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m-aster-of-spinjitzu · 2 years

Text

to see; to be seen

hiya there @fangirltakesall! i was your secret santa:D for the @ninjagosecretsanta2021 - i really hope that you enjoy reading this! and i hope that you have a great christmas and an awesome festive season:D

i hope that this was queued right? timezones are weird xD

you asked for hurt/comfort, the main girl trio, and characters realising that their lives have changed and deciding what to do about it.

i give you,,, pix and nya, after the last episode of s8.

(i tried to include skylor, so many times, but my brain said 'no<3' - i'm so sorry! ik you said trio, it's literally been keeping me up at night but the words didn't wanna cooperate:/. ahh i'm really sorry).

trigger warnings: mentions/a short flashback of pix's body being smashed in s4, grief and all the stuff that comes w/ it, implied self harm (not much but just mentioning to be safe)

word count: 7 026

also - it warrants a mention that you can stop reading at the '---' mark, but there's a bit of an,, epilogue at the end, from misako's pov. i needed someone who'd had experience with that kind of thing to talk to pix about it, so comes in her character, but ik a lot of the fandom doesn't like her - which is fine! if so, just stop reading at the '---' mark:D

and- oh gosh this A/N is so long, but:

lloyd's not sleeping he's concussed (to explain why he fell asleep to quickly), pix was locking her emotions away w/ code when she was talking to nya (hence why she was so calm and didn't think of the others often), the ice is nice thing is a line from the movie, and the dorris day one is the line from the movie bloopers (on yt). the ninja went to go watch a movie that darreth let a bunch of people make (tlnm), so that's how they know abt it. misako had friends in college who went through similar things (referring to her characterisation in the 'epilogue'), so that's why she kept thinking not again, because she didnt want to see anyone else hurt like that. also nya kept tracing a star on her hand, kai used to do that w/ her when she was little, whenever she was scared (for some context/explanation).

anyyyways, here's the fic!:D i've never done a secret Santa before i hope it turned out okay-

It's cold.

It's freezing cold.

It's the kind of cold that you can't seem to get rid of, no matter how many times you bundle on more layers, or toss and turn, trying to fall asleep.

The warehouse - one that they've used to store their mechs in the past - obviously doesn't come with separate rooms, like the monastery or the-

She squeezes her eyes shut - as if that simple motion will block out the memory that plays behind them.

"Nya- Nya, I'm so sorry-"

Her brother's hysterical voice echoes in the alleyway that they'd just stepped into, after mooring the boat they'd managed to scrounge up last-minute. She's kinda preoccupied with trying to check if any of the Sons of Garmadon have somehow followed them, but - well, Lloyd usually never lets these chaotic situations get to him. She doesn't want to think about why it's affecting him so much this time round - that the girl she'd told him to be himself around had never afforded him the same luxury.

"What happened?" she asks, her voice coming off more accusatory than she'd intended. Adrenaline and fear are never a good combination - but, gosh, this time they had been taken completely by surprise. "Where's everyone else? Why is-"

She cuts herself off, moving quietly through the back streets. Questions can come later, once they've gotten Lloyd to the safe house. Even though they were outnumbered way more than they'd thought, she’s not letting those stupid shark-faced bikers take him again.

Her brother follows behind, a hand on her shoulder. The rest of their friends must've hopped off the Bounty, she thinks to herself. Where could they all be now, though? Pixal had mentioned an old warehouse that she uses to store the Samurai X Mech in - another whole other thing that she really wasn’t gonna get into right now-

Lloyd winces, drawing in a breath sharply. His other hand is pressing on his chest, and the motion causes a pang of guilt to shoot through hers.

He was too drained and tired to fight-

How could we-

Why did we let him go in alone-

They're moving so quickly through the dark streets that she- she almost doesn't even hear him at first. Doesn't hear him struggling with how to give her the words that will shatter her world into tiny pieces - and then drive them through her heart.

"They're- they're-"

He keeps muttering to himself, clutching at his hair hysterically. She wants nothing more than to sit down with him, help pick up the pieces from where H- that monster had dropped them, and- gosh, tend to his injuries because he'd practically died today and doesn't even seem to be the slightest bit rattled.

She rubs her temples in exasperation. Of course, her brother wouldn't even give himself some self-care after practically freaking dying-

Well, she reflects, it's not like all of her brothers and her boyfriend don't share that mindset too. Stupid boys with no self-preservation instincts.

Once this whole mess with the Sons of Garmadon was over, they were definitely going to an arcade or something - even if she had to drag the five of them there.

Misako and Pixal had taken a different route earlier - a rather unnecessarily complicated one, but the aim was to confuse any members of that annoying biker gang who might be following them.

And although she was definitely capable of protecting Lloyd from any- of them; anyone who thought that they could outsmart her, she didn't have a lot of faith in their duo at the moment.

One of them practically on the verge of death, one of them exhausted to the point of considering just lying down on the street and sobbing hysterically? Great.

"Lloyd," she whispers, cursing the stupid streetlights that never seemed to work (why were the streets so freaking dark? What if they missed the inevitable ambush? What if-), "you okay?"

"Y- yeah," comes the shaky reply, Lloyd's voice at least an octave higher. He convinces neither of them.

Glancing furtively behind her, she realizes that his puffy eyes are coated in dull red, streaked against the white like raindrops running down a windowpane. Breathing in a series of what sounds like short gasps - sounds all wrong, she registers belatedly - he keeps running his hands through his hair in a sort of frenzied way that's so unlike her little brother-

She swallows, wanting nothing more than to find this lying, manipulative princess, and give a piece of her mind. How dare she- w- why-

"Once we get to the warehouse, we're gonna take care of our injuries, you're gonna tell me whatever you're comfy with, and then you're going to sleep. Not a request, lil' bro," she whispers shakily, turning around to squeeze his hand.

"I'm... I'm older than you," he replies, a weary tapestry of frayed threads. "Listen," he adds, voice too high again, "there's something-"

Then he takes a deep, shuddering breath, and covers his face - as if that can hide the agonized sobs tearing their way of it.

Nya rubs her arms, suddenly freezing cold.

It's not cold outside.

Lloyd-Lloyd never cries.

Never.

Not when he was trapped in an exploding volcano on the verge of an excruciating death - probably terrified as heck. Not when he faced his father on the opposite side of the battlefield, time and time again, not when he had to fight the freaking Overlord, not at Zane's funeral - when the snow falling lightly from the sky had felt far too wrong for such a sombre moment.

Not when his power was literally stolen from his heart, not when he watched his father disappear into a realm of no return - just when they'd started to fight on the same side. Not even when his uncle had vanished into the timestream, leaving behind a grieving nephew and the pieces of a half-broken team. Never.

She swallows a bout of nausea, her hands clutched together hard enough to hurt.

