NINJAGO: Starmarked

3 - Good Ol' Research

Ninjago Public Library was relatively quiet - after all, it is a library. 

Nya parked the Land Bounty on the street outside. She hopped out along with Jupiter, Cole, Lloyd, Kai and Jay. 

"Eugh - when I signed up to become a ninja, I thought I'd never have to read a book again..." Kai admitted. He sulked as he followed the rest of the ninja up the stairs to the entrance. 

"You guys go ahead," Jupiter suddenly proclaimed from the bottom of the steps. "I'll meet you back at the Monastery."

"Where are you going? We need all the help we can get," Lloyd asked her. 

"Do you remember what Sigma said back in Azure Valley?" She elaborated. "About my powers coming from her?  I have to find out if that's true."  

"It was just something she said to try and get the jewel from you - " The green ninja argued back. 

"We don't know that, though. You guys research in the library whilst I do some of my own research." She replied firmly and began her walk down the street. Lloyd loosened up and let her venture alone - he followed the rest of his friends into the building and prepared to find anything to do with aliens or stardust or Kosmikiles. 

Inside, the building had a calm scent of old pages. The ninja soon fanned out, searching bookshelves and outdated websites for any clue of what they could be dealing with. A while passed but none of them managed to find anything useful. 

"We're getting no-where with this! We're ninja not bookworms!" Cole finally blurted. Around him on the table, piles of books stood, taunting him with their tattered covers and useless pages. "We need action! We need to just find her and--" 

"Guys! Come check this out!" Nya whisper-shouted from an old computer. The others gathered around her. She had a website open along with an open book next to her. 

"I think I may have found something - if we join up the dots, we've probably got some form of an answer." 

"Well then, what is it, sis?" Kai urged eagerly. He didn't intend on staying inside that library another minute and was relieved that they had a possible clue. 

Nya first pointed at the book; it's pages were scribbled with authentic writing and pictures. 

"Remember Clutch Powers?" She started. 

"Oh you mean that self-centred explorer dude? Let me guess - he wrote that book?" Lloyd commented. 

"No, Clutch didn't write this - a deceased associate from the Explorer's Club did. He wrote about an encounter with an alien, many years ago." Nya explained. She began to read from the dusty page. "It's only a paragraph long, but the way he describes the alien sure sounds a lot like what Sigma is. 'Semi-transparent green flesh with outrageous hair - these creatures were something I've never seen before. The gold from my broken pocket-watch seemed to burn their skin profusely, but it didn't stop them from hunting..' "

"So... gold is their weakness? That sounds a lot like an Oni, to me." Jay inputted. 

"But the Oni repelled against not just any gold, but the First Spinjitzu Master's golden armour, remember?" Lloyd responded. "What else does it say, Nya?" 

The water ninja scanned the paragraph. " 'The alien had a piece of equipment on what looked like it's wrist, and I saw it suck the very life from the tree.' " She paused and thought for a second. 

"Now take a look at this website - 'The creation of cosmic matter is what forms everything we know today, scientists believe. In the grand scheme of things, scientific evidence concludes that particles of dying stars can be thought to make up life itself!' ... do you realise what this means?"

Kai looked at her sister with a blank look. "Could you translate that so we actually understand?" 

She sighed and turned in her chair. 

"The Explorer said he saw an alien suck the life out of a tree and this website describes the theory of cosmic matter making up all the materials we have today..."

Cole looked at Nya, nodding his head very slowly. "...which means that if those aliens are the same as the Kosmikiles Marcus told us about, then what if--"

"THE ALIENS ARE GONNA SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF ALL OF NINJAGO!" Jay yelped. Heads across the library turned to the noisy ninja - he quickly piped down. 

"He's right." Nya whispered. "Sigma isn't looking for just any fuel - stardust is her fuel. She'll most likely target highly dense areas like Ninjago City, where all the buildings, roads, people are full of cosmic matter."

"But we don't know what she wants to fuel." Lloyd said. "We have to find her mothership and find out the reason behind this. For Ninjago's sake."