Jay Read online

  TITLE PAGE

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF SENSEI WU

  THE DRAGON’S ROAR

  THE TRUTH-SEEKER

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  COPYRIGHT

  A team needs many things in order to succeed. Unity, strength, skill, intelligence — all of these play a part. But one thing that is often overlooked is the ability to smile in the face of danger. Heroes who can find humor in even the most terrifying situations are often the ones best able to survive.

  I know this well. In my time, I encountered many adventurers who were serious every moment. Few of them proved to be successful for very long. A hero has to battle too many great evils — often only the ability to laugh at life can keep him going.

  That is one of the reasons Jay is such a valuable member of my team. He is always ready with a joke, even in the middle of a battle. His sense of humor sends a message to the others that everything will be all right, no matter what danger they may face together.

  Jay is a young man of many talents. Along with being the Ninja of Lightning, he cooks and has created many inventions. He loves to talk, leading Cole to refer to him as the “mouth of lightning.” He seems to truly enjoy life and to see his career as a ninja as an excuse for endless adventure.

  I first met Jay when he was testing out one of his inventions, a pair of wooden wings with which he was attempting to fly. Needless to say, it did not end well. I had already calculated the mass of his invention, the direction and speed of the wind, and the speed he would need to successfully launch himself into the air. And so when his flight ended with him crashing into a billboard, I was waiting there for him.

  Unlike Zane, who does not remember his past, Jay recalls it but does not wish to speak about it. I do not believe that he has some dark deed in his past that he is ashamed of. I think perhaps he came from humble beginnings and somehow believes that to be a cause for embarrassment. I cannot imagine why this would be so. A man, after all, is not measured by the wealth in his pocket but by the riches in his heart.

  Of course, there is now the matter of his obvious attraction to Kai’s sister, Nya. He may well wish her to believe his early life was an exciting one and the truth would be quite different. Still, if he truly cares for her, it would be best to be honest — for if she truly cares for him, she will accept him no matter how poor he might once have been.

  Jay will tell you he is a young man of many interests, but his true passion is inventing. He once told me that he has crates full of things he has created, some of which he can no longer recall the purpose of. Leave him alone for an hour with tools and raw materials, and there is no telling what you may find when you return.

  The list of his inventions is long and certainly … unique. There is the machine that removes the core of every apple on a tree, before they are even picked; the material that can be written on as a document, or stretched to form a waterproof tent; a blanket designed to keep one cold on hot nights; and stilts that allow one to go from extremely tall to normal height at the touch of a button. (This last invention jammed on its first use, bouncing Jay between six feet and sixty feet high over one hundred times in two minutes. He said it took him a month to stop feeling dizzy.)

  Still, all his creativity, humor, and enthusiasm would mean nothing if he was not also a skilled and brave fighter. Jay once took on an entire skeleton army in the Caves of Despair to buy his friends time. He did not hesitate to do so, although it put his life in terrible danger. For him, there simply was no question — if Zane, Kai, and Cole needed him, he would do whatever he had to in order to aid them.

  Jay is truly a vital member of this team. I do not believe it could succeed without him, and I am not even certain it could exist without the qualities he possesses. Although he covers his feelings with jokes, I am sure he knows how proud his friends are to fight beside him.

  Jay was not a happy ninja.

  In the last half hour, the evil Samukai had finally stolen three of the Four Weapons of Spinjitzu; Sensei Wu had vanished over a lavafall with the fourth; and Jay and his friends were unable to pursue them because Samukai and the sensei were now both in the Underworld. Sensei Wu had counted on his new ninja to protect the Weapons from Samukai, and they had failed.

  That was all bad enough. But then Kai suddenly appeared actually riding on a Fire Dragon. The great beasts, it seemed, were the key to following Sensei Wu. Being not truly of this world or any other, the dragons had the power to travel between Ninjago and the Underworld. First, though, the ninja would have to master riding them.

