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The earth was screaming.
Cole could hardly hear Kai talking above the noise that only the earth master could hear.
The tone reached a new and terrible pitch and Cole’s knees buckled. How could some machine make the whole earth scream like this?
Kai knelt down and pat his shoulder, saying something that might have been ‘get up’ or ‘wait here’ or ‘get it together bro’
But judging by the way Kai ran off, swords drawn, it was of the ‘wait’ variety.
Cole still had his hands clamped down on his ears. It made no difference. The earth screamed and shook, and his arms trembled and jaw was clenched in an effort not to do the same. He had to get away...
Pulling himself to his feet he stumbled back, hoping the sound would lessen. The tunnels would normally be no obstacle for him, but the screaming ... he couldn’t tell where they’d come from ...
Wait, had he left someone behind?
It didn’t matter, the way the earth was shaking and screaming and he was being torn apart by the sheer force of it. He slammed his fists down in a last vain effort to quiet the screaming. But the move backfired, like his last few tries, and the earth, instead of spreading out, closed in.
—
Kai ducked for cover beneath an old machine as the earth quaked so hard he thought it might implode. Shards of rock tumbled onto his makeshift shelter, and he hoped the few humans who’d been in here had escaped before the cave collapsed - villain or not, they didn’t deserve death.
No, the one who’d done this deserved worse.
At last the quaking stilled. Kai pulled himself over the nose of the machine and looked around.
The cave was almost completely gone. Only a slight flicker of distant light indicated a potential exit.
Kai scrambled towards the flickering electric light, and saw the tunnel beyond was gone. He sighed -
And remembered he’d left Cole there.
“COLE!!” Kai screamed.
No way he’d let himself get crushed by a tunnel, no way. But the tunnel was where Cole had been, and now there was no tunnel.
Kai fiddled with the communicator again, hoping it would fire up and work now that the tremors seemed to be all gone.
But all he got was static.
Kai looked around and saw the cave in had opened a new tunnel, that curved around and might meet up with a place Cole had escaped to.
Kai started down it immediately.
He reached a turn in the tunnel. One side was collapsed, but the other was wide open.
“Cole?!” He shouted again. No answer.
Kai thought it was ironic of Cole to get lost in a cave, of all places, and let it cave in, of all things, and he was going to tell him so as soon as -
“Don’t go that way,” Cole whispered.
“Cole!?” Kai said, startled from his walking. He could have sworn that was Cole’s voice, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Cole?” He asked again.
“Yeah?” Cole answered, his voice a dry echo that made Kai uneasy.
“C-C’mon out Cole, this isn’t funny,” Kai said.
“I ... I can’t.”
Kai blinked. “Whaddya mean you can’t? Get out here - let’s go. The other ninja must have stopped the machine causing all these problems-“
“Kai.” Cole’s voice shook. His voice never shook. “Just go. I’ll follow you out.”
Kai scoffed. “What, invisibly?”
Cole paused. “Yes.”
“Oh. But - “ Kai didn’t believe him - “- but you can’t turn invisible. Not anymore. Not since - “
“I know, Kai.” Cole sounded tired, and resigned, and his voice still trembled.
Kai huffed. “I’m not going without you,” he said, taking a step forward again.
“No!” Cole said, and he appeared in front of Kai, shimmering and translucent.
Kai felt cold.
“Please,” Cole said, eyes softening. “Just go back.”
Kai raised his chin. “Not without you,” he said, stepping around his - him.
Despite objections, Cole turned and followed. “Fine,” he said. “But it’s not pretty.”
Kai stepped down the silent stone throat, crawling in between shards and stones, refusing to think about what this meant.
And then he rounded a corner and saw.
The jagged stone reflected the screams he must have been hearing, the head-aching whine that had pushed him to the brink. His body was there, right there, head down, like he was sleeping but he was - he was suspended, pierced by the jagged earth, the backfired abilities supposed to help him.
Kai couldn’t speak. His throat felt jammed and his eyes pricked with - no. He wouldn’t break. Not yet.
“We should go,” Cole said, the ghost of him - his ghost - facing away from his - his own -
“No,” Kai said forcefully. “No freakin way am I leaving you down here,”
“It’s not me,” Cole argued softly.
“It is!” Kai shouted. “It is you, whether you like it or not, and I’m not leaving you - “ his voice broke suddenly, thick with tears, “I’m not leaving any part of you behind, bro...”
Cole stood still, still facing away. “Okay,” he said eventually. “Your call.”
Kai didn’t spare a moment to think about how someone could leave their own - a body behind like this, he didn’t. He stepped forward, analysing the spires and deciding they should be broken like this -
He grasped Cole’s body by the shoulders as it tipped forward.
Oh, no.
He could feel how very lifeless he was, how very broken and cold he was. Kai longed to set his hands aflame to warm him up but he knew it wouldn’t help.
Kai broke another pillar and saw the smears of red.
Another piece of him shattered and he gasped and gulped back the cries threatening to spill over. He would not. He wouldn’t.
