd had to slide his left foot and managed to slowly slide one of the keys back to his body. He tried to unlock his shackles but frowned when they didn't unlock. Then he tried to unlock the shackles on his ankles, but they wouldn't unlock either.
"The ball," Cole told him, referring to the large vengestone ball that was strapped to Lloyd's leg.
Nodding, Lloyd also tried to unlock that. The moment the key actually turned inside the lock and a faint click was heard, everyone became lively again.
Lloyd kicked the ball far away from his body and ignited a small, light green ball of energy in his palm that he then used to blast all of his restraints with.
Once he was free, he quickly blasted everyone else's shackles and vengestone balls with his powers. The others ignited their powers to test whether or not they would work again, which each power did.
"Cole," Lloyd said, pointing up.
Nodding, the Black Ninja collided his fists and stepped over to the wall. With one punch, he made a rock formation mould stairs against the wall, so they all casually climbed those self-made stairs and stood at the top.
"Where do we go now?" Jay asked.
Kai slowly peeked around the corner. "We've got to get through security first," he said, nodding his head in the direction.
The other four snuck a glance at the two security guards at the end of the hall.
Jay and Cole exchanged knowing glances. The two then stealthily snuck up to the two men and took them down just as they were about to turn around. They carried the bodies back to the pit and threw them down.
Now that their path was cleared, the five carefully made their way over to the double doors that were at the end of the hall. On the other side of the door was another corridor that had two doors at each end.
"Left or right?" Kai whispered to the others.
The four ninja looked at Zane, waiting for an answer.
"How would I know which way to go?" the Master of Ice asked them.
"You're Zane!" Jay hissed. "You're supposed to know!"
"Well, I do not."
"Guys, let's just go that way," Lloyd said, pointing to the door on the left. He began to walk over to it, and the others followed him closely.
Just as he put his hand on the door handle, the door was opened from the other side, revealing two on-duty officers.
"Mmm, this donut is the best one they've ever delivered to us," one of the two said, munching on a chocolate donut that was covered in colorful sprinkles.
"Nah," the other one countered, "this one's way better. Look, it even has little marshmallows on the-"
All seven people stared at each other motionlessly.
"Ninja?" the second officer asked. Then, after taking a double-take, he shouted, "Ninja!"
The ninjas' first instinct was to knock the two out, but the second one of the two officers pulled out his walkie-talkie and uttered the words "the ninja have escaped," they knew they were done for.
Not a second after that, sirens began to blare from the speakers across the entire facility.
"This really didn't have to go this way," Kai said, his tone faking pity, "but I guess you're as brainless as any other officer in here." He acted like he was polishing his fist before punching them, knocking them out.
Since they were already known to have broken out, there was no point in hiding the unconscious bodies, so they left them there, on the floor, as they sprinted to the other doors.
They were recognized wherever they ran to, and it didn't take long for them to be chased by multiple officers.
Knowing they needed to gain some space between them and the horde, Zane froze the ground when the ninja rounded a corner, making the officers incapable of catching up to them.
They all ran like their lives depended on it, which it did, until they were met with a solid wall in front of them. A dead-end.
"What do we do now?" Jay hissed, panicking.
The others were also starting to panic, not knowing how to get out of their sticky situation.
That was until Jay's eyes landed on a large poster hanging on the wall to their left.
— — — —
"Quick, they're escaping!" one of the officers yelled at the others.
"We're trying our best here!" another one yelled back, trying not to face-plant to the floor. Again.
The ice was too slippery and it was covering the entire hallway so that it was a long way to get through in one piece.
But in the end, a handful of officers managed to get to the end of the hallway and took it upon themselves to catch the fleeing ninja.
Rounding the corner, they stopped and looked around.
"Where are they?!"
There wasn't a single soul in that dead-end, and there was no way they could have just poofed into thin air either.
An officer pulled out his walkie-talkie and activated it. "They've escaped. We can't find them anywhere."
With a heavy sigh, the officers made their way back to the sea of ice they needed to cross to get back to the other side, leaving the empty area.
Well, almost empty.
— — — —
"You know," Kai began, "if I knew we'd end up in a sewer of all places, I would have happily turned myself back in." He tried to avoid stepping into the wet ground but it was quite impossible when it was everywhere.
Jay rolled his eyes and kept walking up front.
"How do you even know where to go?" Kai asked him.
"Lucky guess," Jay mumbled.