"I'm sure that you have nothing to be sorry for," she says firmly. "Once I give that loser princess a piece of my mind-"

"I- don't- you don't understand!" Lloyd replies hysterically. "She- she-" he breaks off, and Nya unsuccessfully strains to hear the rest of his sentence.

"Hey," she starts, swallowing. What was she even supposed to say in this situation? This was even worse than most of her nightmares - and she died in those, so that's saying something.

As much as Nya wants nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and never, ever let go, she’ll have to settle for gently rubbing his head, frowning as turns into the next street.

The Sons of Garmadon couldn't be far behind.

This time, she'd be better prepared.

She had to be.

"I would advice caution-"

Pixal breaks off as her friend throws another punch, their grey eyes steely with determination.

The plank of wood breaks in half and a couple more shards join the mess on the floor.

Nya wipes her brow, chest heaving as she reaches over for another plank.

"I would advise caution in that... endeavour," Pixal starts, a little louder. When her words ring out in the cold metal of the warehouse yet again, she puts a hand on her teammate's shoulder in what she hopes is a comforting gesture.

Nya's head whips around in surprise, eyes wide and plank raised - but she visibly deflates when she realizes that it's not an intruder. Pixal ignores the pang that shoots through her chest - both of them have been deeply affected by the loss of their friends, family, but Nya refuses to acknowledge that there was anything wrong, other than the Sons of Garmadon - who were currently terrorizing the city.

Well, she knew that that was a normal response to loss - she just hated feeling powerless. After- after Chen-

Almost involuntarily, her mind runs through a well-worn sequence of code. The memory dulls, fading to a blur of colours and too-bright light. It should be… instantaneous, she remembers thinking as she’d programmed the instructions.

She'd never really tried to program herself in that way before - to lock away bits of her code when each piece of it was supposedly vital.

Nya could probably help, she remembers thinking. Or her father. Or Zane. Anyone, really. Anyone who wasn't hiding away memories that they didn't quite know what to do with, messing with code that they didn't quite know how to fix.

Not quite sure if it could be fixed.

Pixal taps her fingers on her other hand irritably, sighing even as her processors all speed up as they did when she was faced with a threat.

Why did that one memory keep breaking through her carefully constructed code? She could, of course, calculate it out of existence - but wasting a piece of information just because a glitch lurked within her own mechanics? Endeavouring to fix it first... seemed like the most logical option…

Right?

"You should go to sleep," she says, slowly. "I do not mind patrolling the whole night - especially since I have m- the suit."

"Thanks, Pixal," comes the hesitant, weary reply. "But I think I'll stick with this - we've all gotta stay in shape, you know?"

Her mind runs through a dozen or so scenarios - to press the issue or ignore it?

"Nya," Pixal starts quietly, "we have all lost someone. You-"

"Yeah, I know!" Nya exclaims, eyes narrowed in anger. "Don't worry, I won't let you guys down again. I mean- I've been through worse," she spits, a brittle laugh punctuating the confession.

“Stupid djin,” she mutters to herself as she pulls her ponytail tighter - tight enough to hurt.

"FSM, Lloyd's the only family I've got left! If you think I'm going to let anyone take him from me again? You're sorely mistaken."

Something unfamiliar burrows its way into Pixal's chest - a heavy, dull sort of ache. Her eyes widen a little, but she decides that she does not quite like the... the- feeling. Perhaps more coding at a later stage could rid her of the virus, she supposes.

I know that it is not quite a virus, she thinks to herself wearily. But she is right not to consider me a part of their team. I only offer them technological aid, not assistance with matters of the heart.

Although I do so wish to do. Or at least... try to do so, difficult as it may be.

But she still feels a pang of sorrow for Nya, who had lost so many. Yet the other's anger stings - even though she knows that it is a common response to loss. A necessary one, arguably.

"Nya, listen. Please," she replies gently, placing a hand on the other girl's shoulder. "None of us think that you have let us down in any way. I was just going to mention that... that none of us think that you should not grieve, either."

"Grieve?" The other girl questions, practically aghast. She then puts a hand over her mouth as if she is trying to muffle her stilted laugher.

Pixal notices that the hand is trembling, shaking like the leaves in Ninjago City Park in the wintertime - yet Nya seems unaware of her own distress. She decides not to comment on it yet.

"Yeah, of course," Nya sighs, her arms shaking as she gestures wildly. "Gimme a second to go and ask the princess if she can stop attacking our city!”

The Water Ninja's words are punctuated with sobs, but she stubbornly ignores the tears dripping down her chin.

"Oh, and while she's at it, maybe she can bring the rest of us back from the dead! Doesn't she have all the Oni Masks?"

"I- I..." Pixal cuts herself off, realizing a second too late that she should not voice a legitimate answer to her teammate's question.

I would assume that the Oni Masks only seem to have the power to resurrect Oni, she doesn't say.

"What do you want me to do?" she asks instead - trying to sound genuine instead of judgmental.

If the surprised expression on the other girl's face is anything to go by, her eyebrows raised a few centimetres, she isn’t quite sure if she’s succeeded or not.

"What do you mean?" Nya asks, so quietly that Pixal has to reboot one of her old lip-reading programs from her stint at Borg Industries to make out the words. Her father had always tried to centre his programs around being more inclusive of those who were disadvantaged by their society’s unfortunate default, usually an exclusive one. A smile twitches at the corners of her mouth, tinged with a bit of melancholy.

“I mean…” she grapples for an answer, scenarios whirling through her head. “I mean that… I do not quite know what to do to help you.”

A silent nod. Caution and curiosity sparking in their eyes.

“I- I wish to try and help both of you,” she continues. “Losing Zane so soon after we had met was… not easy. I-“

“Gosh. Why does everyone always think I’m the weak one-“ she cuts herself off.

Her own anger bristles, just a little. Pixal frowns but elects to ignore it.

“Yeah, that… couldn’t have been easy. I’m sorry,” Nya adds, features softening. “You were saying?"

What was she trying to say?

The words do not come easily as they usually do, held back by a realization that is becoming all too familiar.

She just- she just doesn't know what to do!

Over the last few years, it had been easy to fall into a rhythm of questions and answers. Never daring to ask the former. Always supplying the latter.

She lacked the efficiency of Zane's old power source, of course - his father must have been a technological genius, she remembered musing when Zane had walked into Borg Industries for the first time. And she remembered wondering, too - why had he created an android so similar to humans? They would never be humans - they weren't meant to be! They could never feel emotion or contact the same way. Why try, then?

Well. The two of them had discussed this - feeling something was better than feeling nothing. The positive emotions were worth the negative ones. Humanity gave them a unique outlook on life (as opposed to other Nindroids, she supposed).

Thousands of logical reasons start to pile up. Trip over each other. Hum incessantly through her code - beckon her towards factual explanations so easily determined long ago.

Her hands curl into fists. Her arms shake.

