"Where oh where could she have gone?" Jay mused as the team wandered through the woods, "Can't have gone too far."

"Well, she's got a Techno-Blade," Cole sighed, "And if she finds out that it can hack vehicles and then turn into said vehicle whenever she wants, she could be on The Dark Islands by now!"

"Yeah, that would be bad," Kai nodded bringing up the back of the pack, "Hey, what's that?!" he ran over to a tree that had long, deep claw marks in the upper trunk. Agilely, he hopped up to the marks, "Eight."

"So a spider got a bit too frisky with the tree," Jay snapped, looking up at Kai, "Who cares!? We're on the search for a Serpentine with a Techno-Blade! If we can't find her, we can't get rid of the OverLord!"

"It's not a spider," Kai fit his fingers into the marks, "I think they're.... Human," ever so slowly, he made his way back down to the ground, and, keeping his gaze in the grass, followed a trail, but stopped dead, "They went this way."

"They?" the other three chorused. Zane frowned, "What do you mean, 'they?' Are you saying she was not alone?"

"There's another person with her," Kai motioned to the double set of footprint-trails leading away from the scarred tree, "This way."

Jay and Zane followed willingly, but Cole, being the one to normally lead, was glowing unhappily at the sudden change in ranks, "Kai, shouldn't I be the one leading us?"

Kai shrugged, "If you want to lead, come up here and lead us. It's not my fault you're back there sulking."

Yes it is your fault, Cole internally snarked, picking up his pace to be even with the Fire Ninja, "Alright, where is this trail leading us?"

"Nowhere you need to be going right now," Nya jumped in front of them, holding a Nin-Jo staff tightly in her hands.

"Nya, go back to the Bounty," Jay's voice was stacked with worry, "We're on the trail of a dangerous Serpentine."

"No, that's the thing," Nya stood from her half-crouched position and leaned on her staff, "She's not completely Serpentine."

"We know that, already, Nya," Kai told her, "Zane told us she's, like, related to the Senseis and Misako and Lloyd."

"She is?" Nya asked, but shook her head, "No, that's not important right now. I mean, after you guys left to go after her, Garmadon and Lloyd went off to Hiroshi's Labyrinth, so it was me, Wu and Misako. We got talking about some stuff and..." she trailed off.

"And?" Zane asked kindly.

"Wu said he thought he knows why she had no physical altercations of a Serpentine, and why she was almost as normal as the rest of us," Nya explained, "She's been poisoned with Hypnobrai venom to make her believe she is of Serpentine descendant."

"So we're dealing with a kidnapping now?!" Jay screamed, tugging at his hair. He screamed, and it sounded more like a gurgle, and began pacing.

"And," Nya continued, despite Jay's negative reaction, "Wu was looking to the Spirit Smoke again and..."

"And what, Nya?" Zane asked gingerly.

"And the Spirit Smoke showed Sensei that Jade is a Ninja. And not just a Ninja, she's an Elemental Master."

"Just great!" Jay wailed, smacking his head on a tree.

Nya ignored her boyfriend, and continued with a low voice "There's more. Guys, she's the rightful owner of her Techno-Blade, which means that..."

"Are you saying," Cole leaned closer to Nya, "That we need that... Serpentine lab-rat to help defeat the OverLord!?"

*.*↠*.*↞*.*

"Ow!" Jade faked, laying on the ground cradling her knee.

Lar's expression went from evil and mischievous to worried and guilty, "Did I hurt you? I didn't mean to!" quickly, he made his way over to where Jade had fallen and looked down at her, "Are you okay?!"

Jade's frown melted into a grin as she swept out her leg, toppling Lar off his feet, "Yeah, I'm perfectly fine."

"Meanie," he laughed, falling back and staring at the stars. They'd been training so long everyone else went inside and it got dark out, "You, my friend, are very conniving."

"It'ss how I was raised," she shrugged, laying down next to him, "We should go insside."

"What? Fearless little Serpentine doesn't like the dark?" he mocked playfully, nudging her shoulder with his.

Suddenly she flipped over and was straddling the blonde, pinning him to the grass, "Don't mock my condition, Ninja."

"I wasn't mocking," he amended with a small nod, "But, on the contrary, it ticked you off enough to bring out an actual spark of anger inside, did it not?"

