(At the Monastery of Spinjitzu, Riyu chases a butterfly around, while Sora tries to fix the SA Mark 01.)
Sora: Oh, come on! (She groans.) Weird powers. Why won't you work now?
(Lloyd watches as Arin takes on the obstacle course.)
Arin: I can do this. This, I can do. (He falls off halfway, and Lloyd does Spinjitzu to get him out.) Thanks, Mast ... uh, Lloyd. I really thought I could do it, but I forgot something. That I'm the worst student in the history of students.
Lloyd: The worst? Remind me to tell you about the time my friend, Jay, the Lightning Ninja, trained in the south wing.
Arin: The monastery doesn't have a south wing.
Lloyd: Not after Jay trained there. Poof. Look, you learned a version of Spinjitzu by yourself. Totally unheard of. But, you have to unlearn some of what you taught yourself to relearn a more ... balanced approach.
Arin: Really?
Sora: Well, I don't need to relearn anything, 'cause I never learned anything in the first place! This elemental power stuff's impossible.
Lloyd: It took me a long time to tap into my potential. But I did. And you will, too.
Sora: I'm not even sure I have an elemental power. Tech Power?
Lloyd: I haven't heard of it either. But I've studied elemental powers all my life. I'm telling you, the true power is inside of you.
Sora: No, I'm pretty sure they're Riyu's powers, and I just, like, borrow them or something.
Lloyd: You saw me with the Matriarch. She sent my powers into overdrive. I don't know why dragon energy enhances elemental powers, but those were my powers, not hers.
Sora: If this power is in me, how come I can't feel it?
Lloyd: Every elemental master is different. Cole could feel the power of Earth in his guts. Nya said the power of Water flows through her veins. Zane could sense Ice power in his mind.
(Riyu screeches at something beyond the monastery walls.)
Sora: What's got Riyu all worked up?
(They join Riyu on the wall.)
Arin: No way!
Sora: What am I looking at here?
Lloyd: That's the old Bounty! Kai took that ship to search for the other ninja. This must mean his mission was a success! (The Bounty hurtles towards them without stopping.) Incoming!
(The ninja dodge out of the way and watch the Bounty descend.)
Sora: I'm thinking Kai's mission was not a success.
Lloyd: Come on!
(Arin uses his grappling hook to reach the ship. Lloyd follows with Spinjitzu.)
Sora: Seriously, guys? (She turns to her mech.)
Lloyd: Kai! Kai! (He inspects the ship.) Battle damage? What did Kai get himself into?
Sora: Hey guys, heads up! You might wanna duck! (She lands.) Just a thought, we should probably steer away from those mountains.
Lloyd: (He tries to steer.) Oh, no! The steering is jammed!
Sora: (She goes below deck to check the gears.) The steering column isn't attached to the rudder anymore!
Lloyd: That's bad, right?
Sora: Riyu, my tools! (Riyu pushes the toolbox down the hatch.) Ow! Thanks.
Lloyd: Sora, anytime now!
Sora: Try that.
Lloyd: Try what?
Sora: Ugh. Now!
(They manage to avoid a direct collision with the mountain.)
Lloyd: Gently, gently. This is how you do it.
(The Bounty crashes anyway.)
Sora: Should we be taking notes?
Lloyd: Let us never speak of this. (They enter the cabin.) There's gotta be some clues about where the Bounty came from. Scorch marks? Did Kai attack his own ship? Doesn't make sense.
Arin: I doubt he made this massive blast hole. Something huge hit this.
Sora: Ugh. And why is there a puddle in here? Water and fire?
Lloyd: These are definitely Kai's notes. Looks like he was filling in this map as he went. And he only got to here.
Arin: That would be in the direction this ship was coming from.
Lloyd: Then that's where we need to go. It's up to us to figure out what happened to Kai.
Sora: Good thing we've got a new Bounty.
(They set off in the new Bounty.)
Arin: So, if the old ship came back without Kai, does that mean Kai's ...
Lloyd: Maybe he got into trouble and sent the Bounty back on autopilot to get help.
Arin: It must have been pretty serious trouble for him to abandon ship.
Lloyd: Serious trouble is something Kai's great at finding. Of course, there's the other explanation that this is all an elaborate trap to capture and destroy us.
Sora: (She laughs.) Right. What are the odds that someone would do all that?
Lloyd: In my experience, everything is a big trap about half the time.
Sora: (She laughs again.) Seriously?
Lloyd: No. More like two-thirds of the time.
(At the Kingdom of Imperium, Dorama fiddles around with the Photac.)
Dorama: Oh, my, my. This will make quite the show! (He laughs.)
Ras: Report.
Dr. LaRow: This guy you found is a definite weirdo. He keeps inviting me to his autobiographical one-man musical. But he does know more than anyone else about extracting and exploiting exotic energy.
Ras: Will he get the Photac to work?
Dr. LaRow: Mm, hard to say.
Ras: When I ask a question, I expect an answer.
