Ever since Lloyd released the Serpentine onto Ninjago, our peace was soon broken and we've been training nonstop. Although this threat isn't Lord Garmadon, this threat is still pretty major. If all of the Serpentine Tombs were to be opened, then it would be the end of Ninjago as we know it. Training is a must. We can't let it fall.

~

I raise one of my metal fans up to my face, a training dummy quickly approaching me from the front and behind. I slow my breathing and decide to strike. I throw one of my fans at the dummy in front of me causing it to fall down as I quickly turn around, using my other fan to block the ax that the dummy swung at me. I struggle to push it back but, before I know it, my feet are stuck in ice and the training dummy is completely frozen.

"Uh what just happened guys?" I ask trying to pull myself out of the ice.

Kai walks over to me, using his sword to melt the ice around my feet. "Zane happened."

Once it was melted enough, Kai pulled me out and carried me to the others. "This roof isn't big enough for the five of us. He nearly froze the kid."

"I'm fine, Kai."

"Correction: This roof isn't big enough for him," Cole says as he gestures to Zane.

"He's certainly... different. But still, he's trying and besides, we're all different." I look over to the blonde seeing he bows to one of the training dummies but it hits him instead.

"It's like he's in his own world. I bet he can't even hear us!" Jay shouts out to the white ninja, but of course, he simply doesn't hear it.

Sensei Wu walks over to us, hearing our conversation about Zane.

"Sensei, Zane's... weird," Kai says putting me downstairs.

"What is weird? Someone who is different or someone who is different than you?"

"No Sensei, he's weird weird." Cole says

~ Flashback~

Cole is using the bathroom when the door opens as Zane comes in to brush his teeth.

"Do you mind?!

~

Jay and Nya are watching a sad romantic TV show, the lovers are saying goodbye in the show and Jay and Nya are in tears.

Then all they hear is Zane laughing at the sad moment, they just turn to Zane with an angry expression.

~

Kai walks over to the fridge to get a late-night time snack, but when he opens the door to it, all he sees is Zane sitting in the fridge.

"Gah! Holy baloney!"

"I'm sorry, I consumed the last of the deli meat. Cheese?"

~

I'm in the kitchen eating some ice cream as Zane sits across from me, reading a book. My ice cream starts to melt, "Aw. I wish it wasn't melting."

Zane proceeds to take out one of his shurikens and taps it over my ice cream completely freezing it and my hands. "Uh, thanks?"

~End of Flashback~

"We like the guy, he's really smart. He's just... a little off sometimes." Kai says.

"Zane is a brother and brothers and sisters are often different. I should know." Sensei says as he reminisces a bit about Garmadon.

Before the conversation continued, we all hear the doorbell ring meaning it was mail day. All the ninja run towards the door, excited as to what they would receive today. They slam open the large gates of the monastery to reveal a panting Postman. Poor man, must've been extremely tired after walking up all those stairs.

"Let's see. A letter from Jay's parents. Kai has a fan letter. Oh, something from Cole's father." The Postman said, passing out everyone's mail to them.

"What, no package? I'm expecting something from Creatures, Beasts, and Beyond." Cole says, hoping his package is with the Postman.

"No, nothing from uh... uh... wait, here it is!" He pulls out a package and hands it to Cole before leaving.

"Ha! Rocky's gonna love this!"

Zane and I walk over to the rest of the ninja, seeing that Cole has discarded his letter from his father. I wonder why he did that?... I would have loved to receive a letter from my parents if they are even out there.

"Hey, Zane, y/n. How come you never hear anything from your parents?" Jay asks while reading his parent's letters.

"I don't remember my parents. I've been an orphan all my life." Zane says.

"I don't remember anything about my parents, Sensei found me outside the doors of the monastery three years ago. I don't have any previous memories before that really."

"You mean you two never had a home before?" Kai asks, feeling a bit remorseful. We shake our heads sadly.

Sensei Wu walks over to the rest of us, putting his hands on our shoulders, "The Monastery is your home now for the both of you."

Zane walks away sadly as I give Sensei a sad smile, "Thank you, Sensei Wu." I bow to him before walking off with the white ninja.

The two of us head inside, causing me to have an internal battle with myself before deciding to grab Zane's hand. "We can be orphans together. After all, us orphans gotta stick together, right?"