Jade sighed, a small grin quirking up the corners of her mouth: he's just been testing her to see what she'd do, "Yess, I ssuppose it did. I'm guesssing you'd like me to get off your lap now?" she slowly became aware of their position in the dewy grass.

Lar was about to reply, shown by the opening of his mouth, but the sound of a low chuckle and slight jingles cut him off, "Having fun?"

With the smoothness of a ghost, Lar slid Jade off him, crushing her spirit and little in the process: she never truly had him pinned at all. As if he read her mind, he gave her a small smile and sat up, turning around to face the intruder, "What, Ash?"

He shrugged and put all his weight to his right foot, crossed his feet and planted the toes of his left in the grass, jingling the shackles around his ankles, "Nothing, I just wanted to talk to you about something, but seeing now I think I've interrupted something a little.... Intimate."

"Nothing like that," Jade jumped to her feet, "We were jusst practicing and he losst."

Ash ignored her comment narrowed his grey eyes at her, "Serpentine, aye? Not often we get one of those around here," he paused, "Unless you count Clouse's pet."

"I am not entirely Sserpentine," Jade snapped, crossing her arms, "What was sso important you had to walk all the way out here? Jusst to interrupt Training?"

"Nothing that you need to concern your pretty little head about," Ash sneered, "Snake."

A low growl escaped from Jade's throat, and Lar held out a hand to cut her off if she lunged, "No," then he turned to Ash, "Do you mind not provoking a Hypnobrai? If she hypnotizes you into doing all her evil bidding I'm not saving you."

"She can't hypnotize with one eye," his smile was wicked and unfriendly, "I should know. Poked one's eye out and he was completely usele-"

In one moment Lar was shoved to the ground and Jade sprang forward like a cobra. Ash didn't have time to use his sneaky ability to change to smoke before he was hit, but the pain sent him into action and he immediately turned. Jade's second attack was hopeless. When she jumped he was human and as she soared through the air, he turned to smoke. She fell right through him, only to have him turn solid again, once she was through him, and kick her legs out from under her. Jade growled and jumped to her feet to once again face Ash.

The look on her face said she was about to kill him.

That was when Lar decided to step in, "You," he pointed at Jade, "Calm down. And you," he stepped towards Ash and planted a harsh backhanded smack across his face, "That's for unnecessary provoking. Now let's go inside before one of you kills the other one," Ash was about to protest, and Lar cut him off, "Inside, we can at least separate or distract the two of you."

The other glared, but willingly followed Lar into the brightly lit monastery. Jade blinked against the harsh lights, becoming annoyed with the half of her vision that was infrared, as the room came into view. There were at least five levels of rooms, each lined with a dark red and green railing to prevent inhabitants from falling to their death onto the dark brown and purple rock flooring. Jade saw, from her view, there was a large design of some sort sketched into the dark brown circle in the center of the surface.

All in all, the interior designer must have been one of the best: light tan and dark red mixed with an assortments of purple, yellow and darker brown were excellent color schemes. Jade nodded in appreciation, "This is a really.... really nice place you guys got here."

"Thanks," Jade whirled around at the voice and found she was staring at a man wearing a red outfit, that, too, had a various amount of dark purple and lighter red. His greasy, jet black hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, and his face showed signs of age and abuse, "I shall tell Master Chen you enjoy his palace."

Jade gulped and shrunk behind the only person she'd known to trust in this place. Lar raised an eyebrow at the sudden action, but didn't question it, "Clouse, leave her alone and stop creeping on everyone."

"Someone's got a crush," Ash muttered from across the room as he walked away.

Lar, apparently, heard that, because right as Ash grinned at him Lar did something strange and completely out of his seemingly kind and loving behaviour. With a small smile at Jade, Lar whipped around and threw water at Ash, hitting him square in the back of the head and knocking him over, "Shut up, Ash."

Ash looked as if he wanted to do something, but Lar was a better fighter, so he only glared and disappeared into his ground-level room. As soon as the door was closed Jade burst out laughing, "Teach me how to do that!"

"In due time," Lar ushered her along and up the stairs, "You're not nearly trained enough."

"Where are you taking me?" she questioned when they stopped at a second floor room, "Lar?"

"You need a place to stay, and there's no more empty rooms," he shoved open the door, "You're sharing with me. Inside you go," he followed her inside and closed the door behind them.