Perhaps emotions enhanced their lives or brought valuable insight to situations painted in shades of grey, perhaps-

When she's not so overwhelmed - not so wrapped in anger, tight, hiding her eyes from the stars, she can deal with perhaps. Then, she can believe the logic that sings through every fibre of her being. Then, the puzzle pieces will click back into place without a hitch. Then-

Now is not then, she chides, and never will it be.

Emotions, they had their place - this she knew.

Y-yet...

Yet, as sobs ricochet through an empty warehouse, as a boy lies curled up in a corner - with a certain stiffness that could be attributed to injury, if not for the spiderwebs of red threaded through his eyes - as a family is ripped apart from the seams, thread cut so quickly that they can barely blink as the ground crumbles away, Pixal has never despised emotions quite so much.

"Is it empathy or acknowledgment? Or understanding? Or reassurance?" Pixal mutters, scenarios playing cautiously behind her eyes.

What does her friend need? she wonders, head spinning. What does she need, herself?

She runs the simulations. She observes. She learns; learns that-

She is clueless in each one.

"Why do you- you care?" Nya hisses, low and quiet, startling her from her thoughts. "I don't want any of this! Unless you can reverse the past, I don't think you can- fix me."

The last two words are laced with contempt, pooling like venom.

"I'm not trying to- to fix you," she replies, a bit curtly. Though she hates to admit it - hates to be anything less than the role model to the kids who'd yell "I wanna be just like you!" to a retreating figure, swords strapped to their back as their lips curved into a rueful smile - she's... irked.

Irked by the fact that humans are so- so, well, human!

Why were they unable to lock their emotions away like the two of them could? Why would their creator want them to be hurt by their own minds? Why would it ever be useful for them to hinder their own abilities? To hinder their ability to save others - and themselves?

Everything is not designed with optimal logic in mind, a small voice at the back of her mind points out.

"When have I ever given you that impression? Aren't friends supposed to help each other in times of need?"

"I don't need-"

"I know, that's not what I..." Pixal trails off. Her eyes flick towards the little - a twinge blossoms in her chest at the word (he's too young for this, she thinks, not for the first time today, not for the first time this year-) - green bundle curled up on the floor. She notes that his chest is slowly rising and falling, the bandage she'd wrapped around his arm unraveling a little, white trailing onto metal floor. And his face-

He looks serious, even while asleep, she realises sadly.

"Look," she whispers, gesturing to Lloyd, "do you want to go outside?" I do not want to wake him up.

Nya's eyes soften as she glances behind her. "Won't that just make us a bigger target?" Weary sarcasm bleeds its way into her voice.

"Possibly," she admits, chiding herself. It's not like me to be so illogical.

So she walks over to the furtherest corner of the warehouse - slowly, so that her feet don't clank on the floor; metal on metal. A bit of an oversight, she notes crossly.

Then-

Why is she cross? It's not something irreversible, and it pales in comparison to the number of feats she is able to accomplish with her skill set.

Nya leans back against the wall, one of her hands tracing something on the other. Back and forth, a finger moving across her palm - almost subconsciously.

"I apologise-"

"I'm really sorry-"

They stare at each other for a moment.

"You can go first-" Pixal says.

"No, you-" Nya says simultaneously, gesturing wildly.

Two beats of silence this time - a bit too long. A bit too uncomfortable; dredging up a bit too much.

"An advanced little robot like you, hmm? Is your head just a bunch of a squiggly cogs?" She isn't looking at him, hasn't been for as long as she can, but a shiver goes down her spine as he laughs. "It'd be fun to take you apart, wouldn't it now?" He claps his hands together excitedly - excitedly. "Into tiny little bits and pieces, just like a jigsaw puzzle. See how it all fits together! Now that'd be a blast, don't ya think?"

A hand rests on her shoulder, and she jerks forward so hard that the chair topples over.

Faces turn to light green; walls, to swirling purple. She sighs in relief as the memory sinks into black, and green, and purple - one last echo of that horrid laughter... then it's back to the suffocating stillness.

"I'll go first," Nya whispers, one of her hands still quickly - as if it is a familiar motion; well worn - tracing something on the other.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I just-" she reaches up to wipe her eyelids, as if willing the tears to stay put. "I-"

"Would you like a hug?"

"...y- yeah," comes the shaky reply.

Face pressing into her friend's shoulder, she can hear every time their breathing hitches. She hugs tighter, tighter, as if the physical pressure can somehow weld a heart that's missing- something none of them will get back.

"Uh, Pixal?" A gasp. "Cwant bweath-"

"Oh no, I'm sorry-"

"It's fine!" A half smile appears on Nya's face.

A second later, she schools her features back into a neutral expression. She bites her lip, a hand curling into a fist and pressing against her thigh.

"You were saying?" Pixal prompts gently.

"Yah, I just-" she blows out a puff of air, shoulders sagging, "I just keep- keep thinking I could've prevented this!

Which is silly, I know, because I'm not the one who caused any of this to happen! And I did the best I could! We all did! It's not like any of us were part of their crazy group- or knew how far they'd go just- just to get want they want! But-" she cuts herself off. From the corner of her eye, a tear streaks down her face.

"But our best wasn't enough."

Nya stares at her hands, as if she'd just noticed that she was tracing something on one of them.

Her eyes widen.

She chokes back a sob, arms trembling. "My best wasn't good enough."

"If not for me, they'd still- they'd still be-"

The cracks start to align.

"They'd still be alive," Nya whispers. Then, louder, "they'd still be alive if I could've just... just- just- done some- something!"

She draws in heaving breaths, gasping gasping clawing for air. Her fingers sweep her cheeks, over and over, even as her arms continue to shake. Tears drip onto the torn fabric of her gi.

"And-" Her lip wobbles, breaths hitching painfully. "And 'm s- s- sorry!" Nya gasps out. "'M so-" a breath, erratic and forced.

Her whispers fade to inhales and inhales; breaths that pull from the air almost greedily, like she can't get enough of the air - and-

And she probably can't, Pixal realises.

What if she chokes? Or seriously can't breathe enough-

And the oxygen levels in her brain decrease until heart functions fail, her brain supplies unhelpfully.

Not the time, she chides, almost out loud.

She rubs circles into her friend's back, slowly - trying not to think about the fact that this is the first time she's seen those bloodshot grey eyes filling with tears what can she do she doesn't know doesn't know-

"Nd- mmphf- I-"

Her code starts glitching again; vision pixelating.

Oh, great. All of this concern is overloading her processors.

"Are you alright?" Pixal whispers, still rubbing Nya's back. She's almost afraid to stop - afraid that if she does, she'll be doing nothing to help and what happens then what happens then she doesn't know-

"'M fine," comes the shaky reply. Nya inhales and exhales, tearstained cheeks puffing out, then going back to normal size. Her chest rises again. "I'm fine," she says quietly. "Thank you."

"It's fine," she replies on autopilot.

"And- uh- I do not know if this will change your mind, but I'd at least hope to try to, I mean, if I can-" Pixal winces.