The blonde simply smiles at me as he puts me on his shoulder. "That's right, we gotta stick together. Now, how about we go play hide and seek? It's been a while since we have."

I smiled brightly at the comment, "Yeah! Sounds great!"

~

Lloyd looks at the lollipop that y/n gave him. "...why was she so nice to me?... I'm the son of Lord Garmadon after all... No one's been nice to me before..." His eyes widen. "Gah! Stop thinking about her Lloyd! You don't like girls!"

He quickly shoves it back into his pocket while walking around his rather large treehouse. The blonde looks around, disappointed by some of the results that his snake army is giving him. Slithraa slithers up to Lloyd seeing him disappointed. "Hey! If we plan on ruling Ninjago from here, this elevator needs a trap door! I want more booby traps! And remember! No Ninjas!"

Slithraa bows to the young boy, "Asss you wisssh, young Garmadon. We will fix thisss immediately."

~

It's now dinner time, we're all sitting around the dining room table waiting for Zane to be finished with dinner. It's his night to cook after all and let's just say his cooking was out of this world.

"Oh, I just love it when it's Zane's night to cook!" Jay dreamily says as he imagines himself eating Zane's cooking.

"Hey, I didn't hear any complaints about my duck chowder last night," Cole says a bit insulted.

"Tha's because it glued our mouths shut. You really thought Jay was speechless all throughout dinner?" Kai shudders at the thought of Cole's cooking.

"Yeah, let's just say it wasn't the greatest heh. Maybe stick to eating instead of cooking, please."

Finally, Zane enters the room with a large turkey, placing it on the table but immediately everyone starts to laugh at him but me. "What's so funny guys?"

"Zane, you're wearing a... Even I wouldn't wear that!" Nya says, trying to hold back her laughter.

"What do you guys mean? What is he wearing that's so funny? Someone, please tell me what's funny," I ask more insistently.

"You laugh because I take steps to ensure I'm clean after cooking?" Zane asks.

Oooh, it's the apron. Huh, that's a bit strange. Is his apron funny or something? His apron is appropriate though, right?

Kai then speaks up laughing, "Haha! No! We laugh because you came out wearing that ridiculous outfit!"

"It's not a ridiculous outfit. It's just something he uses to keep clean Kai."

"I guess we don't share the same sense of humor," Zane says a bit disappointed

"Well, how about this?" Cole then proceeds to throw a plate full of shrimp at Kai's face as everyone starts to laugh again. I simply stare at Zane with a confused expression. Guess our sense of humor is a bit different than theirs, more things we have in common.

Cole turns his attention to us, "How could you two not find that funny?" But before he gets to say anything else, Sensei Wu pours soup onto his head. "Ah!"

"Now you are brothers," Sensei says to Cole and Zane.

That's when a food fight erupts in the dining room leaving Zane confused about everything while I quickly use my fans to block any incoming food. No way in hell am I getting dirty again! I just took a shower!

~

Zane and I walk outside to throw out the trash, everyone making a complete mess of the dining room and all the perfectly good food. At least Zane made some extra food so we managed to eat that luckily. Still, it was a waste to watch the food be destroyed.

"Sorry about your food Zane, didn't expect it would go to waste like that," I say to him, throwing out a bag of trash.

"It is quite alright. At least we got to eat something so it was not a complete waste." He responds, throwing the last bag of wasted food.

As we're about to head back inside, we see a falcon fly onto a branch of a nearby tree. We stare at it for a moment before it does a little dance. Zane copies the dance as I stare at him and the bird in confusion. Uh, what is Zane doing? Is he doing the bird's mating dance?! That's when the bird starts to make gestures for us to follow him. Zane and I look at each other before deciding to follow this mysterious bird. We got nothing better to do after all.

The bird flies off so we start running after it, curious as to what we will find. After a long while of running, the bird stops on a tree. I really didn't expect all this running, at least we ate something before doing this. Jeez, I'm tired. We take a moment to catch our breaths before looking over at the bird and look in the direction of where the falcon is looking at. Our eyes widen at what we see.

A large treehouse that houses many Serpentine including Lloyd. Lloyd's secret treehouse hideout.

