A/N: So Chapters 22 & 23 were originally going to be one chapter but the final cut ended up being 6749 words long so I cut them up. This one is 3886 words long

Have fun

Lizz swatted away whoever's hand was prodding her in the cheek, "Bugger off."

"Well, okay," Jay sounded like he shrugged, "We'll go on ahead into the Tomb, you stay here."

Her eyes popped open, "I'm awake, I'm awa-ahhhhhh.....ke," she yawned, "What'd I miss?"

"Other than ocean?" Kai shuddered, hopping out the door and onto dry land, "We almost became leviathan food. Surprised our screaming didn't wake you up."

"I needed a power nap," she was the last to jump out, still trying to finger comb her hair so she could do something with it.

Cole looked around, "Well... if you want to hide a tomb... this would be the right place."

Lizz paused and closed her eyes, listening to the gentle waves of the water that surrounded them. She hummed in approval and tied off her second braid, "I love it."

"Yeah, well I don't," Kai huffed, "Let's get going."

A few feet ahead, Jay stopped the group again and groaned, pulling a piece of green cloth from a branch of a dead bush, "Ugh. There goes any hope that Morro couldn't find this place."

"Did you.. Not see the trail of footprints?" Lizz nonchalantly pointed at the trail in head of them.

"Just stay positive," Kai began, "We're about to risk our lives going through traps we know nothing about. All we have to rely on is each other. At least feel lucky we got this far."

Jay's voice jumped, "Oh! I'm sorry, what was I thinking? You're right!" his overly peppy voice was dripping with sarcasm and Lizz was at the back of the group busting a gut at the exchange between the two, "Wow! There goes any hope that Morro couldn't find the Tomb!" Jay grinned, "We're not alone! Yay! Now we're gonna have to fight him again! Sure, we got our tails handed to us last time, but y'never know in the future! Cuz Ninja never quit!" his face dropped and went stone cold, "Better?"

Kai made a face, "Uhh... I'll take it-- Lizz!" he smiled a little and broke into light chuckles.

HShe'd tried to stop laughing, getting it down to light sniggers. When Kai called her out on it, Lizz snorted really badly and soon her loud laughter was echoing through the entire cave. Her laughs were broken apart by squeaks, where she tried to breathe in but couldn't because she was laughing too hard.

It lightened up the mood considerably, as it got the rest of the team to break into a fit of light giggles with her, both laughing at Jay's outburst and laughing at Lizz's laughter.

Zane was the first to regain his seriousness, "Guys, look," he pointed at the wall behind Kai, at a stone statue carved into the wall.

Candles were lit there, for some reason, as a shrine, though.. How the candles were still burning after how many years, Lizz just... shrugged it of, wiping tears from her eyes. Kai nodded, "The First Spinjitzu Master... creator of all NinjaGo..."

Finally, a correct assumption, Lizz smiled softly -- sadly, really, looking at her feet. This was the resting place of a grandfather she never knew, but yet she still felt a wave of sadness wash over her. She turned her gaze upwards, towards the ceiling, to crack a joke to try to cheer herself up, "By the looks of the stature, you'd think this was Sensei's Tomb instead... they look exactly the same."

It got a couple snickers, so she felt a bit better about it. The bad vibes were short lived, replaced by an aire of anger and confusion when the airship -- loyally parked on the water's surface behind them -- began speaking, "Destination reached. Auto-return initiated."

"Auto-return?!" Jay questioned. The group turned back just in time to watch the ship close its doors and sink out of sight. Jay started yelling, "No! No! Bad Rex, bad!"

It was no use. Zane sighed, "Our Aeroblade weapons were in there..."

"Speak for yourself," Lizz reached and pulled hers off her back, spinning it once in her hand before placing it back on it's holder.

"Not to mention that was our way outta here, too," Cole grumbled, seeming to be more sour now that he saw Lizz had her weapon.

Jay took back up his stressed, sarcastic tone, making intense eye contact with Kai, "Hey! Who needs a way back when we gotta go that way!" he pointed behind Kai, down the path that had Morro's footprints dotted over it.