The sewer was darker and definitely more moist than the pit, the only difference being that they could actually walk around down there. And as for the empty part; well, the ninja weren't exactly alone.
"Ew, get off me!" Kai yelled, grabbing the rat that had made its way up his back and throwing it to the dirty ground.
It hissed at him before it scattered away.
"It is more scared of you than you are of it, Kai," Zane told him.
Kai chose to ignore his friend for the sake of his sanity. He did not need to be reminded of the whole "it's an innocent living being so it's more scared of you" thing because he simply didn't believe in that.
If it was scared of him, why did it crawl up his body?
"Do you guys think they know we're down here?" Lloyd asked the others, looking up at the ceiling that was covered in moist moss that was leaking down on them as they kept walking.
"No idea," Cole answered. "But even if — there's no way any sane person would willingly come down here, even if it means they could catch us."
"Are you calling us insane?"
"Absolutely."
When Jay stopped walking, the others stopped as well and waited for further instructions. He turned around to them and pointed down a wide pipe which was leading down a way they couldn't see.
"Yes, we see it," Kai told him.
"Good, you're not blind," Jay said, just as sarcastically. "Now slide down."
Kai's eyes widened. "There's no way I'm bathing in pee and poop water, Jay! Walking in it is horrible on its own."
The Blue Ninja pinched the bridge of his nose and took deep breaths, which he then regretted when the disgusting smell of his surroundings invaded his senses. "It's our ticket out of here, Kai."
"I don't care, Jay."
Lloyd looked at Zane and nodded toward the opening.
Zane then walked to the front of the bunch and used his powers to freeze the dirty water. "Depending on where this pipe ends, it can be very dangerous to slide-"
Jay wordlessly threw himself down the pipe and disappeared from their view.
The other four blinked at the same time before slowly looking at each other.
"Oh well," Cole said, shrugging. Then he went down the pipe as well.
Zane was next to follow Jay and Cole's lead.
"Come on," Lloyd told Kai, seeing as the latter refused to follow his friends. "It's not as bad as you think."
"Absolutely not, Lloyd."
The Green Ninja shrugged carelessly and stood in front of the pipe. "Your loss, honestly. Have fun getting caught." Then he went down, leaving Kai alone in the dark sewer.
A moment passed by before Kai groaned and looked down the pipe. "I hate all of you," he shouted before he, too, threw himself down the pipe.
It was a long way down, he soon realized. There was no way for him to cling on to anything so he was practically free-falling aimlessly.
If the ground was concrete, he was sure his pretty face would get a forced makeover.
Then, just as he began to question it all, he was suddenly catapulted out of the pipe and into a deep body of water. He immediately flapped his way up to the surface and began to scream at the top of his lungs until someone grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him up.
So Kai was now standing, the water coming up to his hips.
"Were you seriously about to drown?" Lloyd asked him, looking at him like he had gone insane.
Kai opened his eyes and looked down. The water was a dark color, and its smell was horrendous. He sighed.
"Where do we go now?" he asked, looking around.
They were outside of Krypterium, somewhere in the middle of nowhere basically. It was nighttime so at least the scorching sun wasn't there to grill them alive.
Before anyone could say or do anything else, a honking drew their attention to an orange prison bus that was nearing them at full speed.
"Wow," Cole sighed. "That was a great five-second breakout, guys. Very enjoyable."
They knew there was no way for them to escape to, so all they did was stand there and wait for the bus to capture them and take them back to the pit.
When it stopped right in front of them and opened the driver's door, however, they were met with a familiar face.
"Hiya, boys."
— — — —
The barely audible pitter-patter of the small robot made its way into the sought out cell. It climbed the bed and stood right in front of its target.
Its sleeping target.
It tapped his face. It tapped his face again. Then it slapped him hard.
He woke up with a daze. "Mumsy?" he asked, slowly opening his eyes.
Once he managed to focus on who, or what, was in front of him, he straightened up and grabbed the robotic spider by its leg, flinging it out of his bed. "Goodness gracious, I-"
His eyes widened when another one of those spiders suddenly projected a hologram above its head.
"Oh," he said, focusing on it.
It was a clothed person wearing a mask, concealing that person's identity well enough that he had no idea who it could have been.
"Pythor P. Chumsworth," the mechanical voice of the hologram said, "you are invited to join the Council of the Crystal King and have your revenge upon those who wronged you. Do you accept?"
Pythor yawned. "Ugh, give me a sec to wake up."
Then he slapped himself in the face before turning back to the hologram.
"Yes!"