"No matter what your thoughts say, it was not your fault that everything went down the way it did. The Sons of Garmadon are just horrible - and it's not any of our faults for failing to meet their insane amount of manpower, or- or failing to assume the worst of them-"

"Are we compatible now?"

She smiles, clasping his hand a little tighter. Sometimes she doesn't quite believe that he's still here - still whole.

"Yes," she giggles, as he rests his head on her shoulder. "We are."

Jay's laughter rings over the comms. "Come on, we're in the middle of a mission!"

"Oh, like the patrols you and Nya sign up for?" Kai shoots back.

Lloyd and Cole collectively sigh.

"Alloromantics," and she can practically hear Cole jokingly put his head in his hands. "I'll never understand 'em."

Her vision pixelates again, and the world goes blurry.

"In all honesty?" Her voice tight with pent-up anger, she narrows her eyes. "We have far too many threats to take on."

Nya gives a halfhearted shrug, as if to say 'it is what it is - I've accepted it, I guess'. But she dips her head in assent. Her gaze falls to the floor as she grits her teeth; lips pressed together tightly.

"Our limitations hold us back - not our will, never our will. We have too few ninja, not nearly enough communication with the police force-" her voice takes on a brittle tone. "And the few of us? We. Logically. Cannot be everywhere at once-"

"So, yeah," she says, quieter. "It's not your fault. It's not any of our faults. We did the best we can-" the world starts breaking into tiny, multicoloured squares. "But we were outnumbered, and, logically, we cannot fight them all."

Nya's shoulders slump, but she reaches over like she's going to imitate a hug - and then pats Pixal's arm awkwardly, stepping away. "I- I- thanks."

"I keep telling myself that," she whispers, rubbing furtively at her eyes. "But I can't seem to believe it, somehow."

"It's not like- like neither of us knew this would happen! It's not like we asked for this! But do either of us cut corners? Leave our roles unfulfilled?"

Her eyes narrow to slits.

"No. No, we don't."

"I just-" she stomps her feet, swallowing back a sob. "I- it's not fair-"

"It's not it's not it's not," Nya says fervently, voice hoarse, as she curls in on herself. "I-"

"I just want them back," she cries. She digs her fingernails into her palms, shaking. "I just- wanwt- hem-"

A dozen or so scenarios present themselves. Pix deliberates sorting through them all; taking notes and working towards what she hopes is the best approach - as she usually does.

But-

Screw it, she declares. Surprising herself, she hits pause on the scenarios for the first time since- the first time in a while.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I don't know what do," she chokes out the confession like acid's burning up her throat, "because- because I don't think there is anything any of us can do."

She pulls her friend into a hug. "But I'll do anything I can to help the two of you," she says.

Light green eyes meet grey.

"I promise."

Nya pushes back the curls framing her face. Her hair's come loose, Pixal realises.

"Can I?" She lifts her wrist to show the hair ties she often wears on it.

"Sure," Nya replies. "Thank you."

A hand squeezes hers. "Not just for the hairdo."

"It's- it's fine."

A few moments later, it is not fine.

Clunky fingers, she notes, struggling to tie a simple ponytail. Another oversight, apparently.

Or...

"You have to do it like this," Cole insists, scribbling furiously.

"Nah, just go with the flow. If it's a bit weird looking, it's not like they'll notice-"

Lloyd swats at Kai with a purple travel pillow.

"That yours, Short Stack?"

"Jay hasn't noticed it's missing yet," Lloyd whispers, making a big show of holding his hand to Kai's ear.

Nya pulls her hair tie onto her wrist.

"Boys," she pretends to whisper. Kai pretends to be annoyed, rolling his eyes.

"Here, I'll show you. One," she pulls a few curls towards her face, separating them into three bunches of strands. "Two," she mutters, pulling the one on the right into the middle.

"And three!" Nya finishes triumphantly, the left strand now in the middle. "Then you just repeat it!"

Zane smiles. "Thank you." He pretends to pat her head.

"Oh, stop it," she laughs, giving him a hug.

"It's too hot for hugs," Kai groans.

"Dude," Nya says slowly. "Have you forgotten that your friend can literally create ice?"

"Ice is nice!" Jay exclaims, pitching his voice at least an octave higher.

Cole grins. Zane puts his head in his hands. Kai falls off the couch.

Lloyd sums up what they're all thinking.

"You look like Dorris Day!"

"TH- THANKS!" the whole room choruses, laughing.

Pixal watches with an ache in her chest.

A longing, for something more than what she's been lucky to enough to get.

She was lucky to enough to live, but not lucky enough to lift the cloak of invisibility that still hangs over her shoulders.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

Titanium fingers deftly go through the motions, green eyes watching a grainy world of colour and squares.

The cloak's gone now.

She's Samurai X now.

They're not here to see it.

Nya shakes her head. "Oh - a plait?" She asks, reaching her hand back to check. "Thank you. I didn't know you could do those, though?"

To answer the question or ignore it?

"Well-" her vision starts to clear. "Well, you were the one to teach me."

A bittersweet smile comes to her face. "I never had a chance to thank you until now."

Nya looks confused for a moment.

Then, absolutely gut punched.

"O- oh. Oh, FSM. You were watching that day, weren't you? The day we got back from the cinema?"

Her eyes widen.

"FSM," she says slowly. She drags a hand down her face, eyes peeking out from the gaps between her fingers. "You were always there with us, weren't you?"

Pixal nods - not sure if she trusts herself to give a proper reply.

Nya reaches over to squeeze her hand again.

"I don't even know what to say," she mutters sadly. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I can't believe it slipped our minds so often, that- that-"

Out of sight, out of mind. An old expression her father sometimes used.

"That our team had seven members," she adds, eyes misty. "That- that I could've had sixbest friends, if I'd tried."

Nya's gaze sweeps across the empty warehouse - inches and inches of bare metal, a mech curled up in one corner and a boy in the other. Two fighting machines, Pixal thinks bitterly.

Grey eyes meet hers.

"We're all we've got left," Nya says. "We're all the city's got left."

"We will do th- everything we can," Pixal vows. "For the city-"

"And each other," Nya concludes fervently. She inhales, slowly.

Her voice is still thick with unshed tears, her arms still shake.

Pixal's processors keep overloading, her world becoming a startling mirage of colour and blocks every so often.

But she looks down to their clasped hands - one with bruised knuckles; an old scar in the middle of the palm. One with bits of metal poking out from the seams - one, cobbled together from bits and pieces that no one else wanted.

She looks down at their hands, and she sees. And she is seen.

They need to grieve. She knows this. She knows that Nya's confident stance doesn't hide the anger and sadness swirling in her friends irises; knows that Lloyd has many wounds that she cannot bandage.

But she is seen.

And she sees - I can't take away the sadness, or the anger, but I can try to help through it, a robot with white-blond hair realises.