Kai agreed, "No Sword, no powers, no problem. We can do this as long as we have each other, right guys?"

Cole clasped Kai on the shoulder, "Brother sharpens brother!"

With that being said, Lizz led the way to where they were supposed to go, the others following closely. Little aquatic rocks, it looked like, were bedded in the walls, sending off a blue tinted light. To the boys, it looked creepy but to Lizz it looked and felt relaxing. Like home.

They walked in silence the rest of the way, until Lizz pushed open a door that they came up to. There was nowhere else to go, so through the door they stepped. It was a brightly lit, circular room of nothing but doors. Each door had a little figure mounted on the front. Upon closer inspection, it looked like the First Spinjitzu Master holding a glowing crystal, each little figure standing in a different position than the last. Each door itself had a different symbol etched above it. Save for those and the figures, every door was identical.

What finally was able to freak Lizz out, was the door they'd just walked through -- the door with the ying-yang symbol above it -- slamming shut via it's own free will. Cole started slowly, "This... could be the first test..."

"No. way," Lizz's voice was heavy with sarcasm, "I'd've never guessed that."

"Okay, y'know what--" Cole rounded on her, his voice indicating that he was about to start bickering, but he stopped, simply pointing at her, "No."

Jay -- for the millionth time tonight -- groaned yet again, "Why did the Tomb have to be protected by tests!? Why couldn't it be dragons? We're good with dragons!"

Kai did another quick survey of the room, "I think we're supposed to pick a door... but which one?"

"What did Misako say?" Jay asked.

Lizz cut him off, "A Spinjitzu Master can, a Spinjitzu Master cannot. To move forward, don't look ahead, to find his resting spot..." All eyes turned on her and she shrunk in on herself, "What...?"

"You were asleep when Misako told us that," Kai narrowed his eyes at her.

"It's an old nursery rhyme I was taught when I was... younger?" she defended, her tone hard. How she remembered something from when she was at home, with Misako and Garmadon and Lloyd, she had no idea. That was the only thing from before Ronin and before the Serpentine that she remembered...

"I highly doubt that," Cole scoffed, "But enough chit-chat. What can a Spinjitzu Master do?"

They split up and began examining different doors. Kai's intuitive whispering echoed through the room, "A Spinjitzu Master can..." he turned back to the group, "Can what?"

Jay was turning in circles, "There's sixteen doors... for... sixteen Realms?"

"Could be," Cole was frowning, also turning in slow circles, "But let me guess; pick the wrong door, and we'll be in a realm of hurt."

Jay took a long, deep breath, "Ohh... I wish we had the Sword right now..."

Kai motioned for them to regroup in the centre of the room, "We can figure this out without the Sword. A Spinjitzu Master can... can..."

Everyone followed Kai's gaze. Jay was pointing lazily, motioning his hand as he spoke, "The symbol above this door... it looks like a tornado. It must be this one, right?"

He started towards the door, but Lizz leapt to stand between him and his target, her and Zane speaking at the same time, "Jay, wait."

Everyone paused and looked to Zane, who's usually lazer-like gaze went unfocused, "He's scanning for something..." Lizz whispered.

After a moment, Zane sprang to life again, gently tugging both Jay and Lizz towards the other two, "Step away from that door, you two."

Jay looked around, "What is it?"

"We're inside a zoetrope," Zane told them.

Lizz grinned, glancing around, "Awesome..."

"A zoe-what?!" Kai demanded in exasperation.

"A zoetrope," Zane repeated, "The engravings in rapid succession create an image."

Cole shook his head, "I... don't get it..."

Realization dawned over Kai's face, like a lightbulb clicking on behind his eyes, "A Spinjitzu Master can... do Spinjitzu!"

"Exactly!" Zane exclaimed. The other four backed away from him, giving him room to break into his Spinjitzu. The icy white tornado lit up the room, dropping the temperature and creating a gentle wintery breeze, "It's creating some sort of shape!" Zane called out, spinning to a crouched stop, pointing out, "That one! That's the way out."