But his legs were shaking and he hesitated as he considered breaking the last pillars.
A shadow moved in front of him and crushed the pillars, making him the only support for the body in his arms. He knelt, trying not to cause any more damage, not that it mattered...
Cole turned from where he had broken the spires. Kai noticed his eyes settling on the body in Kai’s arms, and Cole’s face seemed even more transparent than before.
Cole reaches out as if to help, but his hand was shaking still, and he pulled back. “Sorry, Kai,” he said. “I can’t ...”
“It’s fine,” Kai said, gritting his teeth. Of course he couldn’t blame Cole. Not for this. They just had to get out and then - maybe then they could fix it, somehow.
That vain string of hope still helped Kai gather the body into his arms and pick him up. He was so light, in death...
“Can you find a way out?” Kai asked Cole, starting forward and not looking at the burden he held or the ghost of his friend.
Cole laid a pale, transparent hand on a wall. “Yeah,” he said. “This way,” and he lead Kai forward through the shaken spires of stone.
-
Everyone was frantic. They had landed the ship and were still trying to make contact with the ground team.
Jay had disabled the sonic weapon, Nya had tied up the goons and locked them in the brig, and Zane was now helping Jay search the area for anything that might be dangerous.
Lloyd twirled the dial on the communicator again. How could this have gone so wrong? They should have predicted that the weapon would affect Cole, or the tunnels, or the comms, or -
“Hey.” Nya’s voice pulled Lloyd from his thoughts. “They’re fine. Any minute now they’ll pop up bragging about how easy this mission was, right? And I’d know if something happened to my brother, and this isn’t nearly enough to take him out.”
She sounded so confident, Lloyd wanted to believe her. But something inside him, the part that connected him to his friends, felt like a broken bone inside him, telling him something was wrong.
—
An hour passed and her brother and Cole still weren’t back. Despite her confident speech to Lloyd, she was ... concerned.
“Perhaps we should go look for them,” Zane suggested, as the four Ninja were discussing what to do.
“And leave a boat full of villains behind? We can’t!” Jay said. And unlike some of his objections, Nya agreed that it made sense.
The three looked to Lloyd, biting his lip in thought.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” Lloyd said after a moment. “Jay and Zane, stay with the Bounty and guard the prisoners. Nya and I will look for the others.”
Despite the serious situation, Jay said “Aww, why can’t Nya guard the boat with me?”
Nya laughed softly.
“Cause I don’t want you two lovebirds losing the ship again,” Lloyd said, straight-faced.
“That was one time,” Jay replied, but accepting his fate.
“I will be sure to keep us on task until you return with Cole and Kai,” Zane said sincerely to Lloyd and Nya.
“Thanks, guys,” Lloyd said, heading out.
Nya followed right behind, hesitating long enough to blow Jay a kiss.
-
It was the third cave they checked.
“Cole? Kai?” Lloyd called again.
“Kai, you idiot, are you down here?” Nya yelled. She was starting to get sick of this, those two needed to stop messing around and get out of -
“Nya? Is that you?”
“Cole!” She yelled back. The cave warped his voice into an echoey mess but that was almost certainly him!
“Where are you guys?” Lloyd added.
“Um ... in a cave? Kai’s here, we’re ... we need help,” Cole said, and she’s never heard him sound so small.
“We’re coming,” Lloyd said, starting down the crumbling cave. There was only one path, and Nya hoped it led to her friends.
“Did something happen?” Lloyd called to the other two.
“Yeah, something happened...” Cole called back.
They sounded closer and less echoey.
“Are you guys alright?” Lloyd asked.
Cole didn’t answer.
“Guys?”
And then they rounded a corner.
“Kai!” Nya shouted. She ran to her brother, crouched against a wall, holding what looked like an unconscious Cole in his arms. And beside him was - wait, what??
Lloyd froze in front of them.
Nya knelt down, taking her brother’s cheek in her hand. His head was tilted down and his breathing was ragged.
Cole wasn’t breathing at all.
“...something happened, guys...” Cole said.
Her brain refused to articulate what was right in front of her. Cole wasn’t talking, but Cole was talking. She rubbed Kai’s cheek with her thumb. She could see traces of tear tracks on his face.
“I - I couldn’t leave him-“ Kai choked out the words, before leaning into Nya’s shoulder, an awful truth held in his arms still.
Cole was talking to Lloyd.
“That sound messed me up,” he said. “It made me ... y’know.”
From the corner of her eyes she saw Lloyd shake his head. But his voice only shook a little when he said, “We need to get you two back to the ship.”
“...I think Kai’s ankle twisted,” Cole said.
Lloyd knelt down next to Nya and Kai. “I’ll hold him, Kai, okay?” he said, taking the burden from Kai’s arms.
“I’m gonna help you up, Kai,” Nya said. She didn’t even know if he heard. His eyes were open but didn’t seem to see her. She would not think about what image he must have seen.
She pulled him up from the ground, an arm over her shoulder as he balanced on one foot. He buried his face in the mask hanging loose around her neck. He’d never done anything like that before.