Yet - it is not enough, merely to be seen. Merely to see.

For what is that without others to see you too? Without others for you to see?

But when Nya clings to her a little tighter, she doesn't let go.

When her friend promises Lloyd that she'll always protect him, Pixal bites her lip.

She pulls off the chains she'd shot at him. Later that day, she ruffles his hair. She offers similar words - completely unprepared for a sobbing boy to wrap his arms round her chest.

They all try - to listen, to offer tissues, hugs, to say that it's okay not to know, it's okay to be angry. It's okay to feel what you're feeling. That it's okay to grieve. To admit that they also hope they're going to come back, because hope hurts less than facing the reality.

They see.

And so does she.

---

Misako rattles the door handle as she

comes back from her shift of the patrol.

Seeing that Lloyd and Nya are asleep, her shoulders sag just a little. She sighs in relief.

Maybe it's just the paranoia talking, but she's always terrified that she'll come back to an empty warehouse one day. That she'll fail her child again; leave him behind in the name of protecting him.

That was a bad choice, she chides. This isn't. We have to ensure that we're not being followed. We have to keep the resistance alive, she repeats like a mantra. Maybe if she thinks it enough, it'll hurt a little less.

Noticing one member of their party missing, her gaze flits to Pixal welding pieces of her mech back together.

"I can take the next shift, too," she says quietly.

"I've got it," the girl replies - how did did even hear her from all the way across the warehouse? - brushing white hair from her eyes. Then- "Is there even a shift now? I thought we agreed that it's unlikely for the Sons of Garmadon to be on the streets at 3AM."

Is that what time is it? Heck.

"Yes, sorry," Misako replies. Of all the kids, Pixal's been the most withdrawn. She helps plan Lloyd's training schedule, braids Nya's hair and holds her hand and listens.

No, she's not withdrawn from the group. It's more like she's withdrawing herself from them - letting everyone talk to her about this horrid biker gang, but not talking to everyone else about the nightmare fuel things they've done.

She unties her hair, sighing.

Not for the first time during these few days, she deliberates asking the third kid to open up a little.

But-

Look at your son, a nasty little voice at the back of her mind hisses. If he's any indication that you're not good with kids-

"Shut up," Misako mutters.

She walks over to the Samurai X Mech.

"What are you doing?"

Light green eyes lift their gaze from the metal.

"Trying to improve some functions," Pixal replies. Her eyebrows crease. "Shouldn't you be asleep? It is, after all, 3AM."

"Can't really sleep. But what about you?"

"I don't need sleep," she replies, a half-smile on her face. "Do you want to talk about whatever's bothering you?"

This isn't the first offer.

The irony, she thinks sadly.

She won't admit it - not to her kids, not to herself - but she's worried. Worried about the girl who spent half an hour unable to see and then brushed it off as unimportant. Worried about the other kid with green eyes - the one whose heart isn't so visibly worn as her son's is. The warrior who'd once thrown a man through a building on live TV.

"I'm good, thank you. And you?"

Almost as if on autopilot, Pixal echoes Misako's answer.

Maybe it would be better if this kid wore their heart on their sleeve a little more.

"Well, I'm not an engineer - but I took a couple courses in uni. Can I help you with anything?"

"Sure!" A bit of a spark appears in the girl's eyes. "So, I'm trying to make the right arm move smoother - also, do you think it'd be better to..."

An hour or so later, Misako's pretty sure she has grease in her hair - but the mech doesn't look too worse for the wear.

"Thanks for letting me help," she says, smiling. "Even if I almost caused the jetpack's fuel to explode."

"Zane did the same thing," Pixal replies, without thinking - and then a shadow falls over her face.

Misako puts her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Goodnight-"

Quicker than she'd have thought possible from anyone, even a robot, Pixal jerks forward like she's been punched. Breathing heavily, the girl places her hands over her eyes and moans.

Frozen, Misako stands ramrod still with shock for a moment. "Are you alright?" she asks gently.

Slowly backing away, Pixal stumbles over the arm of her a mech. She doesn't even try to break her fall, instead drawing her legs to her chest.

"Please," she cries, rocking forwards and backwards. "Please, I'll tell you anything you want to know, just don't-"

The light green of Pixal's eyes flickers in and out as she screams.

Misako's blood practically runs cold.

Not again, is all she can think as she walks closer - not too close, never too close. Not again. Not again.

"Can you hear me?"

She repeats the question a minute later, each second sending a twinge of pain through her skull. Not again. Not again. Not again.

It seems like an eternity before the other girl shakily nods her head.

"You're in Ninjago City," Misako says, trying not to let her concern find its way into her voice. "It's 2018. You're in a warehouse with Nya, Lloyd and I. You're safe. You're safe."

"Okay," Pixal replies. "Thank you."

"Can you see?" Misako asks gently.

A few seconds pass. "Not really," Pixal admits, so softly that Misako has to strain to hear her.

"Do you know why? Can I help?"

"Yes, no. It'll pass soon, thank you."

"Can I hold your hand?"

Pixal's eyes start to blink in and out, like a traffic light. She'd laugh if they were in any other situation - anything but this. Not again.

"Yes," she says after a minute. "But-"

"Yes?"

"But please don't touch my shoulders."

"You got it," Misako replies, her voice measured. But a shiver goes down her spine all the same. Pixal's, what- fifteen? Any age is horrible, but- fifteen-

Her eyes are starting to go bloodshot, but she refuses to let any tears fall. She's the adult here - the only adult here. They're meant to come to her for help, not the other way around.

After about half an hour of anxious thoughts (not paranoia, not this time - is that better or worse? Not better, she thinks, wiping a tear from her cheek, because now there's evidence for her anxiety to feed on and that's a million times worse, there shouldn't be bits of truth in this story-), Pixal's eyes stop flashing and go back to normal. She takes in the room quickly, seemingly startled to find Misako sitting a meter away from her.

"You should have gone to sleep - it's late. But..." the girl trails off. "Thank you so much. I didn't know the- that could be helped like that. I appreciate it."

"Anytime," Misako says slowly. "But what exactly was that?" She holds up a hand. "You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to, but..." she bites her lip, adding, "but it might help."

"I'm fine," comes the reply, a little curt. "Thank you, though."

"No, you're not."

Misako's not sure who's more surprised by the words - her, or Pixal.

You've made your bed, now lie in it.

"I don't know what you're going through," she starts, swallowing, "not exactly. But I have an idea. And that's not easy to go through, whatever it is that you're dealing with." She presses a hand to her face to keep the tears from falling. "But I'm always here if you want to talk about it."

"I-"

Pixal cuts herself off.

At first, it looks like she's going to politely decline the offer. She opens her mouth and starts the same autopilot reply; Misako's heart sinks.

But then she cuts herself off again.

"No," she mutters to herself. "Screw it. Apparently I'm not good enough at coding to do this one simple thing, so this can't hurt, can it?"