We are going to need the rest of the team to be able to bring down that huge treehouse. There is no way we can take it down ourselves.

"Thank you, my mysterious friend," Zane says before picking me up and running back to the monastery to tell our siblings of the news.

~

The following day, we're all running towards the hidden base but because of how far it is, we are getting more and more tired. We've been running for a while so the team is getting restless.

"I don't even think Zane and y/n know where they're going." Kai turns to us, "Uh, tell us again how you stumbled upon Lloyd's secret headquarters."

"We followed a bird," Zane said.

"Why did you two follow a bird?" Jay asks.

"Because it danced."

Damn it, Zane. Why did you say it that way? Now they are going to think we are crazy!

"Oh...okay. Was it a cuckoo bird?"

That's when everyone starts to laugh. I giggle a bit at the joke, it was clever. I'll give him that.

"Of course not. Everyone knows cuckoo birds are not indigenous to these woods."

We all stop running for a bit, shocked at the fact that Zane actually knew that.

"H-how does he- you know what? Nevermind."

~

They continue to follow Zane and y/n until they all finally reach the secret hideout. The ninjas are stunned by it and how large it truly is. From a distance, we hear Lloyd yell out to his snake army to work faster on his treehouse. "Watch it! No, bigger! Come on, we don't have all day! It's not time for a lunch break."

"Holy cannoli, Frosty and Kid were right!" Cole shouts out in astonishment.

Kai pulls down his mask, us following his lead. "We can't let that brat and those snakes get a foothold of Ninjago. We gotta destroy that thing before it becomes operational."

"Whoa! Are you sure? It looks like a pretty cool treehouse. There's a ropes course... Ooh, a tree swing!" Jay says excitedly. And he wasn't wrong, it really did look like a lot of fun!

"Hey! Remember whose team you're on. Alright, guys. What do we do?" Cole asks.

"It looks like the entire place is being supported by those three trees. Once those ties are severed, the whole is gonna fall like a house of cards." Kai says as he analyzes the treehouse. He was right, if we managed to cut down the ropes, everything would collapse and Lloyd's plans would fall to pieces.

"But why would one make a house of cards? Such construction would be careless." Zane says not understanding Kai's metaphor.

"Oh, brother..." Kai says under his breath.

We all separate, heading towards the treehouse and to cut those ropes. We have to destroy this place one way or another, but we can't risk Lloyd getting hurt. Snakes are tough but Lloyd.. he's soft. He'll get hurt if we destroy it while he's in here. I start climbing up onto the side of the treehouse sneakily, hoping no one spots me thanks to my brightly colored purple gi. That would be really bad if someone did spot me. I start to wonder what's going on through Lloyd's mind, what pushed him to go this far.

Lloyd wants to be like his father so much, but why? There has to be a reason for it after all. And what about his mother? Why isn't she doing anything to stop him from doing these reckless things? Why is he doing this all really?... He's just been through so much... he needs a break from all of this chaos... he shouldn't be experiencing or doing this at all. He just needs a wake-up call.

These thoughts race through my mind while I climb the treehouse. Why am I so worried about Lloyd really? Is it because I'm the same age as him thus making me worried about him? Or is it because I just care? I may never know...

I continue to climb up as I shake away my thoughts. Can't let myself get distracted, I need to cut my rope! I look up, seeing the rope up ahead as I take out my fan, getting ready to throw it. As I'm about to throw it at the rope, I suddenly feel the treehouse starting to shake as it leans to one side roughly causing me to drop my fan. My eyes widen as I try to hold onto the side of the treehouse. I look around me, seeing many snakes falling out of the now unstable building including some unnailed pieces of wood. Please don't fall! Please don't fall! I am way too high up! I try to dodge some falling snakes and debris, but it's no use. I eventually get hit by something, too hard to tell, as my grip loosens completely and I start falling.

Everything starts to slow down around me as I try to grab onto something. One of my fans is gone and I can't use Spinjitzu to save me, I have no footing. Crap. I shout out to the only person I know who I can count on the most.

""

But, I know it's no use. With the building and the snakes falling down, my voice is lost within the sea of screams and breaking items. Oh my Spinjitzu! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna fall to my death! This is how I die! I'm no-

I snap out of my thoughts when someone instantly grabs my hand, saving me from falling to my death.

