Chapter Text
Monkie Kid World
If someone had told MK just how many demons would suddenly be out for his blood the day he first picked up the Monkey King's staff, he might have put a bit more thought into keeping it.
Just a little more. He still wouldn't have let the Demon Bull family have it, or anyone else for that matter. The Monkey King fanboy in him would have never allowed it.
But still, once again he found himself battling against yet another demon who decided to attack him for seemingly no reason.
In other words, it was a typical day for MK since becoming the Monkie Kid.
Now he should really stop pondering this and focus more on the fight and- WHOA! Too close, that nearly took his head off.
MK ducked as the blow sailed above his spiky brown hair. "Seriously, why are you doing this?" he asked as he used his staff to block yet another blow sent his way.
"Nothing persssonal, my boy," said the demon with a smirk. It was a large purple snake demon with a pompous-sounding voice and an annoying habit of disappearing. "You've jussst got a very lucrative price on your head, and I intend to collect."
This was news to MK, but given how many enemies he'd made since he picked up the staff, maybe it shouldn't be. Thinking back, the SOS that had them coming to the abandoned bunch of warehouses he was now fighting in had been pretty suspicious, and his friends splitting up to search them all probably wasn't the best idea.
Still, he'd been training like crazy recently and wasn't going to go down without a fight.
"And how exactly do you plan to do that?" said MK. He'd been holding his own pretty well, which probably meant the snake demon had something extra up his sleeve.
The snake demon grinned nastily. "With thisss!"
MK had to bring his staff up again to block the coming blow, but it still managed to push him back a few inches.
Too late MK realized the snake demon had been herding him right where he wanted him, and a snare shot out from behind a crate and trussed him up like a turkey, dropping his staff in the process.
MK struggled to get free of the snare, but the snake demon laughed as he made his way over to him. "Don't bother, boy," he said. "I do my resssearch and come prepared before beginning any venture. While thisss may be a knockoff, it'sss a knockoff of a certain diamond sssnare that I'm told not even your mentor could get free of. You're not getting out of that any time sssoon."
MK paused his struggles to send a glare at the demon. "You do know I didn't come alone, right?" he said. "My friends will be here any minute, or do you have enough knockoffs for all of them?"
On cue, the sound of footsteps could be heard approaching the warehouse, no doubt drawn by the noise of the fight. "MK! Where are you!" his best friend Mei could be heard calling out.
Shooting the snake demon a grin, MK opened his mouth to yell, "HERE! I'M IN- MRFF!"
His call for help was cut off when the demon yanked his headband off his head and stuffed it into his mouth. MK glared up at him, only to realize that the snake didn't look at all worried by the approaching cavalry.
"Oh, they're not going to be a problem," said the demon sinisterly. "They're going to be a bit too busssy to bother me."
Just as MK was about to worry what the demon had in store for his friends, he was flummoxed when he opened another crate and pulled out… a person?!
A person with spiky brown hair who looked exceptionally like MK, though it could be a bit hard to tell with all the bruises on his face and neck and the bleeding gash over his eye, still he was dressed in- Wait, were those his clothes? Was that why his laundry was stolen from the laundromat last week? Or did he miss a hair clone at some point?
The snake demon dropped the unconscious lookalike in the same noodle restaurant uniform that MK was wearing on the ground next to him, before reaching down to pick the Monkie Kid up and heft him over his shoulder and then bolting for the exit and leaving his staff behind.
MK squirmed and tried to get free as he realized the demon's plan. His friends were on their way to help him, only to find 'MK' beaten and unconscious and rush him to get medical attention, not realizing until too late that who they had wasn't MK. If they ever figured it out, who even knew if the doppelganger was in on the ruse or not?
But the snake demon had an iron grip on him, and MK heard rather than saw his friends bursting in the other side of the warehouse to rescue him.
"Hope you like what I did to your little friend!" the demon called nastily over his shoulder. "Good luck unssscrambling hisss brain! I'm sure hisss memoriesss will come back… eventually!"
He was covering his tracks! Making them too worried to question anything wrong! Even if the double didn't know everything about him, his friends would still be convinced it was him!