"You- you won't tell Lloyd? Or Nya?" Pixal twists her fingers back and forth nervously.

"You have my word."

The next hour turns out to be one of the most horrifying of Misako's life.

Pixal talks - casually, far too casually - of a prison cell, and a man who- who- who had spun a wheel to see which limbs of hers he was going to smash. A man who'd made her watch as he threatened to kill her lover if she didn't cooperate with his demands. A man who started a war - for fun.

A man who smashed her body limb from limb, and left the pieces for her lover to find.

"And sometimes- I mean- I don't know, it sounds stupid," Pixal mutters. "But sometimes I feel like he took so much more from me than just an- and exoskeleton," her voice cracks, "and some metal."

"My entire identity became 'the girl in Zane's head'," she says, shaking. "And I'm glad that I got to live, because I would never... have made it out of that cell otherwise."

"But I could- couldn't even talk!" she cries, raising her hands to her face again. "I. Couldn't. Even. Talk."

"And Zane would try and relay what I was saying, at first, but it got so confusing and it eventually just fizzled out."

Her bright green eyes fade out, then turn back on. Pixal winces.

"I just- so many opportunities," she says sadly, her fingers curled into fists. "I never had any friends, and when the nightmares came back I-"

Breathing heavily, she holds out a hand to Misako. The latter takes it, a little confused. "And I didn't know what to do, and- and when Zane was hacked and Nya- the power core- and I was all alone again and- this time I really was alone and- mech- at least no one can-"

Pixal sounds like she's on the verge of a panic attack.

"Hey," Misako starts gently, "can you breathe in for four seconds?"

They talk well into the sunrise - Pixal learning that her supposed 'glitch' was not a problem that she'd failed to fix, her eyes going completely blank at the realisation.

"Can you see?" Misako has asked.

"Yes," she whispers, as if in disbelief. She reaches a hand tentatively forward. "I- I can see, everything's blurry but I can see-"

Misako learns that the snake who blackmailed her husband for so many years; the man who provoked bloodshed and war and countless other atrocities - she learns that he's in the Departed Realm, now.

Morro is there too. Maybe they'll finish each other off, she thinks bitterly.

She still wants to punch something, but she'll rest a bit easier knowing that Chen spent a fair amount of time rotting in the Cursed Realm. It's a shame Nya had fo destroy it, she thinks. Some people deserve to be there.

Pixal sees others, yes.

Yet, as the sun rises -

She is seen.

#ninjago #ninjago: masters of spinjitzu #ninjago lloyd #ninjago pixal #ninjago misako #ninjago nya #nya smith #pixal borg #misako garmadon #lloyd garmadon #ninjago fanfiction #my fic #ninjago fanfic #ninjago secret Santa 2021 #ninjago fic

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m-aster-of-spinjitzu · 2 years

Text

green light; cold nights

@ninjago-events here’s my entry for the Halloween Prompt Exchange!:D

To the person who sent through this prompt: hi there!:D Honestly, I’m not sure how good this is, but I had lots of fun writing it and imagining how each of them would react in the aftermath, once the initial shock had worn off. Happy Halloween - I hope you enjoy reading this!:D Have a great day <3

Set between "The Temple on Haunted Hill" and "Peek-A-Boo" - it’s basically a conversation I imagined that they’d have had whilst walking back to the Bounty from Yang’s Temple.

Prompts: ghosts, shivering, dark, (optional) Jay. I tried to include as much of all of them as I could:D

Word count: 3 188

---

Like half-burnt coals - slowly melting to dusty ashes - the sky is subtly alight.

Orange tints its inky canvas, the last handful of sunshine peeking over the skyline.

A chill sweeps through the air, cloaking everyone in a bone-deep, weighted cold; soaking into their skin and burrowing into its warmth.

Jay grits his teeth, palms rubbing together almost subconsciously. Stupid painting.

"Stupid painting," Kai mutters. Gaze flickering backwards in surprise, the Lighting Ninja draws his shoulders practically to his neck.

He'd never liked mysteries.

Puzzles, like inventions that didn't quite lift off the ground, had always perplexed him. Quite simply, he'd always wondered why something was the way it was. And so he fiddled with bits of metal - prodded, probed, redrew sketches in midnight-tinged frustration - a quiet puff of air escaping his lips when an image reshaped itself into an answer.

Mysteries? Oddities?

Those… made decidedly less sense.

Theoretically, there was no way a couple of kids should be able to shoot elements out of their fingers; no way he should be able to create lighting with just a brush of a thought against his mind.

He's not exactly sure when answers stopped becoming clear, logical concepts that he could wrap his mind around with ease and evolved into harried explanations of "Come on, Jay, why do you care? As long as we've got these powers, who cares why? Or how?" - images that became a smushed blend of colours, ones that he was accustomed to seeing in crystal clear.

Answering questions or solving problems- they'd always been, well, comfortable, for lack of a better word. It was reliable - familiar - that motions and logic would fall into place; a blanket he could always trust himself to fall back into. A safety net. A familiarity.

He goes through the motions, again and again, and it's always with a small smile and a sigh of relief when the pieces finally click for him.

Before he'd become a ninja, that is.

His younger self would've laughed, bubbly and probably a little confused if they could've seen who he was now.

The Golden Weapons. Their Elemental Powers. The Cursed Realm. The Overlord. The Digital Overlord. The First Spinjitzu Master. Morro and his crazy ghost gang.

Literally none of those had any logical explanations.

At first, it’d been kinda cool - superpowers were every kid’s dream, right? And they had been! Weapons that gave them superpowers! Double-y cool! Awesome outfits? Valiantly protecting Ninjago from forces of evil? Just dreams for most kids, the stars had somehow aligned in his favour - now he’d protect their city from the bad guys! He’d shoot lighting from his eyes! And blast fire at his enemies! And he’d have a bright blue cape, and-

Well - the point is, he'd expected it to be all fun and games. And some parts of it were; making new friends and visiting places he doubted any kid could even dream of. Meeting great inventors - and helping them! Oh, and his lighting powers - those were quite... shocking, if he said so himself.

And then the stars fell out of alignment.

And then the world crashed down, rubble strewn all over the inside of his mind.

How were the four of them - and later, six - able to control the elements? If Sensei's father really had been able to create their powers, couldn't he have stopped his other son from turning evil? How many other realms were there? What if people in those had powers, too? Where was the Overlord now? What if it came back, and-

Questions without answers piled up like a stack of pancakes - which seemed to grow and grow with each passing day. Sure, this had happened - but why? Or they could do this - but why?

One of the scariest things about being the Lightning Ninja was that 'impossible' didn't have a definition anymore. Which was cool in some cases - see: lighting powers - but horrible in others, like the crazy purple pile of goop who wanted to destroy the world. Figures, right?

How was he supposed to prepare for something if he could never pinpoint what it'd be?