She tightened her hold on him as if she could stop him from shaking by sheer force of will.
She made the mistake of looking over to Lloyd.
He was crying.
He held the burden - the body - in his arms with a reverence that revealed the worst had happened. The ghost stood beside him, avoiding looking at any of them.
Nya looked away. She pulled Kai and walked up towards the way she and Lloyd had entered this cavern. She’d had no idea, minutes ago, that this was the nightmare waiting them.
—-
Zane heard the villains in the brig groan as Jay told them yet another terrible joke.
Zane leaned around the corner to Jay. “Somehow,” he said, “I don’t think this form of torture will help us learn their motives.”
“Ugh, fine,” Jay said. “Next time you can interrogate them.”
Jay joined him atop the deck. Despite being grounded, they had a good view of the surrounding rocky desert.
Zane scanned again. Perhaps it was some kind of mineral that was interfering so terribly with his scans and their comms. But other functions, such as his eyes, were nominal.
“I believe I see them,” Zane said, pointing.
“Really?” Jay said. “Let’s go!” He span away, a bolt of stray lightning on the desert stone.
Zane followed quickly, a misplaced blizzard in the evening heat.
-
Zane knew as soon as he stopped that something was wrong. Jay, too, was uncharacteristically still.
The others had ceased their halting forward progress due to their arrival.
Kai was holding on to Nya as if his life depended on it, face buried in her mask and scarf.
Lloyd was holding Cole, abnormally still and bloodied.
And Cole was standing beside Lloyd, pale and transparent.
Zane felt as though his head was filled with static. This can’t be, “this cannot be,” he said, staring between the Cole in Lloyd’s arms and the Cole beside him.
“We’ll talk about this back at the boat,” Lloyd said tiredly.
“Lloyd,” Cole said - not the one in his arms, but the one beside him -
“On the boat.” Lloyd’s tone was rather final.
Zane walked with Jay ahead of the group, leading them to the boat.
-
Jay helped Nya pull Kai up the plank to the the deck. “Can you get one of those blankets-?” she asked.
Jay zipped off and grabbed from the emergency kit beneath the control panel on the blankets she meant. It was weighted and was good for people in shock which Kai seemed to be, which was why she wanted the blanket, for Kai, and not -
“Here,” he said, letting her wrap her brother up like a bug in a rug, which would have been hilarious in literally any other circumstance, but not this one because -
They all followed Lloyd down to the medbay, which was really a med-room, like bedroom haha, but it had one of the tables pulled down and clean, and here Lloyd put - he put -
Nya was pushing Kai down onto the cot and sitting next to him.
Everyone was quiet. Everyone was here.
Cole broke the silence. “I’m sorry, guys.”
And it wasn’t the Cole on the table, the body of Cole, it was the pale green Cole standing by the door, wavering like a tree in the wind, and the only reason he was there - the only reason he could be there -
Jay’s hands were shaking as much as his heart.
“You died,” Lloyd said.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
Oh, that is it. Jay wiped his nose and glowered at the ghost of his best friend. “You guess so?” he said. “You guess so?!”
“Jay, I -“
“There’s no guessing involved, Cole! Thats’s your body!” He gestured to the table. “You’re a ghost!”
Jay tried to poke Cole to emphasise the point, and she should have expected it - his finger went right through Cole’s chest, meeting no more resistance than a lake’s surface.
Jay felt as shocked as if his lighting had backfired. It collected in his eyes, threatening tears. “I’m going to my room! he yelled, frustrated, and pushed past - pushed through Cole, leaving the mess behind him.
-
Cole stood in stunned silence for a minute. There was nothing he could say, after all, that would change the situation.
Zane’s eyes roved up and down Cole’s ghostly body.
“What,” Cole hissed, more to stop the silence than anything else.
Zane blinked slowly and deliberately. “I will attend to the prisoners,” he said, leaving the room, and Cole knew only a fool would take that as a sign that he didn’t care.
Lloyd straightened. “We’d better not keep Ninjago City waiting,” he said. “I’ll start the boat.” And he, too, left.
Only Nya and Kai remained. Kai seemed to be asleep, or at least to have fallen into an uneasy stillness. Nya at wrapped up his ankle at some point. Now she sat beside her brother. She wasn’t looking at Cole, but she wasn’t not looking at him either.
“You should get Kai to bed or something,” Cole said.
Nya sighed. “Thanks. I will.”
She hesitated on the way out the door. “If - If you need to talk, I’ll be in the control room,” she said, and she, too, was gone.
Cole moved beside the table with his body on it.
He still couldn’t believe it, but the corpse before him had, mere hours ago, been him.
He tugged a sheet down from a cupboard and used what little strength he could muster to tie his body down to the table. A corpse rolling on the floor would do nobody any good.
Cole found that he had to suppress a chuckle at that. I’m losing it, he thought.
He gripped the side of the table, wishing he could feel his palms digging into the edge.
Even the screams of the earth were preferable to this.