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The afternoon sun spilled molten gold across the tarmac of the Ninjago Space Center, turning the long service roads into strips of blinding light. Heat shimmered above the pavement beneath the towering frame of the Bounty-II, whose unfinished hull loomed over the launch bay like something alive. Scaffolding still clung to its sides in places, and engineers moved across the exterior in tiny distant silhouettes, sparks occasionally raining down from welding torches.
The ship dominated the landscape, overshadowing everything around it.
Even from afar, its presence felt monumental.
And fraught with danger, too.
A single blue butterfly drifted lazily near the lower docking platforms before disappearing beneath the ship’s shadow.
Kai Smith came stomping down the service road underneath it, dragging a bike behind him with enough noise to wake the dead.
The thing looked like it had survived several wars already. Red paint peeled from the frame in ugly flakes, the handlebars were wrapped in faded black tape, and the kickstand screeched violently against the asphalt whenever Kai yanked it too hard.
It sounded awful.
Which, honestly, fit him perfectly.
“Hey! Sparky!” Kai shouted across the runway. “Stop studying bugs and get over here!”
At the edge of the pavement, Jay Walker looked up from the grass, clearly offended. He had been crouched beside an anthill for several minutes, completely absorbed in watching a line of ants carry crumbs that were nearly twice their size across the dirt.
Next to him, Nya sat cross-legged in the weeds, balancing a bent paperclip between two rocks to create what suspiciously looked like a tiny bridge.
“They’re coordinated,” Jay defended immediately, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead. “Look at them! There’s no leader and they still know exactly where they’re going.”
“They’re ants.”
“They’re efficient ants.”
Kai let the bike fall onto its wheels with a resounding metallic clang. “Cole and the others already left for lunch. If we don’t catch up now, Skylor’s gonna buy all the pork buns before we even get there.”
Jay's face instantly morphed into one of betrayal.
“They already left?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” Jay glanced toward the road leading into town. “Well… maybe we should just walk then.”
“No.”
Kai said it with the kind of horror usually reserved for medical emergencies.
Jay blinked.
Kai pointed dramatically toward the bike.
“Today,” he declared, “is the day you stop being the only person over seven years old who can’t ride.”
Jay straightened immediately. “I can ride.”
“You crashed into a recycling bin.”
“It rolled at me unexpectedly!”
“It was parked.”
“It had bad energy!”
Nya snorted hard enough to nearly drop the paperclip bridge.
Jay crossed his arms tightly over his hoodie. “Bikes are dangerous.”
Kai stared at him in genuine disbelief.
“Jay,” he said slowly, “Zane rides a bike now.”
Jay hesitated.
That was, unfortunately, devastatingly effective.
Because Zane Julien approached bicycles the way most people approached active minefields. He wore elbow pads voluntarily. He checked brake tension before every ride. Once, he’d refused to go downhill because the gravel distribution “seemed statistically inconsistent.”
“If Zane can survive it,” Kai continued confidently, “you can survive it.”
“And I can ride better than both of you,” Nya added smugly.
“You’re seven.”
“And still better than you.”
Jay looked deeply wounded by that.
Kai sensed weakness immediately and lunged for it.
“You know what’s gonna happen if we walk?” he continued. “Cole’s gonna stop the whole group to wait for us because he’s nice, Lloyd’s gonna pretend not to notice how slow we are, and Vania’s gonna start hovering because she feels bad for you.”
“She already hovers,” Jay muttered.
“Exactly. We can’t let this get worse.”
Farther down the hill, the older kids had already started disappearing toward town.
Cole rode near the front, posture relaxed, one hand loosely resting on his handlebars while he talked to Skylor beside him. Skylor laughed at something he said, sunlight flashing across the orange visor clipped to her jacket collar.
Lloyd swerved lazily across painted road lines ahead of them, forcing Vania to yell at him to “pick a lane before you become roadkill.”
Behind them, Zane pedaled carefully near the curb, keeping perfect distance from every crack in the pavement.
Pixal wasn’t there.
She’d stayed behind near town to pick up everyone’s lunch orders after Kai forgot to actually tell anyone he was hungry until twenty minutes ago.
Jay looked between the bike and the distant group.
Then back at Kai.
“You’re holding onto the seat the whole time?”
“Absolutely.”
“You swear?”
“On my life.”
Nya stood up slowly, brushing dirt off her knees. “That’s not comforting.”
Kai ignored her entirely.
Jay approached the bike like it might bite him.
The metal frame looked enormous from this close. He awkwardly swung one leg over it, nearly catching his shoe on the seat in the process, while Kai moved behind him and grabbed the back firmly.
“See?” Kai said. “Easy.”
“I hate this already.”
“You hate everything that has wheels.”
“Because wheels are fast.”
“That’s the point.”
Jay’s hands tightened around the handlebars. His hoodie sleeves had slipped halfway over his palms from nerves, and his sneakers barely stayed balanced against the pedals.
Above them, the Bounty-II creaked softly in the wind.
One of the upper docking lights flickered once before stabilizing again.
“Ready?” Kai asked.
“No.”
“Perfect. One—two—”
Kai shoved.
Hard.
Jay’s scream ripped across the launch bay instantly.
Not a normal scream, either.
A full-body shriek of betrayal and terror as the bike lurched violently downhill without warning.
“KAI—YOU SAID THREE—”
His feet missed the pedals entirely.