Cole was still uneasy, "I... I don't know, Zane. Isn't that the same door we came in? Are you sure?"

Zane stood up, "Are you sure you want to doubt a Nindroid?"

"Open the door," Kai decided.

"Wait, wait," Lizz waved her hands, "Hold on."

"What?"

She giggled a little, "Can I try?"

They smiled a little, shaking their heads, "Go ahead," Kai told her, laughing a little harder when Lizz immediately spun into her Spinjitzu. The giggling from within getting worse when the image Zane saw presented itself to her as well.

Then she spun to a stop, "I love it," then she went over and opened the door in question.

On the opposite side was another room, and they all let out a chorused gasp of surprise, "That wasn't here before..." Kai whispered.

"How can it be the way if that's the way we came in?" Cole pondered, stepping inside.

"Well," Kai began, "Welcome to the Tomb of the First Spinjitzu Master."

Jay started laughing, "He-ey! That's a nice one, Zane! Who needs a Sword of Sanctuary when you have a Nindroid?"

Lizz stood on her tippy-toes and gave Zane a gentle pat on his head, saying with utmost sincerity, "Good job, Zane."

The silence that lapsed over the group spanned into the cavern ahead of them, the quiet pressing in from all sides. Lizz narrowed her eyes and squinted into the distance, "What the hell is that?"

Kai was the first to follow her gaze, "The staff of the First Spinjitzu Master..."

Kai made to walk across the empty room but Cole stopped him, "Wait. The second task, remember? Zane," Cole glanced over, "What do you think?"

Zane clicked his scanners on, and after a moment sighed heavily and switched them off, "Pixal can see no pattern. For this riddle room, I am at a loss."

"Think about it," Jay started, "The first test was 'a Spinjitzu Master can', so this one is 'a Spinjitzu Master cannot.'. Though, saying it out loud, I don't like the sound of that..."

Kai hummed to himself, thinking over the riddle as he started further into the room. About four steps in, his foot pressed down on one of the floor tiles, triggering a spike trap. Various spikes shot towards the Ninja, temporarily trapping them in various positions -- like Jay, Lizz just chose to hit the deck.

All Ninja except Cole, anyway, who's spikes just went through him. He stood straight from covering his head, "Watch it, okay?!"

Zane detached himself from the wall, "That was a close one."

Jay was helping Lizz up from the floor, his voice quaking, "Every step..." he shuddered, "A trap..."

"How does one reach the staff," Zane asked, "If it becomes more difficult with each step to get there? If I'm correct, this riddle room poses quite the conundrum."

Cole was scratching the back of his head, "So, if a Spinjitzu Master can't do it, how are we supposed to reach the staff?"

Kai cracked his knuckles, "Watch and learn."

He leapt into Airjitzu and flew to the opposite side of the room... but the only thing he was teaching them was what not to do. His Airjitzu spluttered short and got him hooked on a stone pedestal in front of where the Staff rested. The pedestal in question dropped a couple inches and spikes appeared in the wall in front of Kai. Kai, in turn, lept out of the way and let out a chain reaction ridiculous traps that, when avoided, triggered more.

Lizz was doubled over laughing, and Jay hit her, "Lizzi, it's not funny!"

"I know it's not," she wheezed, "But... still!"

Though, it really became not funny when the floor tiles began disappearing, falling down and opening the floor into a dark chasm. Lizz's giggling stopped abruptly and she started shaking, "Guys...?"

Kai saw what was happening and stopped moving, but a stone akin to something from Indiana Jones rolled out from somewhere behind them, leaving them no choice but to hop across the chasm to join Kai. As an answer to that, however, a stone swung down from somewhere high up and would've hit Cole square on had he not been a ghost, "Wait..." he stopped cowering, "I'm a ghost. What do I have to worry about?"

The stone hit the wall and the wall, then, sprung a leak of ocean water, and Cole hopped to the one section of floor that had yet to disappear from the middle of the chasm in the floor, "That. That I have to worry about."

"I can make it!" Kai repeated.