  Jay immediately sensed disaster. He saw only one way out. “Um, Kai, since yours is already taking passengers, why can’t we all ride on it?”

  Kai shook his head. “Each dragon will only carry the rider connected to its element; at least, that’s what the legends all say. So we each have to ride our own.”

  “I see two minor problems,” said Zane. “First, we know nothing about riding dragons. Second, there are no dragons to ride.”

  “If that’s what you see as ‘minor’ problems, I’d hate to see your idea of ‘major’ ones,” said Jay.

  “Whichever, we better find a way to solve them if we want to find the sensei and get those Weapons back from Samukai,” said Cole. “We let ourselves be tricked. Now we have to make things right.”

  Kai patted his dragon’s scaly neck. “I think this big fellow here can provide one answer, can’t you, boy?”

  As if in answer, the dragon lifted its massive head and let out a long, low roar that seemed to last forever. This was followed by … nothing. The ninja stood around uncomfortably, not wanting to question Kai’s judgment. Then they heard it — answering cries coming from the north, south, and west.

  Cole pointed toward the sky. “Look! Look up there!”

  High above, three great dragons were circling. The Ice Dragon was the first to land, followed by the Lightning Dragon and the Earth Dragon. They seemed to look at the Fire Dragon expectantly, as if to say, “Yes, what is it you wanted?” After a moment, they looked like they were going to fly off. The Fire Dragon growled loudly, and the other three immediately settled down.

  “All right,” said Kai. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait just a second,” said Jay. “How did you manage to get a dragon to let you ride it? I doubt it just let you climb aboard, unless it was looking for a potential snack on the go.”

  Kai shrugged. “Well, I just explained to it what the problem was … and it wanted to help. If Garmadon is threatening the world, it’s the dragons’ world, too, at least some of the time.”

  Jay had to admit that made sense, in a strange sort of way. Zane and Cole went right to work trying to persuade their dragons to help them. Jay’s dragon looked at the ninja through narrowed eyes, as if daring him to try to be convincing.

  “Right. Here goes,” Jay said to himself. Meeting the dragon’s gaze, he said, “Listen, there’s this guy, Garmadon, and he wants to get his hands on some really powerful weapons — stuff that could even singe your scales. So you might want to, I don’t know, help stop him.”

  At first, the dragon did not react at all. Then it took a deep breath and exhaled, lightning bolts shooting from its mouth. “Yiii!” shouted Jay, barely avoiding being fried by dragon breath.

  The dragon smiled and closed its eyes.

  I should have known, thought Jay. Each of us has a different talent, and Kai’s is his energy and enthusiasm. He could probably talk Garmadon into giving up, if he had the chance. Zane will just make a really logical argument to the dragon until it has to give in. But me? I’ll have to do this a different way.

  Jay sat down
on a hillside across from the sleeping dragon and thought about what he was good at. The first thing that came to mind was making jokes. Jay had a great sense of humor and always tried to keep his friends laughing. Maybe the dragon could use a laugh, too. If I smelled like that, I sure could, thought Jay.

  “Hey, dragon!” Jay said loudly. The dragon opened one eye. “How can you tell if you have a dragon in your bathroom? The door won’t close! How long was the dragon’s vacation? Four days and three knights! How about this one? Three ninja and a dragon walk into a dojo, and —”

  The Lightning Dragon swiped its massive tail, knocking Jay off his feet.

  “That’s the worst thing about dragons,” muttered Jay, standing back up. “They don’t know good jokes when they hear them.”

  Jay went back to thinking. What else was he good at? Well, he was a pretty good cook. Even the sensei seemed to like what he made over the campfire. Maybe he could make a tasty dish for the dragon.

  Looking around, Jay was able to find many things for his recipe, including fruit, nuts, and various plants he knew were safe to eat. (Giving the dragon a poisonous plant for lunch would have been a very bad idea, after all.) He mixed them all together into a huge salad and used juice from the rillberry plant for a dressing. Then he placed the whole thing in front of the dragon’s nose.