His parents were the only ones to notice his snappier comebacks, anxiety levels off the freaking charts, or even the crazy amount of coffee he'd practically inhaled every day - just to try to understand how all of this worked.

Yet the stars continued to fall; reshaping themselves into entirely new constellations - or, heck, bright glowy stuff that didn't even resemble stars.

The world moved on, the impossible became the normal, and an anxious child got caught up in the middle of a burning mass of soaring white lights.

So when their old estate agent (hey, at least she'd tried to make the apartment sound appealing) had led them to the temple, he'd mocked the notion that anyone could "turn into a ghost", a second away from having to stifle a laugh.

Seriously - everyone knew that ghosts only came from the Cursed Realm (or maybe the Departed Realm, too, but that was a whole other thing he wasn’t going to confuse himself over). Of course the temple couldn’t curse someone! Unless, well, a crazy axe-murderer somehow opened rifts between dimensions so that he could haul his victims outta them to torture them for eternity?

Yeah, no.

Now, walking alongside a blur of green light that was somehow his best friend, that train of thought didn’t seem that outlandish.

He sighs, gaze snagging on Kai's shaking pockets.

Wait a second. Kai's shaking pockets?

Pockets don't shake, he thinks belatedly. Or maybe they do, some exhausted corner of his mind corrects, and he's too, well, exhausted to argue with it. My whole life has been a lie. A second later, he realizes that his brain is basically spouting nonsense at this point - and the real reason his friend's clothes are taking after autumn leaves.

Dude, you've just faced your greatest fear. You can be scared about it, you know? Jay thinks but doesn't say.

"How'd that creepy ghost know all our worst fears, anyway?"

"Beats me," Cole replies, waving his hands in front of his face like the reality hasn't quite sunk in yet.

To be fair, the reality hasn't really sunk in for any of them yet.

Ghosts were- were supposed to be... well, dead! Creepy! Evil, FSM!

Ghosts were not supposed to be- his best friend-

"Maybe ghosts can read minds or something?" Jay asks, trying to sound excited. Maybe the power of positive thinking can help here - honestly, though, is there anything he can say when his best friend is literally dead? "I mean, you could just show up and know exactly what Morro and his annoying friends are planning! Wouldn't that be awesome?"

An indecipherable expression flickers across his friend's face. "Yeah- yeah, I guess," Cole says wearily, sighing. "Yeah."

Zane starts to yell something, and all of them reflectively cover their ears.

"ACCORDING TO MY OBSERVATIONS-"

Jay winces, making a mental note to fix his volume problem the second they get back.

"MASTER YANG SEEMED TO HAVE POSSESSED THE TEMPLE!"

Possessed what now?

"Uh, you sure that it's just your volume that's broken?" Kai asks. "I thought ghosts could only possess, like..."

He trails off, eyes widening just a fraction.

"Maybe they can possess anything," Jay concludes. His best friend is still staring off into the distance, eyes glassy.

Wait. What?

Everyone jumps back as a scream tears itself out of his throat, reflexively reaching for their weapons.

"You can't- can't- you can't cry! Do you have a death wish?!"

The question comes out more accusatory than intended, and he winces. Jay reaches over - almost subconsciously - to wipe the tears from Cole's face.

His hand falls through empty air.

Unexplainably, his eyes start to hurt like he's got a headache. He squeezes them shut for a second - ignoring the saltwater that threatens to spill out. You can't cry either, genius. What if you accidentally kill your best friend?

Cole, meanwhile, lurches back like he's been struck. He raises a ghostly hand to his face, corporal and trembling, only to realise that he'll hurt his hands if they come into contact with water.

Jay watches helplessly as his best friend scrunches up his face, green light casting a faint glow on the ground, and wraps his arms around his chest.

He bites back a joke about transparency, wincing - not right now, brain - and resists the urge to burst into laughter.

He's not happy; far from it. But there's a nervous sort of energy buzzing through his veins - pulsing and heavy and so overwhelming that he feels like a racecar running on coffee, and he feels like he's going to crumble and sob if he doesn't do something about it. Oddly, he feels like jumping in the air - or dancing, he adds belatedly, tapping his fingers on his other hand.

Anyways - the point is, he feels like a spring that's going to jump open if he doesn't do something with all this anxiety, but crying it out or something really isn't an option now. Not when they've got a ghost in their group - a friend who's going to die if they come into contact with water.

"Why couldn't you have left the scroll in the temple, huh?" Kai mutters, so quietly that Jay barely catches it. Surprisingly, he's inclined to agree - why couldn't Cole have just ran out when he had the chance and used a piece of wire or something to fish the stupid scroll out later?

A quiet exhale punctuates his friend's question, their fingernails digging into their palms. Kai's eyebrows are practically touching, and he's staring resolutely at the ground as they walk.

An ache forms at the back of his eyelids again - and Jay ignores it, again. He's not going to let his emotions turn him into a distant shell of who he once was - he's not gonna abandon his team when they need him the most. He's not going to gallivant off and start another nonsensical game show; blocking numbers and refusing to leave his hotel room with the press practically on his heels (if there's one thing he's learnt about their group over the years, it's that the press will never leave them alone. He had never thought he'd be using that to his advantage, though).

This time, he's not leaving them. Screw it, he's gonna stick with his family while they grieve - and, heck, he's gonna try his hardest to protect them. Maybe if they'd been faster, or even slightly more aware of the time, Cole wouldn't have had to bear the brunt of their mistakes.

"PERHAPS WE CAN-"

"We can what?" Kai snaps, burying his hands in his pockets again. "For once, your logic's not gonna be able to bring someone back from-" he breaks off, swiping a hand across his face. When he continues, his voice is so much higher than it usually is - Jay would laugh if the situation were anything different. "From- from the dead, okay?"

Zane appears not to have heard him over his yells. Jay sighs - yep, really gotta fix that volume problem.

"PERHAPS WE CAN ASK YANG FOR A FAVOUR," Zane exclaims, gesturing wildly. "MAYBE HE COULD-"

"What?" Cole cuts in - so quietly that only Jay seems to hear him, over Zane's well-intentioned yelling. It's a different question to Kai's - weary; quiet. Resigned, he thinks, with a horrible flash of clarity. "There's no way to bring someone back from the dead," he continues, scrunching up his face again. Jay notices him literally pressing his hands to his eyelids, and wonders if he should mention it.

"Well, Frosty's onto something," Kai starts, sceptically. "We already went through a bunch of weird challenges to get the scroll-"

"Maybe we'll have to survive in a haunted house! Oh, gosh, I hate haunted houses. Everything's tiny and cramped and-" Jay rakes his fingers through his hair nervously. "What if-"

"Shut it, Jay, no one's going through a haunted house," Kai mutters, adding "again."

