The Listening Station: Chapter 2: Occupy Ninjago !
Chapter 2: Occupy Ninjago !
As you may recall, Herbert Runagates, age four, had won the rights to naming who should man the Listening Stations. He had chosen Sandman. Sandman was loathe to leave his buildable opening sandbase from Spider-Man’s Spider Crawler Set. So, he brought it along. He planted it right next to the Kai Dragon Master Listening Station.
Unfortunately, a Sand storm known locally as The Fury of Norma swept through the Sea of Sand. Sandman and his sandbase were lost that night. All that remained the following morning was one of his diamonds. The wiser hands of Mr. Runagates saved that diamond by stashing it in a makeshift extra’s bin which doubled as a cream pitcher on the sideboard.
Somehow the Listening Posts themselves had managed to survive The Fury of Norma. It was more like they had been granted a 24 hour reprieve, which was accompanied by the requisite threats of impending extinction.
The Runagates Brood, represented by Jeff and older sister Treeta, chose to ignore Mrs. Runagates’ prediction of localized climate change by speeding up the Ninjago Celestial Clock. They did so by removing an Orc helmet from Jeff’s not that bad rendition of the Celestial Clock which he displayed proudly on a shelf in his bedroom. Once the Helmet of Shadows was removed, the countdown to Norma’s Fury could not be stopped. ( Author’s Note: The Orc Helmet in question had come from the Battle at the Black Gate set. The Celestial Clock in question was a Duplo Clock face from the Family House set, adorned with long flexible Lego hoses adorned with clips and blodgetts. A Blodgett is another name for a stud). In fact, it was not so much that they ignored Mrs. Runagates’ warning of impending doom. Rather, they worked it into their story. If their Mom succeeded in sending their Lego set-up back down to the Basement, that would mean that Torchfire Mountain had erupted once again. Maybe it would somehow spit out a new set of Fangblades! You never know.
This time, Jeff and Treeta manned the Listening Stations with the appropriate Ninjas. Here is their story:
Things were quiet in Ninjago. It was a wonderful time. It was springtime, the time when Ninjas think about going to war. But, for the first time in hundreds of years, there was no threat of approaching evil.
For one thing, Garmadon was at peace, with himself, and, more importantly, with everyone else. As you may recall, Garmadon had in the past voluntarily accepted banishment in the Cursed Realm. Then the Cursed Realm was destroyed. From there, he went to the Departed Realm. He was brought back to Ninjago in a pure evil form by Harumi and her associates. After the defeat of the Oni, Garmadon has disappeared. It was thought that he was wandering the wilds of Ninjago, smoldering in his own thought. Kind of like Cain, from the Old Testament. What is not known, is that, against all odds, he has become good!
And, not just good, but good through and through. He is no longer a shell containing pure evil. He is, yes, fully Oni, and fully Dragon:but now, a complete and wonderful combination of both characteristics. The poison of the Great Devourer is also totally gone!
How did this happen? That secret, plus several others, are revealed in messages to The Listening Stations! So, listen up.
Dareth was on duty one night. He earned extra Ninjago Success Points for taking the overnight shift. With enough NSP’s, he could earn certain bonuses, like getting to drive Lloyd’s Ninja Nightcrawler in Lloyd’s long circular driveway. For every 100 points, he gained an extra ten minutes of drive time.
Dareth was practicing his stay-awake mantra, saying over and over again, “ More than watchmen for the morning. More than watchmen for the morning,” when he heard the last FRB he expected: “ HEE-HAW! MERRY CHRISTMAS ! From Sam Wainwright.”
That woke Dareth up so much that he assumed that he must have fallen asleep.
Luckily, Dareth had the presence of mind to turn on his recording equipment. Let’s not forget that this is the same Dareth who twice put on the Helmet of Shadows to take command of the Stone Army! There’s something going on up there under that pompadour!
What Dareth recorded that night was a long, rambling manifesto. It was often interrupted by pockets of prolonged giggling and, more HEE-HAW’S. What follows is a break down of the text transcription:
When you enter a portal which leads to other realms, there is a transference which always takes place. Some of the dust of your being, your a.b.s., is distributed into that portal. And, some of the fiber of the portal, or T.E.C., rubs off on you, and is transferred, or absorbed, into your system. Eventually, after numerous portal usages, you are enabled to become a Traveler. A Traveler is someone who has absorbed so much T.E.C., so as to undergo a physiological transformation.
The effects of such a transformation are many. As unlikely as it seems, Travelers are able to cross realms merely by wishing it. But there are some catches. Firstly, the time of travel back and forth to another Realm can vary. Almost always, it is of a brief duration. You can’t control the duration.
Also, you can wish for a certain place, and there you will go to, and then be sent back from, when the duration of that particular Travel is completed. But what time it is, in the history of that Realm, is an unknown. And, as already stated, you have no control over the duration of your stay. Of course, you can always wish your way into another realm.
There is no instruction manual for Traveling. In fact, if you don’t know enough to try, you may go through your entire life without knowing that you are now a Traveler. You turn into one of those minifigs who just never went anywhere.
There may be places you would wish to visit, if you only knew that they existed. But, since you don’t know, you don’t go.
After the defeat of Omega and the Oni Army, Garmadon wandered aimlessly. There was no real Garmadon left inside. Just the memory of a memory that he had once lived. He headed toward the Mountains of Madness. It seemed appropriate.
The Mountains of Madness exist in another realm, the Realm of Madness. There is a portal which leads from Ninjago to the Mountains of Madness. Garmadon knew how to find it.
When he got to the Mountains if Madness, he allowed himself to be smothered by mud monsters. He wished to die- or, in his exact thought, to return to the Cursed Realm.
Now, the Cursed Realm was destroyed when Nya flooded it with the Endless Sea.
However, due to high portal usage(HPU), the very fiber of what remained of Garmadon’s being had been transformed into a Traveler.
So, he got his wish. He literally traveled through empty Realm space, where the Cursed Realm once was, landing instead in a Realm of Mysteries. More specifically, he landed in a Rymas Kettle. This is an indentation in the hillside which has then been filled with liquid from the nearby Rymas Fountains.
Garmadon bathed himself in the life-supplying waters of the Rymas Kettles. These pools of droplets of restoring waves seem to crash and sooth at the same time. When one enters, one is hideous, broken, guilty, empty. When one departs, one is bright, as light as dew, as full as a gully-washed canyon, as free as morning sunlight. As full of life-giving life as a glass of water which is pouring over it’s sides.
As you can imagine, the change in Garmadon was nothing short of stunning. As was the change in appearance: he now took the form of Lenny, the dark pink classic space astronaut! His voice also changed.
About that time, he automatically traveled back to the Mountains of Madness, and the mud. First, the mud turned pink. Then, he wished himself to the Runagates house( The 17th Realm!), where he immediately obtained and watched a VHS copy of It’s A Wonderful Life, while consuming large quantities of hot chocolate and buttered toast.
End Chapter 2
APRIL 25, 2020