  One eye half opened, and the dragon peered at the meal. It took a long sniff. When it breathed out, its electric power turned the food to ash. Then it went back to sleep.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Jay grumbled.

  “You made a salad for a dragon?” Kai asked, in disbelief.

  “What’s wrong with that?” said Jay. “Why, what do dragons eat?”

  “Well … ninja,” said Kai, smiling, “especially ones who serve salads.”

  By this time, Jay was getting discouraged. Zane was already sitting on his dragon and Kai had his practically purring. Jay did not want to wind up being left behind just because of an uncooperative dragon.

  Think! he said to himself. There must be something you haven’t tried.

  Jay had one other talent, although not everyone called it that. He was an inventor, constantly tinkering with new gadgets and testing them out. Some of them didn’t work and some of them weren’t very useful, but he got a lot of satisfaction out of coming up with the ideas and putting them together. Maybe he could invent something the dragon would like.

  But what would a dragon need, he wondered? It already had strength, the power of flight, natural armor, claws, and in this case, the ability to breathe lightning bolts. What would make its life better?

  Then he remembered the Fire Dragon’s roar. What if how loud the roar was determined which dragon was listened to? What if he could give the Lightning Dragon the loudest roar?

  Jay hurried off to the cart and returned with an armful of tools and a bunch of odds and ends. He immediately set to work building a funnel-shaped device which, when spoken into, would make the sound much louder. That was nothing new, of course, but what made it unique was that it was designed to fit inside a dragon’s mouth without interfering with the beast’s ability to bite and chew. It wasn’t perfect, he knew — after all, it was not like he was able to measure the dragon’s teeth. But if it worked, he could always modify it later.

  When Jay was finished, he found he faced one more problem: getting the dragon to open its mouth long enough for him to put it in. The only thing he could think of was to make the dragon so angry that it opened up to breathe more lightning at him. And that was easy to do — he just made another salad.

  This time, the smell of the rillberry dressing made the dragon even more irritated. It opened its vast jaws and prepared to add some sizzle to the recipe. As soon as Jay saw its mouth gaping wide, he rushed forward and put his invention into place. He was finished not a second too soon as the angry dragon slammed its mouth shut and almost caught Jay.

  “ROOOOAAAARRRR,” said the dragon, so loudly that Jay was knocked over. The other dragons whipped their heads around in shock and it seemed like the mountains shook all around. The dragon roared a few more times, but with less fury and more a sense of celebration.

  “So, what do you think?” said Jay, back on his feet again. “Nobody’s going to push you around again.”

  The dragon gave a low rumble of satisfaction that shook the ground. Then it lowered its great head and allowed Jay to climb onto its neck. Jay couldn’t help grinning as he turned to his friends.

  “What are we waiting for?” he said. “We have dragons to ride!”

  Jay and Kai rode into the village on two mules. Their friend Zane would have said this was a most undignified way for ninja to travel. It was certainly true that one couldn’t be particularly stealthy when riding an animal that was clumsy and loud. But Jay was more than happy for the company, especially since it was a long ride to the village.

  It was almost the end of the day. The trip to the village had taken the ninja longer than expected. There were skeletons in the hills and bandits along the road. The ones the ninja couldn’t evade, they’d had to fight. It meant a few scratches here and there, but nothing more serious than that.

  Up ahead, Jay saw their destination: Lee’s Supplies, the only general store for miles around. The ninja would be breaking camp and moving on in a couple of days, and basic goods — food, blankets, whetstones for sharpening swords — were in short supply. Jay and Kai had been sent to purchase what the team needed, pack it on the mules, and haul it back to camp. Normally, it was a job for one ninja, but the presence of skeletons and bandits led Sensei Wu to send them both. Kai wasn’t thrilled about going on a shopping trip and had complained loudly about the job.