And it was working if Pigsy's yell of rage was anything to go by.
His friends found his double.
MK's eyes widened and he tried even harder to shout through his gag to warn his friends. Let them know it was a fake. But all that came out was muffled sounds as the snake demon slithered away from the warehouse, leaving any chance at rescue far behind.
Still, MK couldn't help but wonder, 'Where did that guy get a clone?'
Movie Ninjago: Several Hours Earlier…
It was a typical day for Kai Smith AKA the Fire Ninja of the (no longer Secret) Ninja Force.
Meaning he was in his Fire Mech wailing on the latest baddie trying to take over the city.
He was honestly surprised they hadn't heard from the Skulkin for so long. He, Jay, and Cole had had a bet going on if they'd show up for Koko and Garmadon's wedding last month alongside the Sons of Garmadon to ruin it. Jay (ever to dread the worst-case scenario) had bet they both would come, Kai (knowing their hatred for Koko) had bet on just the Skulkin, and Cole (practical) bet on the SoG.
Needless to say, both Kai and Jay lost that bet, and now he owes Cole twenty bucks.
"Seriously! You guys couldn't show up for the wedding! I was betting on you," Kai said as he used his mech's fist to try and crush one of the Skulkin's monster trucks.
The Skulkin didn't seem to care about Kai's faith in them and managed to swerve around the punch to try and blast him with a bazooka.
Being in a massive stories-tall mech, there was no way for Kai to dodge in time, and all he could do was bring up his mech's arms to shield the driver's seat from the coming blast.
But before the bazooka could fire, an orange samurai mech came flying down to slice through it with a sword, while a second red one flew past and launched missiles to crash the monster truck.
Kai lowered his mech's arms and grinned.
If one good thing came from this fight, it was getting to fight alongside his girlfriend and his sister's dimensional counterpart. "Nice save, Samurai A. Great shooting, Samurai X," he called into his radio.
"Happy to help," said Skylor, and he could hear her grin through the speakers.
"Just try not to need it so much," said Red Nya cheekily as she had her mech land on the ground next to him.
At that moment, the remaining Skulkin began shooting past them towards the outskirts of town, and Lloyd's voice came over the radio.
"Jay and I just beat Samukai. The Skulkin are now retreating."
"Why couldn't they have shown up last month," Jay complained. "I was betting on them."
"That's what I said," Kai said with sympathy.
"Kai!" snapped Kai's sister, Cyan Nya.
"I'm still waiting for my twenty bucks, you two," said Cole pointedly.
Kai and Jay both grumbled in reply.
Still with the disaster averted, it was time to head home.
Kai turned his mech around and began running it to the warehouse they stored them in. In his peripherals, he could see Skylor and Red Nya doing the same.
One smooth parking job later, Kai hopped free of his mech and hurried over to where the rest of his friends were reconvening.
"That was a pretty easy fight," said Red Nya as they gathered around the couches. She'd come to visit their dimension to take part in their mech training when the Skulkin attack had interrupted them.
"It was," agreed Lloyd, rubbing his arm thoughtfully. "But then, we had more help than usual, and a lot of the bad guys are still unprepared for when Skylor and Pixal show up as the Samurai Sisters instead of just us."
Skylor grinned and nudged Red Nya playfully. "Here's betting the news are going to think there's an elusive third sister too."
Red Nya grinned back. "Just don't forget I was the original."
"Still, the bad guys are going to clue in about it eventually and figure out how to compensate," said Cyan Nya thoughtfully, pulling off her ninja mask and adjusting the bow in her hair. "We're going to need to be ready when they do."
Kai grinned at his twin sister as he put his weapons and gear away in his storage locker. "Aw, don't worry about it, Sis. We've got this. What's the worst that could happen?"
Everyone turned to stare at Kai.
Kai grimaced, realizing he just invoked Murphy's Law. "Yeah, yeah, I know. The universe is probably going to prove me wrong in three… two…"
Before he could even reach one, a portal opened up underneath his feet, and Kai yelped as he fell through it.
The last thing he saw before the portal snapped shut behind him was his friends' shocked expressions as they reached out to try and stop him.