I'm saved! Oh, thank everything! Kai really did hear me then!

I look up at my savior, about to thank Kai. Instead of seeing the red ninja, however, I see a small blonde boy using all his strength to pull me up.

Lloyd saved me...

I stare at him as he helps me up onto a stable part of the treehouse.

"Don't tell anyone I did this for you. I was just... paying you back for what you did the other day ninja," Lloyd says a bit embarrassed.

I just hug Lloyd, feeling so happy that I didn't die today. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! You saved my life!"

"I uh.. no problem." He thinks about hugging us back for a moment before deciding to push us away. "Now go be a ninja or something, I'm gonna pretend I never did this."

I smile saying, "Thank you, Lloyd. I really appreciate it, also sorry about your treehouse. One more thing, the name is Y/n."

Lloyd processes what I just said but before he gets to say anything, I've already disappeared into the shadows. He shakes his head, shouting out to the Hypnobrai army. "I said no ninjas! And no girls! Attack!"

~

Just as Zane is about to cut the second rope, he's stopped by Kai. "Hold on Zane! Where's the kid?! She's not up here with us!"

All the ninja start searching for us frantically, hoping to see us climbing the treehouse perfectly safe. Then again, who are they kidding? They cut a rope already without verifying we were with them from the start. "I can't find her!" Jay says in a panicked voice.

I struggle to get up onto the roof as I breathe heavily pull myself up. "I'm here guys! Don't worry about me! This kid can handle herself! Sorta! Ugh... so much climbing... was not prepared for this..."

Cole quickly runs over to me and picks me up, letting out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank the First Spinjitzu Master! I got her! Zane cut the rope! We will be alright now!"

Zane nods, using his Spinjitzu to cut the rope as the treehouse tips over roughly once more. All the Ninja hold on tightly, waiting for the building to stabilize before cutting the last rope. Once it stabilized, I see the Serpentine escape the treehouse safely. At least they are alright, but where's Lloyd? I make Cole put me down as I run over to the side of the building. Looking over the side of the treehouse, I spot Lloyd stuck in a cage being carried away by the snakes. "Oh, Lloyd..."

"Cole! Wait till we're off this treehouse, then cut the line!" Kai shouts out to Cole as he nods in agreement as he goes over to me.

As he is about to pick us up, he sees a familiar snake that once hypnotized him, "Hey-"

But, before he gets to say anything, Skales points at Cole. "You! You will obey my eyes command!"

My eyes widen as I quickly turn to look at Cole, his eyes showing signs he has been hypnotized once more. He reaches out to grab, but I quickly grab onto his arm and flip him away from me "Sorry, Cole! But this is for your own good!"

I quickly run over to my nearest brother, being Jay, "Cole's been hypnotized by the Hypnobrai!"

Jay's eyes widen, seeing Cole get up and start walking towards us and the rest of the team. The blue ninja gets his nunchucks ready to fight him while making sure we weren't hurt by him.

"No one goes anywhere without dealing me!" Cole shouts, taking out his scythe.

That isn't good.

"What's gotten into him?" Kai asks curiously.

"As y/n has said, he's under their control." Zane proceeds to take out his shurikens, getting ready to use them if he needs to.

"Yeah, well he better snap out of it quick because this whole place looks like it's about to go down!" Jay was right. If that last rope broke, we would surely fall to our dooms.

"How are we supposed to snap him out of it?! We don't have the anti-venom! It's back at the monastery!" I shout out worryingly.

Jay tries to talk to Cole. Trying to get through to him. "Okay, now come on. Friends don't hit friends." Cole proceeds to kick him in the jaw. "O-ow, okay. I-I-I-I'm gonna ignore that."

Cole goes to attack me but using my remaining fan, I quickly use it to fake a slash towards his face. I sweep at his legs causing him to fall, hitting his head. "Ouch, that's gotta hurt. Sorry, Cole."

"What're we supposed to do? If I use my sword, this place will turn up into flames faster than a tinder box," Kai says, hoping to not hurt his friend.

But, Cole has other plans for his friends. He quickly gets up, runs over to Kai, and throws him off of the roof with all of his strength. He turns his attention to Zane, but I quickly run over to him and swing my fan at him. "Save Kai, Zane!"