Dr. LaRow: Point taken. My guess, he’ll get this prototype to work, but mass-producing more? No.
Ras: Why not?
Dr. LaRow: Because there’s only one person who can do that, and you know who.
(Ras leaves angrily.)
(The Bounty comes to a stop.)
Lloyd: We should be here. You see anything?
Arin: Nothing this side, just mud. Sora?
Sora: Just two big dragons in a massive battle with stone dudes.
Arin: Riyu's right! Those dragons need our help!
Sora: What's attacking them?
Lloyd: Craglings. Rock monsters from the Realm of Madness.
Arin: Going in!
Lloyd: Wait! (He watches Arin leap down with Riyu.) He just left! You never run into a fight without a plan of – (He sees Sora get into her mech.)
Sora: See you down there, teach!
Lloyd: Isn’t the point of being a student to listen to your teachers? Were we this bad with Master Wu? Wait. Yes. Yes, we were.
(The Craglings fire boulders at the dragons. Arin swings in to attack the Craglings.)
Arin: Messing with dragons, huh?
Sora: Then we gotta mess with you!
(Lloyd, Arin, and Sora defeat the Craglings.)
Arin: Nice! We gave the dragons cover to get away!
(Suddenly, they are knocked over by a blast of water.)
Lloyd: The only person who can control water like that is ... (He turns to see Nya.) Nya!
Nya: Lloyd?
Both: Why are you fighting for the enemy? I'm not fighting for the enemy. You are! (They stop, share a smile, and embrace.)
Sora: I take it these two know each other?
Arin: That's Nya. She's one of the original ninja. Didn't you read the scrolls Lloyd gave us?
Sora: He gave us, like, four million scrolls.
Lloyd: It's good to see you. Even if you do fight innocent dragons now.
Nya: Innocent? Those dragons have been attacking the Cragling Village.
Lloyd: Oh, uh, that, uh ... does shed some new light on the situation.
Nya: I'll say. Who taught you to just leap into a fight like that? Definitely not Master Wu.
Lloyd: Uh huh. (To Arin and Sora) You hear that? That's what I was trying to say. Don't just leap into —
Nya: I literally saw you leap down and just Spinjitzu Craglings.
Lloyd: Soooo ... how've you been?
Nya: (To Arin and Sora) Hi, I'm Nya. Lloyd and I go way back, if you can't tell.
Sora: I'm Sora.
Arin: And I'm Arin. We're Lloyd's students.
Nya: Sounds like I missed a lot. Any chance Jay's with you? (She looks grim when Lloyd shakes his head.)
Lloyd: Don't worry, he's out there somewhere. They all are.
Nya: Follow me. We need to update the Cragling leader.
(They arrive at the Craglings' dwelling.)
Crag-Nor: Ninja Nya, our beloved champion. Who do you bring to our gates?
Nya: King Crag-Nor, this is my friend, Lloyd, and his students.
Crag-Nor: Ah, they are ninja like you. Then they joined our side in battle?
Nya: Well, uh ... no. They actually fought against us and messed everything up. But I've straightened them out.
Crag-Nor: Mm, I see. Everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to accept others for their flaws and — (He sees Riyu.) Why is that foul thing here?
Arin: He's our friend, and teammate!
Crag-Nor: You are fools to trust such a creature. Dragons are treacherous. And none are welcome in this village.
Sora: If Riyu doesn't go in, we don't go in.
Nya: Wise king, if this creature travels with my friends, then I can vouch for him.
Crag-Nor: Hmm. Ninja Nya defends us in our time of need. Since she speaks up for the beast, it may enter. (He takes out an eye.) But it should beware, our eyes shall be on it. (He eats his eye, which reappears in his eye socket, causing Lloyd to gag.)
Nya: Sorry. The Craglings can be pretty dramatic.
(They enter the dwelling.)
Crag-Nor: Welcome, friends of Ninja Nya, to an authentic Cragling feast.
Arin: Mm. I've always wanted to eat mud!
(Riyu attempts to eat, but a Cragling pushes him away.)
Cragling: Filthy dragons can't eat here.
Crag-Nor: This is the finest feast in the Kingdom of Madness. We used to call our home the Realm of Madness. But then, of course ...
Lloyd: The Merge. Nya, is this where you woke up when it hit?
Nya: No. A lot happened to me after the Merge. But now's not the time to get into all those stories. Just know I woke up alone, pretty far from here, and started to work my way back to Ninjago.
Nya (narrating): And then one day, I saw something. After the Merge, the Realm of Madness ended up next to whatever realm Earth Dragons came from. The dragons found a field of Cragling mud that, when they ate it, gave them great powers, making them larger, fiercer.
Past Nya: (She sees Kai fight the dragons.) Kai?
Crag-Nor: The field Ninja Nya speaks of is no regular mud. It is a sacred area, burial ground to our ancestors.
(Arin and Sora gag.)
Nya: That's not where this mud is from.