The next second he was landing hard on the dark stone floor of a cave.
Before he even had a chance to get his bearings, something long and heavy slammed into him and sent him flying headfirst into a cave wall.
Kai groaned but forced himself to his feet and in a fighting position to take on whatever had hit him.
Squinting in the darkness, Kai wasn't sure what he was expecting to be there, but the glowing red eyes of a familiar Anacondrai holding a teapot was not it.
"Pythor!" Kai hissed angrily. "You've got a lot of nerve showing your face again after what you pulled."
Pythor, the treacherous Anacondrai, gave him a disdainful sniff at his words and placed the teapot down (Traveler's Tea? That would explain the portal). It was apparent from his purple scales that blended in with the shadows that this was the one from Kai's version of Ninjago. The other one from Red Nya's world, while just as malicious and vengeful, was a distinctive bleached white. "Yesss, well, I honessstly would have rather never ssseen you wretched Ninja's sssorry facesss again either," he said derisively. "In fact, I left Ninjago entirely to be rid of you."
Well, that sure made it sound like he'd been pulled to a different world. Great. As if he and his team hadn't had enough dimension jumping shenanigans to last a lifetime.
"So what changed?" asked Kai, trying to keep him talking while he subtly scanned the dark for an exit. Even if this was some other world, he couldn't just stand back and let Pythor do what he wanted.
"Well, as it happensss I ssseem to be in need of your ssservices ssso that I may essstablish myself in the local hierarchy," said Pythor primly.
Kai sent the Serpentine a venomous look. "After what you did to Lloyd and the kids? Not! Happening!" he snapped, still remembering how panicked everyone had been when both Lloyds and the prince of the Serpentine had been kidnapped.
Pythor let out a mocking laugh. "Oh you sssilly boy, as if you have a choice in the matter."
Then, with that, he disappeared from view.
Right, Anacondrai invisibility powers. Not good.
Knowing the snake could strike at any time, Kai tried to surround himself with fire to keep him at bay.
Try being the operative word.
When Kai tried to call his powers absolutely nothing happened.
"What the-!" Kai started to say, but before he could finish, Pythor's tail swung into him again, slamming him into the cave wall once more.
Kai groaned in pain, but before he could recover Pythor reappeared and grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him off his feet to slam against the wall a third time.
"Do you really think me ssso idiotic to sssummon you here unprepared?" Pythor sneered at him. Reaching past the Ninja he knocked on the stone next to his ear. "SSSolid Vengestone. Your little fire tricksss won't sssave you this time."
Kai struggled to breathe against Pythor's grip as those words sank in. That explained the lack of fire, but that meant he had no powers, no weapons, no backup, and he was up against an Anacondrai, the strongest and most deadly of the Serpentine breeds.
In other words, he was in real trouble.
Pythor seemed to see that he'd come to that conclusion, and grinned nastily. "Oh, don't worry," he said smugly, unphased despite Kai's still desperate attempts to punch and kick himself free. "I don't intend to kill you… yet. I just need that face of yoursss to provide a dissstraction for me. You do look ssso much like my intended target." Pythor's eyes flicked to the scar over Kai's right eye. "Well, except for that ssscar. We'll just have to cover it up like ssso~"
With that Pythor pulled Kai back and slammed the right side of his face against the stone. Kai yelped as he felt the rocks scrape against his face, and knew he had a new bleeding cut there.
"Hmm," Pythor said thoughtfully. "Will have to do sssomething about that voice of yoursss too. Can't have you giving away the whole russse."
With that, Pythor's grip on Kai's throat tightened and Kai's visions swam. No matter how hard he struggled to get free his blows were shrugged off by the Anacondrai.
The last thing Kai heard before blacking out Pythor snickering and saying, "Though I do rather hope they do dissscover the russse eventually. With any luck, they'll take you out for me. SSSweet dreamsss~"
And with that, Kai's world went black.
Pythor smirked as the unconscious Ninja slumped in his grip. Now all that was needed was to dress his decoy up and lure the Monkie Kid into a trap.
No one would see the deception until it was too late.