"Well, I'm sorry, it's not like anyone else is coming up with any better ideas!" he shoots back, adrenaline and anxiety making him sound much angrier than he is. He gestures to his arm - his gi is still plastered to it, water dripping down onto the ground every so often. The freezing chill from the wind hasn't died down, either - great, imagine being stuck in wet clothes when it's windy! - so it's not even 'just uncomfortable' anymore, it's actually. really. freaking. Cold.

He shivers, wrapping his arms around his chest - which just causes the wet fabric to cling to his skin even more. Oh, joy.

Stupid painting, indeed. It feels like he's been dunked into the freaking ocean.

"It's fine. I mean, it could be worse," Cole starts, slowly, like he's not sure he believes that. Jay isn't sure he believes it either. "At least we got the scroll?"

"Can I..." Kai trails off, carefully taking the piece of paper from Cole's hands. Feather-light and fragile; it had managed to squeeze tears out their eyes and seemed to weigh more than the heavens themselves.

“THE SCROLL OF-“

“Okayyy, buddy, maybe we should-“ Kai starts, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Calm down time, ‘kay?”

“I’M SORRY, WHAT WAS THAT?” Zane asks, sighing.

“It’s- never mind. What were you saying?”

The two of them open the scroll, eyes wide, and discuss it in hushed tones - or Zane tries to, anyway.

Jay tries to ignore the urge to join them - because, honestly?

Flying was literally the coolest thing - ever! Heck, one of his very first inventions - he cringes, wondering how he’d ever thought a bunch of cardboard would’ve helped him fly, of all things - had been a wing-glider sorta thing (hey, the name was still a work in progress- okay, fine, he still had no idea what to call it).

Instead, he falls back - teeth chattering as he runs a hand through his hair, trying to wring the water out of it. All he gets for his efforts is a rivulet of water dripping down the back of his neck.

He mimes kicking the ground.

Sparking a small streak (flare? flame? he’d never figured out what to call it-) of lightning, he almost sighs at the warmth from the blue cracking in his palms.

��Can you still…” Jay trails off, clamping a hand over his mouth. Not right now-

“Use my powers?” his best friend finishes, floating - woah, when had he learnt to do that? - a few feet closer to him. “I’m not sure, but I ain’t trying it out now.”

“Why?”

“Kai would throw a fit if I accidentally earth-punched him,” Cole says, a forced smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

The joke falls flat. If anything, Kai was more likely to throw a fit over Cole being “crazy enough to die! You can’t die, dude-“ than being knocked over - and both of them know it.

“Are you- are you okay?” he asks quietly, shaking his hands in the air to try and dry them off.

“Yeah! It’s actually not so-“ Cole cuts himself off when Jay fixes him with a glare. “It’s not… great, okay? But I’ll be fine! I mean, I was the one who dropped the scroll - it’s only fair-“

“Don’t you dare say any of this is fair,” Jay replies, shaking his head wildly. “It’s not. You don’t deserve to die-“ at that, his friend visibly winces, “for panicking because a crazy evil ghost was trying to kidnap and torture us all!” His voice gets reaches a hysteria-tinged crescendo. "And-"

“I know,” Cole interjects. “I just- I-“

His best friend grasps for whatever he’s trying to articulate, hands swooshing through the air.

Jay barely notices any of it.

Belatedly, something Cole had confessed in the temple starts to stick out like a glaring beacon casting a red-light glow all over his mind.

Hold up. Wasn't his greatest fear... ghosts?

Ghosts.

If Yang hadn’t already been dead-

How could someone be so cruel? How could someone purposefully make another’s worst fear come true?

“Your greatest fear,” he gasps, eyes flitting between the ground and the velvet of the gradually darkening sky. “Wasn’t it-“

“Um, yeah,” Cole replies, scratching the back of his neck - almost ruefully. “Probably shouldn’t have said anything ‘bout it, huh?”

“When did you mention it?” Jay questions, curiosity getting the better of him. He’d found out that Kai was afraid of water when they’d all had a water balloon fight a year or so ago, but Cole had never really mentioned his fear of ghosts.

Then again, it wasn’t every day that the seams holding the Cursed Realm together snapped; a determined kid made of green light hell-bent on destroying the world emerging from the ruins.

Cole doesn’t reply immediately; glancing warily at his best friend’s dripping hair.

“Nevermind, it wasn’t important,” he says, carefully, syllables measured and wary. His fingers subconsciously press on his other hand - one of his nervous habits, Jay notes - nervously twisting in and out of the other hand’s interlocked fingers.

“Come on - what was it? We’re best friends!”

“I know, Jay. But that doesn’t mean I have that sorta obligation to you,” comes the tired reply - and, oh, dang it. Nya had mentioned - well, more like yelled it while waving a wrench above her head - something like this “just because we’re dating doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything, you know!”

“I’m sorry - I overstepped,” he mutters, peeling the wet fabric from his gi off his upper arm, trying to wring it out - more as a distraction than something he thought would actually work. Gross. Whoever decided to make their ninja suits so not waterproof was probably nice and snug, enjoying a cup of tea-

Hold up - hadn't Sensei ordered their suits?

He’d have to ask for an upgrade when they got back. Something with swimsuits built into it, he thinks tiredly, thoughts whirling in a multitude of directions - none of which really make sense. Huh, come to think of it - could ghosts even wear clothes? Or did they have to find clothes that were already dead and-

Shut up, brain, he wants to yell. Talking about dead clothes? I know I need sleep, but this is…

“It’s fine. I know that we’re all kinda out of it right now, you know?”

“Still, though, that wasn’t nice of me-“

"It's all good," Cole says, slowly, like he wants to add something else to his words. Then- "It was at my mom's funeral, okay?"

Wait, what?

"I never knew your mom was-" Jay cuts himself off, wincing. "I mean- uh, I'm sorry for- no, I"

"What I wanted to say," he says quietly, a minute later, "is thank you for trusting me with this."

Cole glides over to bump their shoulders - something they'd always done to comfort each other. Again - best friends, right?

The Lightning Ninja jumps a few steps back, eyes wide with terror. And then-

"I'm so sorry! I- I- remember, we fought Morro's weird ghost friend in the desert a while ago? Then we had the whole thing at the temple, and-"

"And, again," Cole says, almost wearily. "It's fine. It really is. I could've possessed you or something, who knows-"

"No," he mutters, swiping a hand down his face. "I don't know what's gonna happen this- this time, but we're not letting anything stupid destroy our friendship again. And that includes," he can't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice - even though his best friend always tried to see the best in people, "Sensei Yang. How he got the title, I'll never know. But that's not the point- I mean, he was horrible and we're definitely going back for a rematch, but- we're going to make this work, okay? We're- we're best friends! We always do!"

"Thanks," comes the quiet reply, punctuated with a sigh. "I know we will."

Watching pale green light coat the soil, the first few stars peeping down from the sky, Jay had a sinking feeling that this was going to be filed as another impossible problem - one that none of them could solve.

But that didn't mean he was ever giving up on his best friend.

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