(Arin and Sora breathe a sigh of relief.)
Crag-Nor: The mud the dragons are stealing, it's the source of our life energy, our very essence.
Sora: So they get their power from some external source? Huh.
Nya: That's why the Craglings are crumbling and breaking apart. The dragons are stealing their life force.
Nya (narrating): Kai, searching the lands, stumbled into this conflict, and of course, got involved.
Past Kai: Nya, is that you?
(They embrace.)
Nya (narrating): We were sure we could put a stop to this, so we came up with a battle plan.
(The Craglings attack the dragons with the help of Kai and Nya, but they evade their boulders. A dragon drinks from the mud and grows larger in size. Kai is sent flying by a boulder.)
Past Nya: Kai!
Nya (narrating): I needed help. I sent the Bounty on autopilot toward the monastery, hoping someone was there.
Lloyd: Kai's ... gone?
Nya: I searched everywhere for him. I don't want to lose hope, but it's hard not to.
(Elsewhere, Kai wanders through the Kingdom of Madness.)
Kai: Oh, I'm starving. Ugh, how far away is that Cragling Village? I could really use a cool mud bath right now. And a mud dinner. Mm. (He sees the gates of the Craglings' dwelling.) Alright! My lucky day! (He sees the two dragons in his way and shudders. He tries to sneak past, but trips and screams, waking them.) Hey there.
Arin: Kai's really gone? He was my favorite ninja! (Sora gives him a look.) Second favorite.
Nya: This isn't only about saving the Cragling. It's about taking down the dragons that destroyed my brother.
(Kai screams in the distance.)
Lloyd: We can all help. Sora and Arin and training to become ninja. Sora has elemental powers, and Arin taught himself a strange form of Spinjitzu.
Nya: You can't teach yourself Spinjitzu.
Lloyd: I know. But he did. My students are new, but they're good and ready to fight. Kai was your brother, but he was also one of my best friends. (Kai continues to scream in the background.) It's almost as if I can hear Kai's cries for help in my head.
Kai: Nya? Nya? Help!
Nya: You're not imagining that.
(They head outside to see Kai.)
Nya: Kai! You're still alive!
Kai: I made a terrible mistake!
Nya: You brought the dragons right to us? I'm gonna kill you!
Lloyd: Okay, now remember: don't just rush in. We need a battle pla —
Nya: Forget all that. (She charges.)
Kai: Oh, hey, Lloyd! When'd you get here? And who are the kids? You babysitting or something?
(Nya is sent flying. Kai and Lloyd start to attack.)
Kai: I'll get this one. (He charges up, but Lloyd hits his _target before him.) Hey, I said I had that one!
Lloyd: I didn't know which one you were talking about. Be more specific!
Nya: Kai! Take the one on the left!
Kai: Whose left? (He screams as he is knocked back.)
Sora: Is this what trained ninja warriors are supposed to look like?
Arin: It's been a long time since they were together. Come on!
Sora: (To Riyu) Hey, buddy. I know Lloyd thinks I have the power in myself, but I'm pretty sure I get it form you. So, any chance you could ... (Riyu powers her up.) Yeah! (She assembles the mech.) Wow. Now that's what I call an upgrade. (She catches up with the others.) Who wants a ride for an air attack?
Nya: I like this kid. (She and Sora attack together.)
(The ninja attack. Sora starts powering down after a while.)
Sora: I'm losing my power!
Kai: Get out of here!
(Sora and Nya fall from the sky. Lloyd and Kai catch them.)
Sora: I'm sorry, Lloyd. I lost control.
(Around them, the Craglings fall apart while the dragons continue to eat the mud.)
Arin: This is all kinds of bad.
(Riyu approaches the dragons and powers up.)
Nya: Is your dragon siding with them?
Kai: We gotta stop him!
Lloyd: No. This might not be what it looks like.
Sora: He's overloading them! Get down!
(A shockwave of energy passes through the realm. The dragons leave.)
Kai: What's happening?
Nya: The energy the Earth Dragons consumed. It burst out of them and is returning to the sacred field.
(The fallen Craglings awaken.)
Cragling: The sacred life force! Ninja Nya and her friends saved us!
Nya: It wasn't us. It was him.
Crag-Nor: A ... a dragon? A dragon saved us?
Arin: He doesn't look so good.
(Riyu collapses. Later, he wakes in the Craglings' dwelling.)
Arin: Good morning, boy.
Crag-Nor: The great hero awakes!
Cragling: (He sets down a bowl of mud before Riyu.) Hero dragons can eat as they want.
Kai: Good kids you found here, Lloyd. And dragon.
Lloyd: I only wish Master Wu was here to properly train them.
Nya: I think they're learning a lot from you, Lloyd.
Sora: (To herself, quietly) Learning? Ha. Maybe Arin is. I almost got Nya destroyed in that battle. (Her mech falls apart.) You're wasting your time on me, Lloyd.
(End of the episode. For more information, click here.)