Lizz reached out wordlessly for him to just... not, but she went unnoticed and Kai tried again. And, again, uncontrollable stuff started happening again; spikes coming at them, stalactites falling from the ceiling and knocking out more of the floor. Lizz, Jay, Zane and Cole continued dodging everything they could and Kai was still trying to get to the staff.

When each of them were stranded on one lone stone pedestal, that's when Lizz finally yelled out in a shaky voice, "Will everyone just please stop moving?!"

They all looked at her, Kai stuck on the pedestal closest to the staff, still panting, "I can make it," he huffed, "It's just a hop, skip and a jump."

"Have you ever thought about what the hop, skip and a jump would cost us, though?! If you trigger one more trap, who knows what'll happen!" she snapped, and then broke into a string of curses when Kai tried Airjitzu again.

Only something went wrong and he didn't get very high or far, and hit the floor a few feet in head of where he took off from. Frightened, he scooted backwards until he was back to moderate safety, however the floor where he landed shrunk down out of sight so he too was now stranded on a single stone pedestal, "Alright... alright, I'm listening, now."

"The clue clearly said that this would be something a Spinjitzu Master cannot do!" Jay sounded on the brink of a total mental collapsation, "So why don't we listen to the clue?!"

"Trust me!" Kai stressed, "I can make it!"

Lizz reached towards Kai with both hands shaped in a cupping motion, her teeth grit as she snarled at him, "I'm going to throttle you! Shut the hell up about trusting you, it's you having hairbrained schemes about you saving the day in your otherwise empty head that got us into this mess to begin with! So how about you quit acting like the egotistical asshole you are and actually listen to people more qualified than you for once!"

Kai put a hand over his heart, "Ouch..."

Lizz took a deep breath, "I... sorry..."

"Wait," Cole's voice slicing through the room shook Lizz back to reality, "What if it's a trick...? The reason we can't do it is because we were never meant to reach the staff?" he pointed at Lizz, "What is the first rule of being a Ninja?"

"Goddammit, I wish you'd quit reiterating that--" Lizz rolled her eyes, " A Ninja never... quits... Wait a minute..."

"Exactly!" Cole nodded.

"And that's why we can't do it," Zane finished, "Because a Ninja would never give up..."

"What are you trying to say?" Kai snarked, "That we just quit?! Are you insane!?"

Cole's gaze went down, towards the never ending black abyss they stood above, "This time... trust me." without giving anyone a chance to argue, Cole cannonballed off his pedestal and into the darkness below.

Everyone yelled out for him, and Lizz made to do the same, shakily preparing to slide off her safe haven despite how much it killed her to do so, but Zane yelled at her, "Lizz, no! Cole went because he can't be killed by anything except water. Wait."

She glowered at him from where she sat, speaking in a quivering voice, "How can you ex...expect me to sit here while Cole could be... How can you stand this?! Having your friends, your... your brothers be in constant danger twenty-four-seven?!" she was talking to the rest of them now, "How have none of you broken yet?!"

"Because," Kai told her, "We have each other to hold us together."

"That goes for you, too," Jay added on in a steady tone, "We're here for you just like you're here for us."

Lizz sniffled a little bit, "I'm useless, what are you talking about..."

Zane frowned at her, "Lizz, you're the most uplifting supporter on this team. Without you always cheering us up, I fear we would have fallen apart long before we even learned Airjitzu. The stress of losing Lloyd would have been too much for us to bear."

Lizz opened her mouth to object, but Cole's triumphant shouts from below cut her off, "Come on down and enjoy the ride!"

"He's alive!" Zane shouted, right before he jumped.

Jay followed closely behind, but Kai hesitated, staring longingly at the Staff. Lizz was still staring wide-eyed down below, a small helpless squeak escaping her throat. Kai was shaken from his reverie at her noise and looked sadly at her, "Lizz?"

She shook her head, "I can't do it."

"You were just about to before!" he objected.

"That's when I thought Cole was in danger!" she sniped, "I do irrational things when someone's in danger! No one's dying so I... I can't..." she trailed off with a gulp, looking fearfully down again.