The handlebars jerked left and right in rapid panicked wobbles as the bike hit the slope leading toward the main gates.
For exactly one second, Kai looked unbearably proud.
Then Jay picked up speed.
“Oh,” Kai said.
Jay was now fully vibrating.
His blue hoodie flapped violently behind him while he sped downhill, eyes squeezed shut, screaming continuously into the wind.
“I DON’T LIKE THIS! I DON’T LIKE THIS AT ALL!”
“He’s not pedaling!” Nya yelled.
“He doesn’t need to pedal!”
“That’s WORSE!”
Jay flew past two technicians carrying fuel canisters.
One nearly dropped everything.
At the bottom of the hill, the older group finally heard the screaming.
Lloyd glanced back first.
“…What is that?”
Then Jay came flying down the road like a possessed missile.
“Oh my god,” Lloyd breathed.
Jay tore directly through the middle of the group.
He missed Lloyd’s bike tire by inches.
Vania swerved so hard she nearly slammed into Skylor.
“JAY?!” she shouted.
“NO BRAKES!” Jay screamed back desperately. “NO CONTROL! ONLY FEAR!”
Then he vanished straight past the checkpoint gates toward town.
The entire group stared after him.
Zane’s face drained of color almost instantly.
“He is traveling significantly too fast.”
A moment later, Kai and Nya came sprinting around the bend, both gasping for air.
“DON’T STOP HIM!” Kai wheezed immediately.
“That feels like the opposite of what we should do,” Skylor said.
“It’s part of the learning process!”
“He’s crying!”
“It builds confidence!”
Cole was already turning his bike around.
“Nope,” he muttered, pushing off hard. “Absolutely not.”
The others followed immediately.
The chase through town became a complete disaster almost instantly.
Jay screamed his way around a parked maintenance cart hard enough to startle a tourist into dropping an entire bag of groceries.
A cabbage rolled directly into the street.
Lloyd nearly choked laughing as he pedaled beside Vania.
“I DIDN’T KNOW HE COULD GO THIS FAST!”
“HE CAN’T!” Vania yelled back. “GRAVITY CAN!”
Cole gained ground steadily, standing on the pedals as he pushed harder downhill. Ahead of him, Jay’s front wheel had started wobbling violently enough to make his stomach drop.
“KAI!” Jay shrieked from down the road. “THE BIKE IS POSSESSED!”
“That’s called steering!”
“WHY WOULD ANYONE INVENT THIS?!”
Farther ahead near the edge of town, Pixal stepped out of a noodle shop balancing a cardboard drink tray carefully against her chest while carrying several bags of food looped around one wrist.
Steam curled softly from one of the containers.
She adjusted the drinks carefully before turning back toward the station.
Then she heard screaming.
Pixal paused.
“…What?”
A blue blur appeared at the top of the hill.
Jay saw her at the same moment.
His expression shifted instantly from terror into complete devastation.
“PIXAL!”
Pixal’s eyes widened.
Jay was hurtling directly toward her at horrifying speed, hoodie strings whipping violently in the wind.
Behind him, Cole looked one second away from collapse.
“MOVE!” Lloyd yelled from farther back.
“PIXAL, PLEASE RELOCATE!” Zane shouted in genuine panic.
Pixal tried.
Unfortunately, she was carrying six drinks, multiple noodle containers, and everyone’s lunch.
There was nowhere to go.
“Oh no.”
Jay made a noise usually heard from doomed pilots moments before impact.
Cole lunged forward, fingers barely catching the side of the handlebars.
At the last possible second, he yanked hard. The bike turned violently sideways. Then immediately surrendered to gravity. Jay and Cole crashed together into the flowerbed bordering the sidewalk, mulch and dirt exploding into the air as the bike skidded directly into a batch of snowdrops. For a second, nobody moved.
Pixal stood frozen in place clutching the drink tray tightly against her chest. One cup lid popped loose slowly. A noodle container tilted sideways in the bag.
Cole groaned from somewhere inside the flowers.
The bike wheel spun lazily in the air.
Then a dirt-covered hand emerged weakly from the mulch.
“…I think,” Jay wheezed, “I understand bikes now.”
“You hit a flower bush,” Cole said flatly from the dirt.
Kai and Nya finally caught up moments later, both bent over and struggling to breathe.
Kai looked at the destruction.
Then at Jay.
Then at the still-intact food in Pixal’s hands.
“…Mission success?”
Nya smacked him across the arm immediately.
The others rolled in seconds later. Vania nearly fell off her bike laughing at the sight of Jay buried halfway in flowers. Lloyd honestly wasn’t much better.
“You looked like a haunted shopping cart!”
“I saw my entire life flash before my eyes!” Jay yelled.
“Good,” Nya snapped. “Maybe next time it’ll teach you where the brakes are.”
Zane abandoned his bike entirely and hurried straight toward Pixal, visibly pale.
“Are you injured?” he asked immediately.
Pixal blinked slowly.
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“You were nearly struck at approximately twenty-three miles per hour.”
“Yes, Zane,” she said carefully. “I noticed.”
He still looked horrified.
Pixal glanced down at the drink tray.
“…One tea survived.”
“That is statistically impressive,” Zane admitted honestly.
Nearby, Skylor crouched beside the ruined plants, pulling a crushed snowdrop upright again. A strange look crossed her face for only a second. Then it vanished. The flower’s stem leaked a dark purple stain across her fingertips before she wiped it away on her jeans without thinking about it.