  Lee, a short, chubby man with a fringe of black hair, was just locking up his shop as the ninja approached. “Hi,” said Jay. “My friend and I have come a long way to buy some goods. We have mules, so you can see we’re planning on making some serious purchases. Is there still time to get them today?”

  The shopkeeper turned. At the sight of two ninja on their mules, he seemed unsure whether to run or burst out laughing. “Um, well … um … the shop is closed. I’ll be open again at nine tomorrow morning.”

  “What?” snapped Kai. “It’s not even sundown. What kind of a shop are you running here?”

  “What my friend is trying to say,” Jay cut in, “is that we would really appreciate it if you would stay open for a little bit longer so we can get what we need. A long trip here means a long trip back — the two usually go together, you know.”

  Lee emphatically shook his head. “No. My dinner is waiting. Besides, you’re ninja, aren’t you? How do I know you won’t take my goods and not pay me?”

  “Why, you —” Kai said hotly. “We’re out there day after day fighting skeletons to protect folks like you.”

  “Skeletons?” Lee said. He seemed startled. “Well, you won’t find any of those around here. This visit is a waste of your time,” he said quickly.

  Jay frowned. He thought everyone knew there were skeletons in the area. How had the shopkeeper missed that bit of news? Still, arguing with him was pointless. He might decide to sell them nothing at all.

  “All right,” said Jay. “We’ll come back in the morning. Is there an inn we can stay at overnight?”

  Lee shrugged. “This is a small village. The inn is right down the street.”

  Jay thanked him and went over to the inn with Kai. After making sure the mules were fed and quartered in the local stable, they got rooms. Dinner at the inn was some thin soup and a hunk of old bread. Jay knew he could make better food in his sleep. In fact, he had done so once while he was sleepwalking, which hadn’t amused the sensei very much.

  “What brings you here, strangers?” asked Mrs. Park, the innkeeper.

  “We’re in town to buy some supplies from Mr. Lee,” Jay replied. “Although it seems that finding Sensei Wu’s phantom teapot might be an easier task,” he whispered to Kai.

  “Ha!” said Mrs. Park. She was sitting in
a corner knitting a red and blue scarf, apparently not interested in eating her own cooking. “Watch your money, I say. Lee is a cheat. He sells bags of flour that are half full, bread long past when it’s good, nails that break when you pound on them, and axes whose heads fly off at the first chop. I had to spend so much money to replace all the things I bought from him that I almost went out of business … I might, still.”

  “I’m a trader,” said Din, a young man with a shock of red hair on his head. “I carry goods from place to place. Lee buys from me and promises to pay the next time I come through the village. By the time I come back again, he has sold what he has bought from me — then claims he never purchased it and owes me nothing!”

  A grizzled older man in the corner, named Lu, joined the conversation. “You complain about a raindrop in the middle of a flood. Yes, Lee is a thief and a liar. But he is not the only one in this village. He has told me many stories, and were others to hear them, there would be much trouble for someone.”

  “What kind of stories?” asked Kai.

  The old man just shook his head. “That is not for outsiders to know. We deal with our own problems here.”

  You don’t seem to be doing it very well, thought Kai.

  “Besides,” the man continued, “you would seem to have problems of your own. Half the village saw you two arguing with Lee today.”

  “That was a misunderstanding,” Jay admitted. “It wasn’t like we wanted to hurt Lee.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Kai added under his breath.

  Jay decided there had been enough conversation for one night. He tucked a piece of bread into his pocket for a midnight snack, and then he and Kai went to their rooms. The beds were just mats on the floor, but both were tired after the long trip, so they quickly fell asleep.

  CRASH!

  Jay abruptly sat up in bed. What was that noise? It sounded like the biggest clap of thunder he had ever heard. He could hear villagers outside, all of them sounding frightened and upset. Jay rushed out of the room to see Kai already in the hallway. The two hurried down the stairs, out the front door, and into the street.