It was a long drop...

Kai jumped to get as close to Lizz as he could, crouching down to get eye level with her, "Lizz," she didn't look at him. He took a deep breath, "Garmadon!" that got her attention and she looked up, "You're going down there and you're coming with us whether you want to or not, got it?"

She snorted angrily at him, "Doubt it."

"Guys!" Jay shouted up from somewhere in the Great Beyond, "Quit snogging and get down here already!"

Kai looked over at Lizz, "You first."

She shook her head, scooching so she sat with her back to him, but her legs still hanging off the edge, "Never in a million years, Fly Boy."

"Sorry I have to do this, then, Lizz," before Lizz could ask him what he meant, Kai took a leap and landed on the pillar right behind Lizz, promptly shoving her off the edge.

She screamed, letting out another string of profanities as she plummeted, air whistling through her ears. She halfway righted herself just in time, hitting a downward sloping ice sheet right as she did so.

From then on it became almost a type of slide, spiraling down, down, down... it widened out into a half pipe and Kai showed up next to her, "Sorry 'bout that."

She made a mad grab for him, but missed, "I hate you!"

Zane and Jay suddenly slid in from separate branches, Zane looking at a loss of what to do. Lizz averted her attention to them instead and giggled, "Zane you look so confused!"

"Try to stay together!" Jay called, slipping around the curve up ahead.

Somehow or another they all got separated into different branches of the Slide or Terror and even worse, the slides all ended abruptly and sent them flying through the air, criss-crossing paths in the process.

Lizz and Zane high fived each other.

Each Ninja landed unharmed in a row of five slides that was something akin to the Fun Slide fair ride, or the ice cave scene from one of Lizz's favourite movies that went something pretty similar to what was going on right now.

Only... they were people, not prehistoric animals.

Jay landed backwards, "Stay together?! I'm just trying to stay in one piece!" he cut off into wordless screams.

Their separate slides started loop-de-looping every which way, Cole and Jay getting thrown over jumps and breaks in theirs. Lizz was just starting to get used to the icy Fun Slide when she went through a particularly steep loop and ran out of momentum halfway up, following in Kai's footsteps. He'd fallen out of his loop just moments before and landed on top of Zane.

And now Lizz fell out of hers and fell on top of Kai. He and Zane both grunted and she grinned softly, "Desole, mes amies."

"French?! Really?!" Kai snapped, "At a time like this!?"

Lizz stuck her tongue out at him.

A little further down the slide, Cole slipped over the wall that separated him and Lizz, Kai and Zane. Cole's aim was true and he landed right on Lizz's back.

She tensed up, but being the middle of a boy-sandwich was short lived as the Ninja Stack was knocked out like bowling pins when Jay joined them. Lizz landed on her stomach, but just... let it happen, going as far as to lay out on her side with her head propped in her hand, her other arm draped over her waist, "Hey, boys," she cooed.

They laughed, but despite his laughing Jay still frowned, "Lizz, this is no time for that!"

Lizz moved so she was sitting, but facing backwards for a second before she flipped back to face forward just in time. Their slide fell into a drop off, so each of the Ninja pushed off and latched onto a giant icicle.

To no avail. There was no way to get a good grip on it, and so one by one they fell off into another route of slip 'n slides.At this point in time, the boys were getting irritated but Lizz was kind of enjoying herself. However, she was leading the convoy, now, though no one had any control over what was happening.

The follow-the-leader line went through a tunnel of criss-crossed icicles, and Lizz shielded her face, accidentally coming up with two in her hands in the process. How? She didn't know, but when she heard Jay yell about how he loved skiing, she got the gist and set the two icicles on the ground before jumping up.

It took a moment, but she found her balance and went skiing.

That is, however, until she fell into an unfortunate line of all the boys being tossed through a half-soft wall of ice. She couldn't've avoided it and just let herself get thrown, upside down, through the wall.  

A/N: next chapter is probably going to be one of my favourites tehehe *evilly rubs hands together*