It was in the afternoon, during a lecture on cyanobacteria, that Nya's phone suddenly buzzed. PIXAL (aka Samurai V) had sent a new message to the 'autobody shop employees' (the Team Samurai's code name) group chat.

New delivery of S-pieces received, help required to shelf them. It said, followed by RSVP.

Nya chuckled briefly, her Nindroid friend was always so polite. But then she remembered the rather serious content of the remainder of the message.

With a sigh, the raven haired young woman tossed her notepad and open pencil case into her black leather bag and quietly got up from her seat. Why did the Serpentine always have to cause trouble when she was at a class?

"Sorry, family emergency." She whispered to the girl sitting next to her, who just nodded wordlessly. Nya's classmates were used to her disappearing regularly during the lectures.

Prof Bolobo, head of Ninjago University's School of Biology, was an old friend of Misako's and one of the few people who knew about Nya's secret occupation. He had given her a pass to miss classes for so-called 'family emergencies' - as long as the very intelligent student was able to catch up on the lessons.

As soon as she had carefully closed the door to the lecture theatre behind her, Nya started sprinting down the stairs, sending her reply, containing only the letter X, to her teammates at the same time.

This single letter would not only let her friends know that she was going to join them, but it would also dispatch the Samurai X suit to her current location.

As she tapped the 'send' icon, Nya saw that Y and Z had already answered - and as always, Q was going to be late.

As she entered the small janitor's closet on the ground floor, Nya produced a small item, looking like an all-black Rubik's cube, from her bag. She locked the door from the inside, making sure that she was on her own, before pressing a sequence of keys on the cube, thereby transforming it into a black helmet with face mask and voice scrambler.

After putting it on her head, Nya climbed out of the window into the school's small inner courtyard, where the red mech had just landed.

She opened a secret storage compartment on the suit's back. It contained an armour which she put on while storing her college bag in the now empty compartment. Nya walked around the mech, performing a brief visual check, before she climbed in and and activated it. PIXAL had already remotely entered to coordinates – Mega Monster Amusement Park as Nya recognised the location – for their mission.

When Samurai X arrived at her destination, she spotted some familiar faces – or rather suits and masks – fighting against a rather large group of Serpentine.

It was Nya's teammates in the orange, smoke grey, and dark blue mechs that were already on site. And those annoying fruit-coloured Ninja.

"Oh, great." The black Ninja complained as soon as he saw her. "Another one..."

"Argh, I hate those Samurai." The blue one whined. "Listen, we have everything under control, why don't you and your mechs just go back home." He shouted.

The red one chuckled. "With those huge suits, those guys are probably compensating for their small d..."

"Shall we show them some girl power?" Skylor, the orange Samurai Y, asked her teammates about their private com system.

"Yeah, let's show these jerks what 'everything under control' really looks like." Seliel, in the grey Samurai Z mech, agreed.

"Already on it." Nya landed her red mech right in the middle of the battle and, with one swift movement of her mech's left arm, she sent three black snakes flying into the air.

"Today's weather is sunny with a chance of snakes." She joked for everyone to hear.

"Hey, this guy's puns are worse than yours." The red Ninja told the blue one, fighting a green snake of the Venomari tribe with his glowing katana.

"I found it funny." The other one retorted. "But speaking of the weather, prepare to be thunderstruck." And, spinning his electrified nunchucks, he stunned a red Fangpyre with a well-aimed beam of lightning.

"I rather think it's going to get foggy now." Seliel stated, before she deployed a few smoke grenades.

"Hey, that's not fair." The red Ninja complained, rubbing his burning eyes.

"All is fair in love and war." PIXAL in the night blue mech quoted.

The four Samurai were wearing masks that not only protected them from the smoke but also enabled them to see through the thick mist.

Using her mech's net thrower, Nya caught four black Constrictai. And her three teammates were equally successful at capturing the evil snakes.

And just at this moment, the jade green mech of the fifth Samurai also arrived at the scene. Still hovering over the group, she managed to tie up a the last five blue Hypnobrai with the perfect throw of a single rope.

"Great shot, Q." Seliel called. "And perfect timing."

"Thanks." Harumi, the team's leader, said. "But it almost looks like you didn't really need me."

"Well, apparently, the Ninja had 'everything under control' even before the four of us arrived here..." Nya gestured at the four coughing young men dressed in red, blue, white, and black.

"I am afraid not everything is under control even now." PIXAL chimed in. "My analysis suggests that five Serpentine, including Pythor, have escaped."

A look at the captured Serpentine confirmed that the snake king and his closest advisors were indeed not among those.

"Well, they are probably still be around here somewhere." Seliel claimed.

"Then let's split up and look for them." Skylor suggested. Without even awaiting the other's reply, the hotheaded Samurai Y took off towards the rollercoaster.

"Agreed." PIXAL stated, and she, Harumi, and Seliel flew off in different directions.

Nya took a look around her closer surroundings, suspecting that the escaped Serpentine couldn't have gotten that far away. And indeed, she saw a purple tail disappearing through the back entrance of the 'ghost ride', one of the park's most popular attractions.

The young woman jumped out of her mech and ran after them into the dark building.

Activating her mask's night vision feature, she quietly snuck through the dark and narrow passages in search of Pythor and his associates. And it was not long until she spotted three snakes digging in a secluded corner, while Pythor was watching them, impatiently tapping his foot.

"What are you looking for?" The Samurai X wondered.

"That'sss none of your busssinesssss, my little Sssamurai." A voice hissed from behind her. And when Nya felt the cold metal of a blade at her neck, just in the tiny gap between her helmet and the armour, she knew that she had made a very bad mistake watching the four snakes.

There should have been five.